Emma
Member
Planar magnetic drivers in a wireless desktop speaker at this money is not a sentence I expected to write this year. Sony Interactive Entertainment has confirmed the Pulse Elevate for November 12, 2026 at 219.99 dollars, with US preorders opening September 1 at 10am ET. Each speaker carries what Sony describes as a studio inspired planar magnetic driver covering the main audible range, paired with a dedicated woofer for bass. Connectivity is PlayStation Link for lossless low latency, Bluetooth alongside it, and there is a microphone built in with AI noise rejection.
Some context for why that driver choice is not a random flourish. The Pulse Elite headset at 149.99 and the Pulse Explore earbuds at 199.99 already use planar magnetic drivers, so this is the third product on the same path, and Sony bought Audeze in 2023 to strengthen exactly this area. Worth being careful here though, because Sony has not said Audeze designed these drivers. That connection is real at company level and speculation at product level, and plenty of coverage is going to blur the two.
What I would temper is the excitement about it being a general purpose speaker. The lossless low latency part is PlayStation Link, which is Sony's own wireless layer. Off a PS5 that is genuinely useful and it ties into Tempest 3D AudioTech for positional cues on compatible titles. Plugged into anything else you are on Bluetooth like everything else on the shelf, so this is not a quiet route to good sound for a TV setup.
No frequency response, no output figures and no driver size published yet, which for a speaker launch is a fair bit of nothing.
Anybody here running the Pulse Elite? Did the planar drivers actually translate into something you noticed?
Some context for why that driver choice is not a random flourish. The Pulse Elite headset at 149.99 and the Pulse Explore earbuds at 199.99 already use planar magnetic drivers, so this is the third product on the same path, and Sony bought Audeze in 2023 to strengthen exactly this area. Worth being careful here though, because Sony has not said Audeze designed these drivers. That connection is real at company level and speculation at product level, and plenty of coverage is going to blur the two.
What I would temper is the excitement about it being a general purpose speaker. The lossless low latency part is PlayStation Link, which is Sony's own wireless layer. Off a PS5 that is genuinely useful and it ties into Tempest 3D AudioTech for positional cues on compatible titles. Plugged into anything else you are on Bluetooth like everything else on the shelf, so this is not a quiet route to good sound for a TV setup.
No frequency response, no output figures and no driver size published yet, which for a speaker launch is a fair bit of nothing.
Anybody here running the Pulse Elite? Did the planar drivers actually translate into something you noticed?
