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Zach Mehrbach is the closest thing the headphone world has to a rockstar. He is one of the most highly regarded engineers in the business – at audio shows, his stall is always heaving with fans wanting to check out his latest creation.

It’s always a bit of a gamble, calling something cool. Cool is such an ephemeral term. After all, Limp Bizkit were once cool. So were Capri pants, ironic T-shirts, Blackberries. The Audioquest NightHawk Carbons are cool, and always will be.

KEF make some of the finest speakers in the world, as anyone who has heard the $30,000 Blades will attest to. But they also make much more affordable models that deliver killer sound without killing your wallet.

We’ve been reviewing quite a few portable speakers lately, in search of the one that will give us the best value-for-money, sound, and ease-of-use, all in one package. We’ve come across a couple of gems, including the UE MEGABLAST.

Remember the very first iPod from seventeen years ago? No? Damn, we're old. Anyway, it sold around three hundred and sixty million units. It changed the way we listen to music forever - and today, Apple is no longer the market leader.

Beats by Dre have yet to make a pair of headphones that impress us. But how do they fare when they get a chance to boost the power, and try their hand at an actual speaker?

Wireless speakers aren’t just the next big thing, they’re the way of the future. Everything is wireless these days. Which is why we’re dedicating so much time to reviewing these gadgets.

Weirdly, we don’t get a ton of tabletop radios for review here. No idea why; we’ve certainly asked. The big companies - Como, Bose, Tivoli - seem curiously resistant to letting us try their gear. Grace Digital are different.

Despite what headphone makers would have you believe, major leaps forward have been few and far between. We’re talking tweaks, new materials, advanced tuning. Actual innovations don’t come along all that often. Until Nuraphone.

It’s impossible to overstate the impact of AudioQuest’s Dragonfly range on the audio world. The technology remains revolutionary: a tiny USB stick that matches the quality of much larger headphone amp/DAC combinations.

The HiFiMan Edition S. You might call them Schrodinger’s Headphones: they’re both closed and open back until you decide which one you want. They are also, just in case you were wondering, bloody brilliant.

We take accessories seriously here at TMS. Far more seriously than other sites. That’s because we believe that you have to look at the entire experience when reviewing an audio product, and that includes the little cables and gizmos that come with it.

We’ve never understood why more people don’t use soundbases. They are an absolutely perfect bridge between a basic TV speaker system, and a full surround home theater setup. They solve every problem. SONOS want to change that.

Every so often, companies will send us multiple bits of gear to review. We love this – it plays merry hell with our review schedule, but it gives us a chance to compare and contrast, and really get an insight into their strengths and weaknesses...

There are very few speakers that ask you to perform an interpretive dance before you can use them. But the SONOS PLAY:3 boldly delves into this new territory...