Digital music

Many of us will serve up our favorite tunes using a smartphone, but may be left wanting for sound quality. That's where a portable headphone amp/DAC can help, and the latest model from Fiio promises to satisfy with desktop-level power and performance.

Lava Music has spent the last few years impressing guitarists with a bunch of carbon fiber acoustic/smart guitars. Now the company has taken a bit of a left turn with a string-free touch-enabled digital oddity called the Genie.

Generative AI systems need to be fed huge amounts of often copyrighted data. Musicians could soon fight back with HarmonyCloak, a system that embeds data into songs that can’t be picked up by human ears but will scramble AI trying to reproduce it.

Learning to play piano is a hard slog, and many people – myself included – tend to start well, and then lose momentum before giving up entirely. Roli is hoping to keeping students engaged with a gesture-tracking AI teacher called the Airwave.

Though many of us carry our digital music library or streaming player around with us in the shape of our smartphones, enjoying high quality audio can be problematic. Fiio's KA15 DAC not only levels up the sound but also looks retro cool while doing so.

The vast majority of today's consumed music is served up by streaming platforms, leaving traditional hi-fi setups struggling to stay relevant. Cambridge Audio has launched a multi-driver all-in-one music streamer that can also play nice with legacy gear.

A portable music production studio previewed at NAMM 2022 is now crowdfunding on Kickstarter. Playtime Engineering's Blipblox myTracks is designed to give young creators all the tools they need to start making music.

Many of the gadgets we use every day have a limited shelf life, and often end up as e-waste before their time. The Dutch company that launched a repairable, upgradeable, sustainable smartphone has now taken the challenge to true wireless earphones.

SPIN challenges conventional notions of music creation by inviting users to collaborate with an AI language model called MusicGen. With its distinctive blend of a turntable and a drum machine, SPIN offers users a creative music composition tool.

Bose has launched a pair of wireless earphones that don't plug in and cut you off from the outside world, but clasp onto the side of your ears like cuffs. The Ultra Open Earbuds promise both all-day immersive listening and awareness of surroundings.

The Harman Luxury Audio Group has added a new family member to JBL's Classic Series, in the shape of a retro-stylish all-in-one music system named the L42ms that puts out 200 watts and features adjustable bass response.

Pioneer has been one of the top makers of DJ gear for decades, releasing the world's first top-loading CD deck for pro use way back in 1994. The DJ brand broke away in 2014, and has now launched the first products under the AlphaTheta name.