ANALYSIS: AUDIO Home Entertainment
The Kanto REN speaker system.
July/August 2025
ertonline.co.uk
24
Obvious selling points include Dynamic Bass
Control, to reduce low frequency distortion, and Active Voice Amplifier Pro, which enhances dialogue clarity by dynamically adjusting and compensating in real time to reduce background noise.
The stablemate HW-QS700F is a 3.1.2 design, and features an adaptive design with gyro-sensor, making it suitable for both wall and table mounts. It’s partnered with a separate subwoofer. A less obvious selling point for both models is that they work with the new Eclipsa 3D sound format, developed with Google for YouTube content.
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Dolby Atmos may have been the de facto immersive sound format for the past decade, but it seems future of 3D sound is still very much up for grabs.
Eclipsa Audio is an new open-source 3D sound system developed by Google and Samsung, which aims to rival Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, initially through user-generated content delivered by YouTube. Unlike Atmos, Eclipsa is open-source and royalty free - which
The Samsung HW-Q990F TV.
immediately makes it attractive to relatively small content creators. It’s capable of delivering up to 28 discrete audio channels in a single bitstream, and can be fixed or dynamic. It also supports binaural rendering, making it relatively easy to migrate to headphone users. Eclipsa-encoded content can be played on compatible TVs and soundbars, specifically new models from Samsung. The listening experience is much like Dolby Atmos, although Eclipsa supports greater customisation. Want to watch a streamed sports event, but would rather not hear the commentary? Eclipsa allows you to strip the banter out.
Eclipsa is supported by Google, Amazon, Netflix, and Microsoft. Intriguingly, THX is helping set certification standards, collaborating on playback optimisation and co-developing certification.
Apple is also chipping away at Dolby’s immersive dominance. The company recently announced developed Apple Spatial Audio Format (ASAF), a next-gen audio framework, designed to work across iOS, macOS, tvOS, and especially the vision OS used by the Apple Vision Pro. It works with a new codec dubbed APAC (Apple Positional Audio Codec), which delivers environmentally- aware, immersive sound; it adjusts to both your head position, and any virtual environment you might be experiencing. It doesn’t look like Apple is turning its back on Dolby Atmos just yet. Apple can still use ASAF as a wrapper to deliver Dolby Atmos, but this is the first Apple-optimised immersive audio system, and it’s very much tied to the future of its Vision Pro hardware. It seems the future of home entertainment audio may turn out to be a lot more virtual than we first imagined.
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