A welcome update to the Sound Blaster that can deliver perceptibly better audio than onboard chips, but it goes beyond most people’s needs for PC audio.

Noise-cancelling earphones that won't break the bank, but the ANC7’s tend to warm your ears so much, you’re going wish for in-fan cooling.

Creative has enjoyed a long reign as the driving force in consumer-grade PC audio for the better part of a decade.

Logitech has a go at solving the problem of the rubbish speakers laptops are equipped with.

An inexpensive audio interface that lifts the podcasting fidelity bar out of the world of cheap plastic microphones.

It doesn’t do anything apart from simple music streaming, but the price and ease of use make this a good choice for getting music from one room to another wirelessly.

We audition the first entrant in our Bluetooth A2DP lineup.

Ideal for streaming music wirelessly or listening to Internet radio, but the iRadio suffers from a few design niggles.

A funky set of  Bluetooth headphones. Connect to a variety of audio sources or use the built in MP3 player.

19in widescreen LCD TV which shows much promise and is Dell’s first consumer offering in Australia. Spec-wise it looks quite good on paper, with 450cd/m2 brightness, 600:1 contrast ratio and 1280 x 768 widescreen resolution, and it doesn’t disappoint when fired up.

Surround sound is an important part of DVD movies and the uptake of full surround sound in computer games is increasing. Most soundcards and even integrated sound systems on a motherboard have support for 5.1 surround sound audio, and yet many systems are used with 2.1 speaker systems or with stereo headphones.

To please audiophiles on a budget at $80 its one of the cheapest surround-capable cards available.

Similar in nature to the Zinwell ProV (June 2002, page 46) but with better execution, the X-Media DreamBox is a small set-top box for your desktop that lets you watch TV, video, console games and DVDs on your monitor without the need to power on your PC.

The Creative Sound Blaster Live! Platinum 5.1 is the latest sound card from Creative Labs, the company that has dominated the consumer-level computer audio card market for most of the last decade.

Two TV tuners on a single PCIe board, without the usual headaches and hassle.

Great audio, but gaming ability hinges on the success of Dolby and DTS

MP3 with full Environmental Audio support is only part of what this card can offer. Gamers will find this card supports most of the popular standards including DirectSound 3D, EAX 1.0 and above, A3D 1.0 (in software) and Sound Blaster.

Implementing an in-car MP3 player can often mean an expensive overhaul to your audio system, or at the least buying a fiddly, cable-strewn cassette adaptor for an existing MP3 player like an iPod. This assumes that you do have an MP3 player already though.

The BH7 sports plenty of connectivity options, with two S/PDIF ports for optical audio; six-channel audio, SATA and side-mounted IDE ports.

Decent quality at a great price make this a bargain, but you'll need extras to appreciate it.