Parasound Gets In The Zone, Sennheiser Goes 3D

by Brian Hunter

Parasound fired up the PR machine this week to drop a new amplifier for the holiday season. The new Zonemaster Model 2350 goes class D into 350 watts per channel for 8 ohms but also includes the necessary feature set to push a passive subwoofer with internal low pass crossovers. The usual line level sub output is also available for a more traditional two-channel + powered sub arrangement, but stereo output from the two A/B speaker outputs can be summed to mono or switched to a sub setting with a 80Hz cutoff for even more low frequency options.

The Parasound ZoneMaster 2350 is currently available via the company’s dealer network and arrives with a MSRP of $1,295. More from the PR release after the page break.

We first set eyes upon the AMBEO Smart Headset on CES a few shows back. The idea represents a new direction for everyday video recording – one where our headphone-focused consumption of media is now accompanied by a 3D binaural recording that follows head movement as what your watching on your phone moves around. If it seems confusion at first, not to worry. The implementation on both the production and consumption ends are dead simple. The headset contains two microphones that capture sound from the ears of the recorder, and listening takes place in a similar fashion to simply listening to music, without any added gear.

Right now the AMBEO is terminated in a Lighting connection, partnered at the hip closely with the silicone valley giant and also sold at the Big A’s retail locations. Apple-friendly Apogee helped with the hardware side of things for a package that appears fairly seemless and user-friendly, ready for the next wave of teenage pocket producers. The headset carries the usual feature set for listening on-the-go from a mobile device with call pickup and device controls. The US launch is in full swing for $299, with distribution pointing toward both Apple stores and Apple.com.

If you want to see what the full output sounds like you can check out the demo video we captured in the embed below starting at the 2:25 mark, headphones highly recommended.