Ambition comes easily when there’s someone to dethrone. What happens after you make it — now that’s what separates the best from the rest.

Much of this year’s acclaim has gone to B&W’s sequel to the B&W 685 S2 speakers, a fantastic entry-level unit that punches far above its weight class, but in our eyes B&W’s CM6 S2 tells an equally important story.

The Canon PowerShot G7X proves that Sony’s going to have to work for their place in the point-and-shoot camera market.

GoPro HERO 4 defies conventional wisdom about how action cameras should look and function — and it ends up outperforming every other camera on the market.

Home automation has been a beautiful mess for years, with walled gardens and incompatible ecosystems making it impossible to gain traction on a mainstream level. Logitech’s Harmony Ultimate Home Remote is the ideal fence straddler, caring not about what systems you use and serving only to unify a million fragmented components.

Microsoft first few Surface attempts were lackluster, but now it’s playing for keeps.

Oppo’s latest planar magnetic headphone improves on its predecessor by smartly stripping away luxurious elements to create an incredible value proposition for audiophiles on the go.

Pioneer’s new Dolby Atmos Elite speakers, designed by the legendary Andrew Jones, bring Atmos technology into the home without requiring additional ceiling-mounted speakers.

Selecting a single smartphone to sit atop 2014’s pedestal just felt awkward.

Sony knows full well that it won’t soon rival Apple when it comes to owning the portable music market, but rather than conceding everything, it’s venturing to stake a claim among audiophiles. If you care more about resolution and bitrate than device convergence, there’s a Walkman for that.

With Sony’s PS TV, the gaming industry finally wises up to modern home entertainment.

Up until now, 4K was an exciting technology, but hardly a sane investment. With some of the earliest sets priced at around the same level as a new C-Class coupe from Mercedes-Benz, only those with far more money than sense were able to bring a 4K set home.

The virtual reality space is still coming of age, but what’s been offered up thus far falls on two extreme ends of the curve — pricey and proprietary, or cheap and forgettable.

Alpacka Raft’s latest offering, the Alpackalypse, combines the feel and handling of a hardshell kayak with a form that weighs just over ten pounds and packs down to 17 inches by 11 inches — making it still very much a backpackers raft.

The backcountry is the ski industry’s fastest-growing division. It’s where skiers are most vulnerable to avalanches, which cause 200 deaths per year.

Biolite’s portable BaseCamp grill improves where the company’s previous innovations left off.

Packing for the mountains often means packing a mountain of gear into a big, sturdy pack — but quick summit bids favor leaner, minimalist packs.

For beauty around the house or function on the trail, the Gerber 39 Series packs history and utility into one small blade.

The Kelty TN2 is a tent for anyone who finds themselves in-between a “car camper” and “backpacker.” If you can be found doing a little of this and a little of that, you will enjoy the way this tent delivers the best of both worlds for one reasonable price.

Though pricey, Outdoor Research’s Lucent Heated Gloves, with their ability to completely eliminate cold hands, are an investment worthy of consideration for those who spend a lot of time outside during the winter.