High-resolution

As Sony's lineup of portable audio devices has evolved over the years, it's veered towards more discerning listeners. It's just dropped its most expensive Walkman yet: the $5,900 NW-WM1ZM3. What on Earth is inside that could make it cost this much?

Think speakers are a simple paper cone that vibrates to translate electrical signals into sound? There’s rather more to it these days – as the European debut of a new high-end wireless speaker system from Scotland has just demonstrated.

In what could be an industry shifting breakthrough, researchers have created a screen about the size of a human pupil with a resolution that breaks through the limits of pixels. The invention could radically change virtual reality and other applications.

Fiio has announced its flagship in-ear monitors. Three different types of driver are squeezed into the high-end titanium housing of the FX17, making a total of 13 in each earpiece for the promise of "a bigger soundstage and more natural sound."

Sphere Studios has been set up to develop immersive content for a new dome-shaped entertainment venue due to open in Las Vegas later this year, and the technologies to produce it. An ultra-high-res camera called the Big Sky is its first innovation.

It's been a while since V-Moda updated its Crossfade Wireless headphones, but now the series has a new flagship – with the company promising that an improved sound and a longer battery life will add up to "the most immersive club experience ever."

Samsung wants the world to witness the power of its fully armed, operational and wildly unnecessary 200-megapixel Isocell HP1 smartphone camera sensor. So it's taken a picture of a cat, and printed it at 1.5 times the size of a basketball court.

Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum has released what it claims is the highest-resolution photo of an artwork ever created, with 8,439 individual 100-megapixel exposures stitched together to create a 717-billion-pixel image of a celebrated Rembrandt painting.

​At CES 2019, Sony unveiled a new turntable that merged old tech with new, including Bluetooth for wireless streaming. The UK's Cambridge Audio has gone a step further with a Bluetooth-enabled turntable that supports high resolution streaming courtesy of the aptX HD codec.​

British maker of award-winning Digital-to-Analog Converters Audiolab has added a new mobile DAC/headphone amp to its range. The M-DAC Nano cuts down on a little cable clutter by leveraging the wireless streaming power of Bluetooth.

Sony has introduced two new additions to its high-end Signature Series. The IER-Z1R earphones sport a hybrid driver setup for the promise of audiophile-grade listening, while the Hi-Res DMP-Z1 digital music player features a gold-plated volume knob and exclusive price tag to match.

Though the ubiquitous smartphone can serve as a capable audio recorder, there are times when quality counts. Roland previewed a new high resolution handheld at CES in January, with multiple recording modes and the ability to control functionality using an Apple Watch. Now the R-07 is on sale.