Earlier this month, we asked you which movie soundtracks you use to test your sound system at home.

Plenty of you sent us your number one picks, from old favourites to new releases that have quickly climbed to the top of your list. There were a range of different genres and styles, with some making an appearance more than others.

And it will soon become apparent that there is one composer that crops up again and again…

Sci-fi is a winner

There was one genre that got more recommendations than any other, and that’s science fiction. It’s hardly a surprise given the opportunity for otherworldly soundtracks that are written to transport you to another world.

Reader Andrew Rollins sent in a double recommendation, and outlined two staples of the genre. That includes Dune: Part One, depicting the origins of Paul Atreides as the world around him falls into political ruin. Hans Zimmer delivers a mesmerising score that adds a unique, powerful feeling to each scene.

Using a combination of synthesisers, oriental timbres and choral voices, Zimmer creates a textured listening experience that is a joy to behold with the right equipment. The bass is often low and rumbling, which requires competent handling of the low end without sounding blobby or out of control. But it also challenges your system’s Dolby Atmos presentation. When Atreides is challenged by the Bene Geserit with the Pain Box, for instance, his visions of fire and whispered voices should swirl around the listener in a vortex of sound.

Andrew also suggested the Interstellar score, which we have used many a time in our test room. Good ol’ Zimmer is the composer of this famous soundtrack as well, offering an ethereal and atmospheric score that will leave you with goosebumps by the end. Switch on the track Cornfield Chase and your system’s handling of dynamics will be properly challenged.

Some timeless classics are on the roster

Sometimes, you can’t beat the golden oldies. Quite literally, as Goldfinger was suggested by user AndyC405. He notes that the original “with Shirley Bassey is a great test for any bright system”, and we can’t help but agree.

This entry to the James Bond canon begins with a series of high-pitched brass notes that can easily sound too shrill and harsh on the ears. It calls for a system that can portray both the subtlety of the soft aspects of the score, as well as the power of the invigorating crescendo without sounding disorganised and overwhelming.

Another classic film soundtrack to get a shoutout was Gladiator, thanks to Instagram follower Jacob Edwards. It’s another great display of Hans Zimmer’s composing talents, and the collaboration with Lisa Gerrard (also known for her work on Whale Rider and The Insider) adds to the score’s complexities.

There are too many moments to choose from in this adventure epic, with the delicacy of Earth and Now We Are Free offering a brilliant challenge to any sound system’s soft side.

But The Battle is by far the most exciting to listen to, and calls for precision and punch from your audio equipment to capture the tension of the scene. As the Romans square up for a clash against the Germanic tribes and the horses charge into battle, the strings attack every note with ferocity and the brass instruments add to the sense of pressure. It’s a great track to behold, and makes for gripping listening even on its own.

A What Hi-Fi? Team addition

Go on then, we’ll stick our oar in. One of our most popular soundtracks in the test room recently is Sinners, a vampire horror that will have you quaking in your boots. The film revolves around young protagonist Sammie's connection to music, and the power it gives him to summon spirits.

This makes it a brilliant disc to test your sound system. One scene we always turn to is when Sammie first calls spirits from the past, present and future by singing I Lied To You at the newly opened juke joint.

The beautifully emotive vocals from Miles Caton as Sammie sound natural and full of subtle inflections on the right system, and the crowd's murmurings should wrap around the listener. As the spirits join the party and dance in harmony, your system's sense of precision is tested as the camera swoops around the space in one long shot.

Listen on your own system

Want all of these recommendations and more in one place? There’s good news, because we have made a Spotify playlist so they are only a few clicks away.

Feel free to save it to your collection, or you can transfer them to your streaming platform of choice. Thanks to everyone for contributing to this month’s Ask The Reader, and we appreciate all of your entries even if they were not featured this time around.

MORE:

Check out the best scenes to test your Dolby Atmos system

These are the best soundbars

And here are the best TVs

Anyone can put together an expensive surround sound system. Buy five great speakers, add a capable subwoofer and a suitably muscular AV amplifier, and you're well on your way.

Building a genuinely cohesive home cinema system, though, is much harder.

The best packages don't constantly remind you which speaker is producing which effect or draw attention to individual sonic fireworks. Instead, they disappear entirely, transporting you into the world of the movie with such convincing scale and cohesion that you stop thinking about the equipment and simply enjoy what you're watching.

On paper, KEF's R Meta 5.1 speaker system certainly has all the ingredients required to achieve that lofty goal. The question is whether, together, they amount to something even greater than the sum of their already rather impressive parts.

Price

Those ‘ingredients’ are a pair of R7 Meta floorstanders on front left and right duties, two (five-star) R3 Meta standmounters as surrounds, an R6 centre speaker, and the unusually compact KC92 subwoofer.

At the time of writing, these speakers aren’t available as a pre-packaged system, though that may soon change. In the meantime, the cost of building the system with the separate speakers is £10,499 / $13,200 / AU$19,400.

That’s a hefty chunk of change, no doubt, and you can take things further by adding R8 Meta Dolby Atmos ‘toppers’, should you so wish, at £1500 / $1800 / AU$2800 per pair.

Design

This is an unapologetically substantial package. Even before you've wrestled the hefty R7 Meta floorstanders into position, it's clear that this isn't a surround system designed to disappear into your living room.

The R3 Meta are generously proportioned by standmounter standards, too, while the R6 Meta is a particularly large centre speaker – one clearly designed to prioritise acoustic performance over blending discreetly beneath your TV.

Despite the varying sizes, there's an aesthetically pleasing sense of consistency across the range. The speakers all share the same understated, clean-lined design language, with KEF's distinctive Uni-Q driver array taking pride of place on each model.

Rather than feeling like a collection of separate products assembled into a surround package, the R Meta speakers immediately look like members of the same family, giving the impression of a system that has been designed as a whole rather than assembled from individual parts.

The KC92 subwoofer, though, initially looks like the odd one out. It's a surprisingly compact cube sitting alongside such substantial floorstanders, and its neatly integrated side-firing drivers make it appear smaller than a high-end subwoofer has any right to.

That compactness is entirely deliberate, however. The force-cancelling driver arrangement allows KEF to keep the cabinet remarkably small while apparently reducing unwanted vibrations, and those wanting even greater low-frequency output can simply add more KC92s. KEF will even sell you a bracket that lets you stack them into a rather awesome-looking tower of bass.

Our review package arrived in a high-gloss black finish that looks suitably Darth Vader-like but quickly attracts fingerprints. The speakers are also available in white and walnut, but the KC92 doesn’t get the walnut finish. Slightly disappointingly, the gorgeous indigo gloss in which you can buy the R3 Meta standmounters isn’t available for the rest of the system.

Whichever finish you choose, though, build quality throughout is excellent. From the reassuring solidity of the cabinets to the immaculate fit and finish, every component feels worthy of a package costing comfortably north of £10,000.

Features

Much of the technology underpinning the R Meta series has trickled down from KEF's flagship Reference range, but perhaps the cleverest aspect of KEF's R Meta package is that, despite the differing sizes and roles of the individual speakers, the R7 Meta floorstanders, R3 Meta surrounds and R6 Meta centre all share exactly the same drive units.

Each speaker features KEF's 12th-generation Uni-Q array, combining a 25mm aluminium dome tweeter and 125mm midrange driver into a single point-source unit, alongside identical 165mm hybrid aluminium bass drivers. The only real difference is how many bass drivers each speaker employs – two in the centre and each of the floorstanders, and one in each of the standmounters.

The Uni-Q array has long been one of KEF's defining technologies. By placing the tweeter at the acoustic centre of the midrange driver, the company aims to create more even sound dispersion and improve the integration between frequencies.

It's also impossible to ignore the distinctive Tangerine waveguide sitting proudly in front of the tweeter. While it gives KEF’s speakers their instantly recognisable appearance, it's there for more than cosmetic reasons, helping to control the tweeter's dispersion for a more consistent high-frequency response across a wider listening area.

Backing up the Uni-Q array is KEF's Metamaterial Absorption Technology (MAT). Mounted behind the tweeter, this maze-like absorber is designed to eliminate almost all of the unwanted sound radiating from the rear of the driver before it has a chance to colour the performance, helping to produce cleaner, more natural treble.

The KC92 subwoofer, meanwhile, takes a similarly clever approach to solving a different problem.

Rather than relying on a large cabinet to produce serious low-frequency output, it packs two opposing 9-inch drivers into a remarkably compact enclosure, with each driven by its own 500W Class D amplifier. The force-cancelling arrangement is designed to reduce unwanted cabinet vibrations while allowing the subwoofer to remain unusually discreet.

Practicality has clearly been a consideration, too. All three main speakers feature twin sets of binding posts for those wanting to bi-wire or bi-amp, but KEF has dispensed with the fiddly metal bridging plates traditionally used to connect terminals for single-wire use. Instead, a pair of rotary links simply twists to join the terminals inside the speakers. Neat.

The R7 Meta and R3 Meta also feature rear-firing bass reflex ports, with KEF supplying foam bungs should you need to position them close to a rear wall. It’s still worth avoiding the bungs and giving the speakers a bit of breathing space away from walls if you can, but they’re otherwise very forgiving over placement, not least thanks to the Uni-Q driver array’s dispersion characteristics.

Sound

We already know what accomplished musical performers the R3 Meta standmounters are, but how do the fronts of this system, the R7 Meta floorstanders, handle hi-fi duties? With effortless sophistication, that’s how.

Fed track after track, they sound clean, composed and wonderfully controlled, with an expansive soundstage and an ability to unpick complex recordings without ever becoming analytical. Tori Amos' Cornflake Girl for example, is reproduced with impressive subtlety, her voice locked firmly between the speakers while the piano, percussion and bass each occupy their own clearly defined space.

It is possible for that polished presentation to become almost too civilised, though. During our initial listening with our Marantz Cinema 30, Tool's The Pot lacks a little of the visceral snap and attack we'd hoped for, while John Williams' Jurassic Park theme feels fractionally more restrained than it should.

However, swapping to the Denon AVC-A1H transforms matters, bringing greater drive and energy without sacrificing the refinement that makes these speakers so easy to listen to. Prospective buyers would do well to partner them with an amplifier that shares their considerable talents without doubling down on their composure.

Once we turn our attention to movies, it quickly becomes apparent that this isn't merely an excellent collection of speakers; it's a genuinely cohesive surround package. As effects move around the room, you're rarely conscious of which individual speaker is producing them. Instead, sounds travel with remarkable continuity, each cabinet handing seamlessly to the next until the speakers themselves almost disappear from the experience.

That cohesion is accompanied by an immense sense of scale. The opening race sequence in F1: The Movie fills our listening room with the deafening roar of engines and screeching tyres, yet never descends into chaos. The R6 Meta centre anchors dialogue securely amid the mayhem, while the front soundstage stretches confidently beyond the physical positions of the speakers.

Ambient effects spread throughout the room with such conviction that, despite this being a conventional 5.1 package, we rarely find ourselves wishing for dedicated height channels. It can't produce truly discrete overhead effects in the manner of a Dolby Atmos system, of course, but it creates such an enveloping, three-dimensional soundfield that the absence of ceiling or up-firing speakers rarely feels like a compromise.

That ability to immerse without drawing attention to itself proves equally captivating in Blade Runner 2049. The haunting ambience of the abandoned Las Vegas sequences extends effortlessly into every corner of the room, while the thunderous score is delivered with breathtaking scale and authority.

Despite the sheer size of the presentation, however, subtle details are never drowned out. The package remains wonderfully composed, allowing tiny atmospheric cues to coexist naturally alongside seismic low-frequency effects.

The KC92 deserves special praise. If your priority is sheer low frequency extension, there are physically larger subwoofers that will dig deeper, but what the compact KEF lacks in outright depth, it more than compensates for with speed, precision and tonal sophistication.

Bass notes start and stop with remarkable precision, textures remain easy to discern and, perhaps most importantly, the KC92 never sounds like a separate component. Whether underpinning the rumble of an F1 car, the immense organ notes of Interstellar or the ominous low-frequency pulses of Blade Runner 2049, it simply feels like an extension of the main speakers.

Compared with our reference PMC Twenty5.23 speaker package, the KEFs make for a fascinating contrast.

The PMCs remain the more energetic and revealing performers, extracting the finest details from recordings and delivering dynamic shifts with greater urgency and attack, but the KEFs counter with a presentation that's more effortless, more spacious and ultimately more cohesive. They don't simply place effects accurately around the room; they create an enormous, unified soundstage that encourages you to forget about the individual speakers altogether and become absorbed in the performance.

And that's ultimately this package's greatest achievement. Plenty of surround systems impress by throwing effects around the room or bombarding you with bass, but the KEFs never feel as though they're trying to show off.

Instead, they rather dissolve into the background, leaving only the sonic world of the movie you’re watching. That’s why we find ourselves still watching films long after our official testing is complete.

Verdict

The R Meta 5.1 package is beautifully engineered, immaculately built and packed with clever technology, but it's the effortless cohesion with which those individual elements come together that makes it so special.

Whether it's the seamless handover of effects between speakers, the KC92's astonishingly well-integrated bass or the vast, enveloping soundstage, every aspect of the system works towards a single goal: drawing you deeper into whatever you’re watching.

It's not entirely perfect. The R7 Meta floorstanders reward careful amplifier matching if you don't want them to sound a little too easy-going, and there are larger subwoofers capable of plumbing even greater depths. Neither ‘flaw’ significantly detracts from the overall experience, though.

Instead, the KEFs deliver one of the most immersive, refined and convincing surround performances we've heard at this level. This is a package that consistently prioritises the film over the fireworks, and that's precisely why it succeeds so brilliantly.

SCORES

• Sound 5
• Design 5
• Compatibility 4

MORE:

Read our review of the Fyne Audio F8SP AV

Also consider the PMC Twenty5.23 5.1

Read our KEF Q Concerto Meta 5.1 Speaker System review

Best surround sound systems: home cinema speakers and soundbars put to the test

Home cinema is taking a new form in this day and age.

The idea that a home cinema system must be a fixed projector connected to an AV receiver with cables trailing to a surround sound package is now an outdated concept, with opportunities for many more people to dip their toes into the world of home cinema for the first time.

We've had projectors of all shapes and sizes enter our test room, and these form factors are only getting more ambitious. This paradigm shift really kicked off towards the start of this decade, when ultra-short-throw (UST) projectors started gaining popularity.

USTs pack in the big-screen experience, a sound system, and (in most cases) built-in streaming, for an all-in-one cinema experience that doesn't need to take up much more space than a TV.

From that, we've seen the explosion of coffee table projectors, such as the Hisense M2 Pro or BenQ TK705i, which take the same concept and translate it into a portable cube, meaning you can deploy a full home cinema at a moment's notice, and put it away again.

These come in high-end packages, like the Xgimi Horizon 20 Max (£2599 / $2699 / AU$4950), as well as surprisingly affordable models such as the Wanbo Vali 1 (£270 / $279 / AU$499).

Performance obviously differs depending on how much you're willing to spend, but the concept remains the same; coffee table or 'lifestyle' projectors offer picture, sound and content in a compact form that can be tucked away in a cupboard when not in use.

A further extreme is the boom of portable projectors. Xgimi's MoGo series makes things even more flexible by offering a built-in battery, and while the Optoma Photon Go wasn't perfect, we thought its battery-powered UST design was both clever and cool.

Even surround sound speaker packages are following the trend. While we'll always stick by a full surround sound package, we can't deny the impracticalities of setting one up and living with it.

If you're not a dab hand at cable management, then your living room can quickly turn into a spaghetti junction of speaker wires. Floorstanding speakers also take up space, and even the most space-saving of bookshelf units need stands.

That's why we're seeing the rise of the wireless surround sound system. Sony ran with the concept a few years ago with the HT-A9 system, and followed it up with the Bravia Theatre Quad in 2024. We've also seen the likes of the Valerion Thunderbeat, Loewe WE Boost and Hisense Saturn all make appearances since.

LG and TCL have even launched speakers with Dolby Atmos FlexConnect that can be configured to create a full surround sound system, which even takes the hassle out of positioning speakers.

These wireless systems essentially offer a proper surround sound experience – there are speakers technically surrounding the seating position – with a heaping of convenience that makes them more approachable.

Purists may disagree with me here, and I won't argue that a dedicated 4K projector, surround sound speaker package, AVR and 4K Blu-ray player won't offer up a better home cinema experience.

However, not everyone has the time, space, budget or technical know-how for a full system, and let's not forget that watching movies isn't a competitive sport.

Personally, I'm here for these accessible home cinema products. Convenience and affordability are two great ways to tempt new people into the world of home cinema, and once they've had a taste, chances are they'll begin working up to the full package.

And if they don't, then that's fine too. Home cinema for everyone is the ideal outcome here, whether that's a sound-treated, dedicated theatre room made by specialists, or beaming the latest superhero flick onto your wall from a projector sitting on your coffee table.

MORE:

Check out our picks for the best projectors

As well as the best portable projectors

The best Dolby Atmos movies of the decade (so far)

Home Cinema Week is almost at an end, and what a time it has been. From our review of the five-star AWOL Vision Aetherion Max projector to a behind-the-scenes look at our AV testing facility, it’s been a treat to dig into all things home cinema-related.

Our monthly Now Showing hasn’t gone anywhere, though, as we have still been beavering away in our test room to review the latest AV products. Each month, we take a look at the best movies and TV shows we have been using to test, as well as new releases that we cannot wait to use.

This can range from a film that puts your sound system’s Dolby Atmos presentation through its paces or challenges a projector screen’s black depth. Let’s take a look at the team’s top picks!

Ponies (2026-)

Words by Joe Svetlik

Cold War thrillers tend to be more po-faced than a Kremlin spokesman, so Ponies is a welcome addition to the genre. Ponies stands for Persons Of No Interest – CIA-speak for the wives of two Moscow-based US spies who die in mysterious circumstances. The men, of course, are Persons Of Interest, but their better halves? Given that neither Russia nor the US used female operatives at the time (in the series, at least), this gives the Ponies scope to fly under the radar and investigate their husbands’ deaths.

If that all sounds a bit gritty, trust me, it isn’t. The pairing of Emilia Clarke (Game Of Thrones) and Haley Lu Richardson (The White Lotus) lends the show plenty of humour – the former uptight and controlling, the latter a bohemian with an exaggeratedly carefree sashay. And they’re ably supported by Adrian Lester (Hustle) and Artjom Gilz (Das Boot).

The production is dripping with period charm, even down to being filmed in the 3:2 aspect ratio to mimic the feel of a pre-widescreen broadcast – that means vertical black bars either side of the picture, but it’s worth it to add to the vintage aesthetic.

The Russian accents are thick, the tension even thicker. And any series in which a touring Elton John accidentally disrupts a KGB murder plot has to be worth a look.

House Of The Dragon (Season 3)

Words by Lewis Empson

Game Of Thrones has had its ups and downs. While I still resent the ending of the main show over eight years later, the franchise as a whole has been steadily rebuilding since.

House Of The Dragon, a prequel series set roughly 200 years before the main show, has been fundamental in the franchise’s revival, and its explosive third season is broadcasting weekly right now.

After a somewhat weak ending to season two, I was immediately sucked into the third series' action-packed, bloody and emotional first two episodes. And while the pace has since slowed, the show has also tapped into the political-thriller elements of the original to great effect.

As ever with Game Of Thrones, this series also looks and sounds fantastic. Establishing shots of stunning natural vistas and sprawling naval battles are both dazzling in 4K, and with many sequences in dingy and dark castle corridors and chambers, this also happens to be a fairly thorough TV stress test. Shadow detail will be put to the test, and having watched all of this season so far on an OLED TV, I’ve certainly reaped the contrast and black depth benefits.

Your TV’s motion and sound capabilities will also be put to the test by swooping dragons as they launch screeching fire-breathing attacks on warring factions.

I also have an expert tip for watching House Of The Dragon in its best picture and sound quality. My advice is to skip Sky and Now and instead use HBO Max. If your budget allows, the top subscription tier unlocks 4K Dolby Vision streaming and Dolby Atmos audio, which makes the viewing experience a whole lot better.

If you’re already a Sky or Now subscriber, chances are that you already have access to HBO Max and can upgrade your account to access these features.

F1 The Movie (2025)

Words by Robyn Quick

Fast cars, roaring engines and juicy drama: that’s what you expect from a film about Formula 1. Joseph Kosinski’s F1 The Movie delivers on all of this, and it has quickly become a go-to in our test room since the 4K Blu-ray was released in November last year.

It’s one of my current favourites for testing both sound and picture quality and, when using the right system, the film makes for tense viewing.

During fast-paced racing scenes when the vehicles zoom around the course, you should be able to feel the cars move around the soundfield with a good Dolby Atmos audio system. This also calls for an excellent sense of precision, as the crowd calls out and announcements boom from off-screen.

On top of that, the myriad of races in the film are a great way to challenge your system’s motion handling. They must move naturally without looking too juddery or too smooth, which can be a tough balance to strike for premium and budget systems alike.

Widow's Bay (2026-)

Words by Tom Parsons

I came to Widow’s Bay late, mostly because in the remorseless tidal wave of new content, it simply didn’t stand out. The other evening, though, I decided to give it a go, and it’s actually well up there as one of my favourite shows of the year.

The story, about a small, somewhat backwards island community that badly needs an influx of tourists but also might – or might not – be cursed, is brilliantly paced. Fairly gentle but consistently gripping, it's an easy watch that's somehow impossible to stop watching.

The comedy-horror combo is really hard to get right, but creator Katie Dippold and director Hiro Murai (he of Atlanta fame) have absolutely nailed it, with most of the humour coming from the Fargo-like characters, dialogue and setting, and the horror elements used sparingly and effectively.

Apple TV shows tend to have higher production values (and have higher bitrates) than those of rival streaming services, and while that’s not super-evident in the intentionally grainy, Twin Peaks-style aesthetic, it’s abundantly clear in the sound design, which is excellent.

This isn’t a show with loads of jump scares; it’s one where subtle sound effects (often footsteps) are used to create tension and creepiness, and if you’ve got a good Dolby Atmos system, they’re placed brilliantly effectively.

Even if you’re not a horror fan, Widow’s Bay is an absolute must-watch.

In the Mouth of Madness (1995)

Words by Tom Parsons

When the sad news of Sam Neill’s passing was announced, I could have chosen to watch in his memory Jurassic Park, Hunt For The Wilderpeople or Event Horizon, all of which I know and love. Instead, I decided to try In The Mouth Of Madness, which The Guardian boldly proclaimed to be the legendary actor’s best role.

Well, I’m not quite sure about that assessment, but he does play the role of an insurance investigator driven mad by a horror author’s writings with fabulous gusto.

The film is utterly bonkers, exactly as you'd expect from an early-'90s John Carpenter horror steeped in H.P. Lovecraft, but it's schlocky, gleeful fun. There are some great, gory, practical effects, too – one sequence weirdly reminded me of Jim Henson’s Labyrinth, but The Thing is, less surprisingly, visible in there.

Not a movie to watch if you’re looking for fancy production values or a serious home cinema demonstration, but a lot of fun if weird horror from the last millennium is up your street.

MORE:

These are the best scenes to test your Dolby Atmos sound system

Check out the best TVs

This divisive Christopher Nolan movie has the perfect test score to get you in the mood

With decades of experience under our collective belts, the What Hi-Fi? reviews team has an exhaustive list of movie scenes on tap for testing all things AV, from simple soundbars to AV receivers, to full-blown Dolby Atmos surround sound systems.

Rows of Blu-ray discs (including the 4K variety) adorn our test rooms and are on standby for when we want to push a subwoofer to breaking point or stretch the processing skills of an AVR.

But what about the people behind the actual products that we test? As we did in 2025, we’ve once again reached out to major players in home cinema to find out which movies and scenes they use to benchmark their products. You’ll find them listed below.

What do you think of their choices? What are your favourite clips for showcasing your home cinema kit? Let us know in the comments below!

Jordi Brinkman – Product Marketing Manager, Consumer Audio, Harman EMEA

Ready Player One – The Impossible Race

This scene has all the classic elements for a great demonstration. It features cars, bikes, trains and giant gorillas – what more could you want? Visually it’s fast and detailed, and the soundtrack matches the images, being big and bold with a massive amount of immersive sound too. But listen carefully, and behind those huge dynamics you can hear the crystal clarity of the token coins bouncing into the distance.

A Star Is Born – Shallow

This film has an outstanding soundtrack. But the standout demo track is the Shallow scene. You can feel the tension between the artists as the song builds, and the vocals and musicians on this track are just tremendous. The entire soundtrack – either Dolby Atmos or DTS HD – has been mixed so well that you really feel that you are part of the performance, and this is totally engaging.

Hans Zimmer and Friends, Diamond in the Desert – Gladiator

This disc is a real favourite of ours and works brilliantly to demonstrate our soundbars or our high-end multichannel systems. The Gladiator track just shimmers with a wide and sweeping performance of this movie soundtrack classic.

The audio mix is both striking, accurate and at times breath-taking, and places you directly in the middle of the performance – immersing you completely. It’s a compelling argument that all soundtracks like this should only be listened to with a home cinema system.

Harry Jones, Sound Experience Engineer, Sonos

Sinners (2025) – 00:55:50

What an incredible film this is; the performances, the music, the cinematography. I’m a huge fan of how this movie sounds, and we are proud to have worked with one of the re-recording mixers, Brandon Proctor, on previous tuning sessions for our products.

A standout moment for me, and many others, has to be the music scene in the juke joint. It’s also been coined ‘THAT’ scene from Sinners - understandably. The scene offers many styles of music, starting with blues and ending with a huge score from Ludwig Göransson, via West Coast hip-hop.

Along with the music, there’s some really interesting perspective panning, especially with the instruments, as the camera weaves through the dancers and onto the stage. There’s a lot of movement of the ‘full range’ elements, so for me it’s a great test of how a system gels together, and the overall integration of the fronts and the surrounds.

Joker (2019) – 00:40:05

Another film with incredible dialogue timbre throughout is Joker from 2019. The social worker scene is a stand-out in terms of tonality, and I use this scene often to understand how a centre channel is sounding.

It is a great test to be able to tell whether it’s too boomy, or indeed too bright. The dialogue is mixed with this rich and chesty quality, and there’s plenty of warm 400/500Hz present. The clip itself is fairly sparse in terms of anything else going on, but I find it to be the yardstick on centre channel performance.

28 Years Later (2025) – 00:35:15

I love the very abstract imagery in this scene, but for me it’s all about the thundering low end throughout. I’m a big fan of using big low end in cinematic presentations, so if this feels slightly on the edge of ‘too much’, it’s probably about right.

John Bagby - Managing Director of PML Sound (Paradigm, Anthem, MartinLogan and GoldenEar)

Project Hail Mary – 1:44:10, Time Go Fishing

This sequence is an absolute torture test for your subwoofer and amplifier. It layers two extremes at the exact same time.

On the low end, you have the heavy, continuous, room-shaking rumble of the spaceship’s engines humming between 20Hz and 60Hz. This demands massive, sustained power. Meanwhile, the mix sprinkles tiny, high-frequency details right on top, like clinking chains and high-pitched spacesuit beeps.

On a lesser system, the heavy bass will swallow these delicate details, leaving you with a muddy, vibrating mess. A great system keeps them perfectly separated. You’ll feel the deep, physical engine rumble in your chest while still hearing those crisp, metallic clinks cut through with absolute clarity.

Venom – 50:30:00, Eddie’s Apartment Fight

This scene is a killer test for texture and midrange control. It flips instantly from Eddie arguing with himself to an absolute mess of close-quarters chaos.

The star of the show here is that deep, layering Venom voice. On the right system, it has this rumbling, dual-tone texture that feels like it’s vibrating inside your own skull and sends chills down your spine. At the same time, you have these wet, gooey, ripping sounds whenever the symbiote shoots out a tentacle.

On a weaker set-up, the voice loses its menacing weight and gets completely buried under the generic thuds of furniture shattering and bodies crashing into drywall. A good system keeps that creepy alien voice front and centre, sounding thick and terrifying while the apartment gets torn apart around it.

Midway – 1:34:55, Attack on the Carriers

If you want to push your surround sound or Dolby Atmos set-up to its absolute limit, play this scene. It is pure, chaotic adrenaline. Fighter planes scream overhead, anti-aircraft guns thump, and debris flies in every direction. The sound design is incredibly fast, panning audio aggressively in a full 360-degree circle around your room.

This is a test of spatial precision and amplifier recovery speed. You want to hear a plane zoom seamlessly from front-left, over your head, and out the back-right without any gaps in the sound.

Because the explosions are so rapid-fire, your system has to recover instantly to deliver the next hit. If your gear is too slow, the chaos turns into a muddy blur; if it’s fast, it feels terrifyingly real.

Eric Kingdon, Technical Marketing Consultant, Sony

James Bond No Time to Die – Chapter 4, 20.00, Car Ambush

In this scene, the dialogue/music should remain clear despite the chaos! Gunfire travels precisely around the soundstage. Car engine and sound ‘impacts’ deliver controlled, but powerful low-frequency bass. The church bells, with great height, separation and detail, create a strong vertical position in the soundfield.

Ready Player One – Chapter 2 , 12.00, Car Race

The scene delivers a wide soundstage, with objects rapidly moving around the listener. It’s also a great test of dynamics and imaging, with a strong sense of height and lateral movement. It delivers a good immersive experience, with excellent smaller details such as when the coins ‘float’ into the car!

Sinners – Chapter 7, 55.45, Music Awakening

The guitar playing has detail plus presence, while the vocals remain focused and natural. Musically, it’s a fine test. Actually, it’s a good test for virtual speaker processing too. As the camera rotates, the soundstage opens up, enveloping the listener. You get the excellent room ambience, with the crowd reactions and musical ‘layers’ demonstrating a feeling of atmosphere, space and immersion. It’s quite immersive in both a musical and visual sense.

Olivier Semenoux, EU head of GTM & Product Management, TCL

6 Underground

For checking Atmos detailed sound, we use movies on Netflix and we typically use 6 Underground as this is one of the best scenes for testing a Dolby Atmos system, which will “detail” and “separate” sound objects clearly into the space.

In the opening Florence car chase scene, cars whip from front to rear, helicopters pass overhead and tyre screeches, ricochets and debris all move convincingly around and above you. It's a proper stress test for how clearly a system can separate and place individual sound objects in space, rather than just throwing noise at you.

Roma

This is the opposite kind of test, and in some ways the harder one. It's subtle rather than spectacular. In the scene just before the fire starts around half way into the movie, we can hear creaking doors, a dog barking from different distances, insects, church bells, all placed with real precision before the flames slowly wrap around you.

Atmos systems that sound impressive with action scenes don't always handle ambience this well, so it's a good way to hear how honest a system is.

Costa Rica (YouTube, Jacob & Katie Schwarz)

This is one of the clips we go back to most for judging genuine 4K HDR performance. It has everything we look for from bright highlights in the sun and the reflections off the water at the beach, deep blacks that still hold detail rather than crushing and fine texture in things like the skin of the snake.

The colours are rich without tipping into oversaturation and there's a real range of detail from the bright clouds right down into the dark shadows. It's a genuinely demanding real-world test that shows the best quality for a display.

MORE:

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There was once a time when legendary Japanese AV manufacturer Denon would update its home cinema amplifier range every year. Those days are now long behind us, which is why we’ve waited almost four years for the AVR-X2900H.

In that time, the shoes that this highly anticipated mid-range AV amp has to fill have only grown larger and larger. Most notably, Sony swanned onto the scene with the serial Award-winning TA-AN1000, which knocked Denon off the top spot.

There has also been a fair amount of stagnation in the AVR market lately, which makes every new release all the more important.

So, saying that the AVR-X2900H has landed in our testing room in a particularly high-pressure environment is quite the understatement. With it replacing the AVR-X2800H – a staple of our AV testing room and best AV receivers list alike – the X2900H has to impress. So does it?

Price

The X2900H is officially priced at £899 / $1349 / AU$1799, making it more expensive than its predecessor in the UK and US, but more affordable in Australia. The X2800H launched at £869 / $1200 / AU$2399, for reference.

It’s worth noting here that the version of this AVR sold in the USA is slightly different to the one we’re testing. It adds some key custom installation features including front left and right speaker pre-outs, a 12V trigger and an RS-232C port.

Furthermore, the UK version of the X2900H is the only model to feature a DAB tuner, with all other regions dropping this radio standard.

That said, this AV receiver still sits within the mid-range sector of the market, and specifically in Denon’s lineup it sits between the X1800H and the X3900H, the latter of which is expected to launch soon.

At this level, Denon is facing a rematch with the AV amplifier that ejected its previous amplifiers from our Awards list. Yes, the TA-AN1000 trudges on for yet another year as the sole AV amplifier in Sony’s lineup, but with a couple of years now under its belt, it can be found for £899 here in the UK. Discounts are also frequent, and we’ve seen it drop to as low as £699.

Design

Denon hasn’t been particularly daring with its AVR design in recent years. Much like the Targaryans in Game Of Thrones, or the Weasleys in Harry Potter, some strong genetic characteristics immediately identify this black box as a Denon amplifier.

The X2900H is another angular, brushed metal box sporting a rectangular display flanked by volume and source selection knobs, and a neatly organised row of buttons below it. Denon has made some appreciated updates here by angling the buttons upwards, making them easier to press if your AVR sits on a low shelf in your TV cabinet.

Subtle upgrades aside, this AVR remains functional-looking rather than particularly eye-catching, which is no great shame to us. That said, Denon’s sister company, Marantz, wins the AVR beauty contest – just look at the (admittedly much more expensive) Cinema 30 and tell us you disagree.

Speaking of which, the Denon has taken some inspiration from the Marantz when it comes to the remote. This simple-to-use handset now sports a side-mounted button that activates a backlight, making it much easier to use in a dark home cinema room.

Features

Much like its predecessor, the AVR-X2900H offers seven channels of amplification, supporting up to a 5.1.2 or 7.1 surround sound system.

Denon claims that this amp can output 95W per channel into 8 ohms, or 125W into 6 ohms, although that’s with only two of the seven available channels driven. It hasn’t given an exact figure regarding what the power output is with all channels driven, but Denon reportedly guarantees at least 70 per cent of that power with five channels driven.

It’s worth noting that Denon has its fellow Japanese competitor beaten when it comes to power output (albeit not by much), as the Sony TA-AN1000 offers 120W into 6 ohms with two channels driven.

Internally, Denon has implemented an upgraded 32-bit eight-channel DAC architecture for “improved imaging, clearer high-frequency detail and more confident low-frequency energy across every channel”.

The X2900H has also inherited a set of redesigned power capacitors from the company’s higher-end models, while Denon claims that the addition of silicon steel plates aids more powerful low-end frequencies. It also reports that unwanted vibrations have been reduced thanks to a new transformer plate.

Audyssey MultEQ XT makes a return for straightforward room correction, including automated speaker level and distance settings. Denon has also added support for the basic version of Dirac Live Room Correction this year, although it’s an optional extra that requires additional equipment to set up.

Accessing the MultEQ XT calibration system is a breeze thanks to the intuitive high-definition on-screen interface. Being able to confidently adjust settings without having to peer at the modest onboard display makes things much easier, and this will be a godsend to home cinema novices who might be setting up an AVR for the first time.

In terms of connectivity, the AVR-X2900H sports six HDMI inputs, three of which support signals up to 8K resolution, and Denon has added 1440p video pass-through and AMD FreeSync this year for better PC gaming support. There are also dual HDMI outputs, one of which is HDMI eARC, while the other supports Zone 2 functionality.

Gaming is capped at 4K/120Hz, however, which will be frustrating for PC gamers with more capable rigs, and possibly those with modern OLED TVs that can reach 165Hz. Denon makes up for this by including support for Variable Refresh Rate (VRR), which the PS5 and Xbox Series X and S both support, and Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM) and Quick Frame Transport (QFT) are both on board to reduce latency.

There’s also support for both HDR10+ and Dolby Vision, alongside HDR10 and HLG, meaning the X2900H should pass video through to your TV or projector nicely regardless of the make or model.

Wired connectivity extends beyond your TV or projector too, as there is a moving magnet phono input included for hooking up a turntable; ideal for those who are looking for an all-in-one AV and hi-fi amplifier.

Wireless connectivity is also solid, with streaming supported over wi-fi, AirPlay 2 and Bluetooth. Denon’s HEOS platform is also on board, which grants access to countless music streaming apps, including Spotify, Tidal, Qobuz, Amazon Music HD, TuneIn and Deezer.

HEOS also supports multi-room playback, meaning you can tie this AVR into a wider Denon speaker set-up if you have the brand’s wireless speakers dotted around your house. Interestingly, Denon also plans to release a software update that will allow users to use said wireless speakers as wireless surround channels for extra functionality.

Sound

Actually, Denon has two sets of oversized shoes to fill. The Denon AVR-X2800H has just ended an impressive run as both a previous What Hi-Fi? Award-winner, and as a longstanding entry on our best AV receivers list, while the Sony TA-AN1000’s reputation speaks for itself.

We’ve hooked the Denon AVR-X2900H up to our reference PMC speaker package, trying it in both a 5.1.2 and a 7.1 configuration, and we’ve raided our 4K reference library

The Denon DNA is immediately apparent when we fire up Civil War. The military base sequence in Charlottesville is a perfect exhibition of the X2900H’s strengths; this amplifier can provide a broad, bold and weighty cinematic audio experience with ease.

The general bustle of the military camp is presented with a broad, spacious sound, while the grumbling engines of trucks and the meaty rhythmic chopping of helicopter blades are realised with an appreciated sense of heft.

Sonic subtleties aren’t sacrificed entirely for brawn here, though. There is still plenty of detail to be gleaned from the X2900H, such as rippling water and the faint chirping of birds during the conversation between Lee and Jessie.

Its warmth and richness leave the Sony feeling slightly thin in comparison, and that’s paired with a sense of space and openness that ensures the Denon presents a cinematic sound that truly envelops us.

This becomes more apparent when we switch to Marvel’s Thunderbolts, as the surround sound effect feels more cohesive compared with the Award-winning Sony.

Sound travels more fluidly between the front and surround channels; a particularly striking example of this is when a smoke grenade deploys, and the sound of smoke filling the room flows to reach all channels in our surround sound system.

The Denon also proves to be a dab hand at music. That rich, warm and smooth nature that we’ve already pointed out is well-suited to stereo content in Pure Direct.

Kacey Musgraves’ Butterflies features a superbly textured guitar melody and sweet-sounding vocals, while Bad Bunny’s NUEVAYoL takes advantage of the amplifier’s excellent sense of space to balance the rhythmic drumming, brass elements, electronic instrumentation, and range of vocal effects. In many ways, the Denon does more to draw us into the music than its Sony competitor.

However, it’s not all perfect. The Denon can lean into what we’d call over-indulgence at times. The immediacy and agility of the Sony result in a much more exciting presentation during tense moments such as the Thunderbolts sequence mentioned above. Its snappier, crisper and more direct sound also makes everything – especially dialogue – sound more natural.

Those warm, smooth and rich characteristics of the Denon that we’ve praised are sometimes taken a touch too far, resulting in somewhat dull-sounding vocals, and sudden dynamic shifts (think gunshots or explosions) don’t hit quite as hard as we’d like them to.

This takes us neatly onto the bass performance. Denon has clearly tried to one-up its competitor by raising the bass performance on the X2900H, and we certainly can’t deny that there is more low-end this time around.

Playing the famously challenging Blade Runner 2049 chapter two sequence, the X2900H digs deep and throws out swathes of bold bass. In many ways, Denon should be commended for how it's squeezed this much low-end power out of such a modest amplifier, but it also seems to have missed the point in doing so.

While there is more bass than we know what to do with, and it’s also polite enough to avoid distortion, it unfortunately also lacks definition, tonal variation, and dynamic expression. The rumbling drums in the soundtrack's Flight To The LAPD don’t build here in the way we expect, and it all feels one-note and ill-defined.

This ultimately impacts the steady building of tension in this sequence, and while the Sony doesn’t offer quite the same level of deep bass, its more deliberate handling of lower frequencies makes it the clear winner in this instance.

Verdict

The Denon AVR-X2900H is a feature-packed and, broadly speaking, very good-sounding home cinema amplifier.

It fills in a few sonic shortcomings of its Sony competitor, though in doing so it also makes some of its own flaws more apparent. While we approve of its warm, encompassing sound, it is also lacking some agility, and Denon’s approach to bass has missed the mark.

Nevertheless, this is a genuinely likeable and user-friendly amplifier, so is well worth serious consideration.

SCORES

• Sound 4
• Features 5
• Design 4

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Best AV receivers: the top home cinema amplifiers we've tested

It's Home Cinema Week here at What Hi-Fi?, and to celebrate we've had a bevvy of themed reviews on speaker packages, AV receivers and more.

One of the most notable of those, however, might be the AWOL Vision Aetherion Max projector, now reduced to £3199 at Amazon.

It may not be cheap by UST standards, but considering the specifications involved and the overall performance, it really is a bit of a bargain.

And given how overall impressive it is, from its design to its features to the all-important picture and sound quality, it's sneaked right to the top of our list of UST favourites.

If you had any doubts about the abilities of the AWOL Vision Aetherion Max, here's a snippet from our recent review.

"The Aetherion Max’s picture quality isn’t just a big improvement over the already more than decent LTV-3500 that marks our only previous interaction with an AWOL Vision projector; it’s actually arguably the best picture quality we’ve ever seen from any UST projector. Or, at least, a UST projector selling for anything like as little as the Aetherion Max does," our AWOL Vision Aetherion Max review reads.

The projector is fantastically bright and contrast-rich even in ambient light, but it's in dark rooms that the Aetherion Max really shows how outstanding it is. Colours look even more vibrant, but crucially remain natural, balanced and full of subtle nuances and blends.

Its HDR Standard mode also somehow manages to deliver some of the deepest, most convincing blacks we’ve seen from any 3000-nit or brighter projector, all of which adds up to an endlessly watchable and immersive experience.

The Aetherion Max’s front-mounted speakers, too, are far better than you get built into most projectors, getting loud enough to create a cinematic presence even in large rooms but still retaining detail at high volumes. More bass than most projectors achieve is also on offer, though this does result in some straining under pressure.

Not to be outdone, the feature set is just as impressive. Its DLP optics are illuminated by a triple laser lighting system, for starters, with a claimed 3300 lumens of brightness and an image size of up to 200 inches.

Gamers are extremely well supported, with three HDMI ports that support VRR and reach 240Hz with Full HD (but not 4K) sources.

There's also support for all four current HDR standards, including the premium HDR10+ and Dolby Vision formats, a rarity in the projector world.

Given just how much is packed into the AWOL Vision Aetherion Max and how well it performs, its £3499 launch price was a bit of a miracle. And now our favourite UST is even cheaper, with a £300 discount at Amazon.

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Anyone remember their parents telling them the tale of the boy who cried wolf? I’d argue it’s one of the most important lessons I learned as a child.

Well, that and don’t steal raisins from Sophia – that led to an unfortunate incident in nursery, where I was given a tattoo on my left hand’s index finger after a biro from said classmate found its mark.

Why am I mentioning this now? I'm not sure about my raisin confession, but the cry wolf part is relevant to this article, because it applies to my recent experience speaking to big-name companies to check what's going on with 8K TVs for this year's special Home Cinema Week event. Sadly, it's not good news.

“We can’t comment on this.”

“No updates right now.”

“We have no plans or updates to share for the technology.”

"While 8K represents a significant technological milestone, its broader adoption will depend on the continued evolution of content and distribution ecosystems."

Getting a vibe from the responses yet? I certainly did.

Full transparency, I’m not that fussed about 8K yet, due to the ongoing lack of content mastered at the resolution.

But the cold fish reaction to the tech in 2026 does leave a bit of a sour taste in the mouth, given how hard some firms were pushing 8K to “enthusiasts” who wanted a future-proof set, even a few years ago.

To catch readers up, 8K is an upgraded resolution that delivers four times the pixel density of 4K – 7680 × 4320 pixels (approx. 33.2 million total pixels) to 4K’s 3840 × 2160 pixels (approx. 8.3 million total pixels) to be precise. Samsung started making noise about the resolution being a big deal in the early 2010s and went on to vocally describe it as the future right up to the 2020s.

And since 2018, it, in fairness, has made 8K TVs, in many ways putting its money where its mouth is. One of them, the 2024 Samsung QN900D, even won a What Hi-Fi? Award after earning five stars from our reviewers.

LG and Sony also briefly got in on the action. LG offered three generations of 8K Z-series OLED TVs and Sony the 2022 Z9K 8K Mini LED – though both LG and Sony have since unceremoniously exited the 8K market, leaving Samsung largely unchallenged.

Why the sour taste? Because, truthfully, I know some readers, and one friend with more money than sense, have invested in 8K sets, viewing them as a future-proof purchase, as the marketing at the time suggested.

So now the firms have suddenly turned cold on it and no longer want to speak about it at all, I can’t help but feel a minor grump growing on their behalf and that they're guilty of crying wolf on it being the future; and losing some trust in the process.

This is especially true in 2026 as there are so many other “future of TV” technologies appearing right now. On the panel front, numerous companies are pushing RGB Mini LED as the future and the “OLED-killer” we’ve been waiting for. Though, based on our review of the Sony Bravia 7 II and Bravia 9 II, the team and I are not quite convinced of that yet.

Or there’s Dolby Vision 2, another new “future of home cinema” bit of tech firms seem to be pushing as an essential “future-proof” feature you need to have on your next TV – despite the lack of any content mastered in it.

Sound similar to 8K? Though there are companies confirmed to be making content with Dolby Vision 2 tech, it’s hard not to see at least some similarities. And because of that, I can’t help but think the response is a bit disappointing with 8K and a key reminder that marketing and sales teams aren’t on your side.

Just because a company wants to sell you a fancy new feature as the most important thing ever doesn’t mean it is.

We’ve seen that many times before. And with Samsung the only big player making 8K TVs, you have to wonder, is it destined to be sent to the same farm as 3D and curved TVs? It’s not looking good right now, though I hope to be proven wrong – at the very least for the sake of the readers and my friend who drank the Kool-Aid.

Fingers crossed the silence is because they have a huge 8K announcement coming, and don’t want to spoil the surprise…

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There are so many video streaming services available at the moment that it’s becoming increasingly hard to keep track.

You’ve got your established big-hitters such as Netflix, Disney Plus and Amazon Prime Video dominating the crowded streaming-sphere, while recent years have seen plucky upstarts in the shape of Apple TV and Paramount Plus trying to muscle in on the action.

Then there are the more obscure or niche players, such as animation-focused Crunchyroll, free service Tubi and reality-heavy Peacock all picking up viewers where they can. Even ITV has its own platform, ITVX, which costs a not-insubstantial £6 a month if you want the Premium version. That's the price you pay to watch Love Island ad-free, I suppose.

Thank goodness music streaming doesn’t work in the same way. Imagine having to subscribe to Tidal to get all of your favourite hits from the 1960s, only to discover that The Beatles have signed an exclusive deal with Apple Music. Now that’s a dystopian future.

Content and choice abound like never before, so surely there’s no more space for another player in a market more crowded than a tin of salty sardines? Surely we’ve got enough streaming services to last a lifetime?

Why HBO Max?

Incorrect.

There’s still space in the tin for at least one more oily fish (metaphorically speaking), and it comes in the form of HBO Max, the dedicated platform of the feted network that, in many ways, carved the way for the prestige television boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

HBO Max arrived in the US back in 2020, but only landed on UK shores earlier this year, and the new service's accompanying sales pitch was hard to resist.

Despite my many failings, I’m not, in my own mind at least, an insatiable streaming fiend. I subscribe to the cheapest tier of Disney Plus (sorry, picture quality fans) and have Amazon Prime Video on hand as part of my overall Prime subscription.

I’ve dabbled with Netflix and a free trial of Paramount Plus, but in truth, I spend more time gaming or, say it quietly, in the great outdoors than I do bingeing quality content. I only really got Disney Plus for The Simpsons, and it was worth every penny.

Yet even with my relative streaming ambivalence and the clear saturation of a bursting market, the arrival of HBO Max couldn’t help but pique my interest. This is the network that gave the world The Sopranos, The Wire and Deadwood, alongside countless other prestige shows that have essentially helped to define the Western cultural landscape over the past 30 or so years.

The arrival in the UK of a dedicated platform for said shows, plus quite a lot more, is a big deal. I had to see what was what.

First impressions

Before you dive into the world of the Home Box Office, you’ll need to decide on which version of the service you’ll want to subscribe to.

As is the case with most major players these days, you’ve got a slightly bewildering array of tiers from which to choose, from a bare-bones, ads-included plan costing around £6 a month to a TNT Sports package offering football, rugby, tennis and more in Full HD quality for around £30 per month.

If you want the best quality, you’ll need to go Premium to get access to 4K UHD and Dolby Atmos sound. I’m only dipping my toe at the moment, so it’s the cheapo standard-with-ads tier for me. Don’t judge me; we’re in a de facto global recession.

The number of permutations is considerable, something you can take as a positive or a negative: more consumer choice, or too many options designed to confuse and befuddle you right out of the gate?

Once you’re in, it’s time to navigate your profile and see what’s what. And what’s what is quite a lot, if you follow my meaning. HBO Max is laid out like pretty much any other major rival, with an array of alluring picture tiles subdivided into rows grouped together by category.

There’s a desktop version and a companion app, both of which work in broadly the same fashion, with a spotlight on the best series at the top, and then lots of those categorical rows interspersed with genre-themed collections – the ‘World of Westeros’, for example, or all things Harry Potter.

A Maxed out catalogue

What’s gratifying about HBO Max is that it appears, like a perfectly risen soufflé, to have emerged fully formed from the metaphorical oven.

We’ve criticised newer services that were keen to catch up with the established pack for being a bit lean at the outset – Apple TV took a while before it felt like a fully fledged service with a stacked catalogue of content – but nothing about HBO’s effort feels sparse or half-baked.

Perhaps that’s no surprise given HBO’s longstanding history and the fact that the US platform has been around for a good while already.

Having Warner Brothers as your parent company doesn’t hurt, either. HBO Max is, as you’d expect, extremely well serviced in the TV department, housing perennial classics ranging from The Wire to The Last of Us, but Warner Bros.’ extensive movie catalogue means you won’t be solely bingeing on series without ever sitting down for a cosy film night.

Dune, John Wick, One Battle After Another, The Lord of the Rings trilogy; it's a really decent collection that spans a variety of genres and time periods. Let’s not forget that Warner Bros. also owns the rights to DC Comics, so an extensive catalogue of superhero fare – from The Dark Knight to Wonder Woman – scratches that particular itch.

It would take too long to list every one of the hundreds of movies ready to be plucked from HBO Max's digital shelves, but when you've got The Big Lebowski, the Indiana Jones series, most of Christopher Nolan's repertoire, Whiplash, Leon, The Shining, The Shawshank Redemption and countless other big hitters to brag about, you're in a pretty good place.

Mind the gaps

No one streaming platform can do it all, of course.

HBO’s fresh-faced competitor also grants access to a collection of shows from Adult Swim, the adult-oriented content ‘block’ of Cartoon Network which gave the world the likes of Rick and Morty, Robot Chicken and The Boondocks.

This sort of thing is very much up my street, but I’ve been slightly disappointed to discover that there are serious gaps in the Adult Swim catalogue that have left some of the channel’s more obscure gems to be omitted from the roster.

The inclusion of The Eric Andre Show, Metalocalypse, and Samurai Jack represents a huge boon, but where are the cult classics for proper nerds like me? Where are Sealab 2021, Frisky Dingo, Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law, The Venture Bros., and Space Ghost Coast to Coast? Where oh where is Aqua Teen Hunger Force? Where are the classics?

A dearth of niche cartoons for regressive geeks isn’t HBO Max’s only blind spot. There’s a distinct lack of trailblazing documentaries to be found, and while there are plenty of behind-the-scenes tie-ins tethered to flagship shows, such as The House That Dragons Built accompanying House of the Dragon and Finding Harry accompanying HBO’s headline-grabbing take on Harry Potter, great standalones feel harder to come by.

Grim true crime slogs and celebrity exposés abound, but if you want groundbreaking nature documentaries, it’s best to head over to the BBC iPlayer or seek out Disney Plus and its National Geographic license instead.

Usability bugs can also temper one’s affections for what remains an unquestionably deep and impressive service. It’s not happened to me too often, but there have been multiple user reports of bugs and glitches, or the service just freezing entirely, when using the dedicated mobile app or the desktop version.

Also note that if you're rocking a more basic subscription, you might not get immediate access to some of the newer movies that have come to HBO Max.

According to the official website, "customers who get the HBO Max Basic with Ads plan through their provider can purchase the HBO Max Standard with Ads Upgrade for £1 per month" to get earlier movie access. Yet another layer of confusion, then.

A whole new world

HBO Max isn't perfect – no video streaming service is – but it's pretty darned good.

The streaming catalogue is rich and extensive, the variety of content is impressive, the usability, for me at least, has been relatively seamless, and the price isn't prohibitive if you're willing to do without the luxuries of high-definition and Dolby Atmos sound. Dealbreakers for some, but for me, not huge issues.

The real treat of HBO Max has been discovering the shows and movies that were hitherto completely out of my reach. I grew up in a time when access to many of HBO's back catalogue required a subscription to Sky and the installation of an accompanying satellite dish, the latter of which wouldn't pick up a signal in my rural corner of leafy Hertfordshire.

Yet in this world of purely online streaming, having the door unlocked to the likes of Game of Thrones, The Wire, The Sopranos, Succession and Oz represents a major coup, while shows that were hitherto stranded on obscure sites, such as DC's Doom Patrol, can finally be enjoyed by a far more mainstream audience.

Fledgling services can often promise so much yet deliver so little, granting a fun but impermanent distraction before you scurry back to the comfort of more complete alternatives.

Yet with HBO Max, no such urge arises. This is a fully formed, remarkably comprehensive rival to the major players on the market, one that, if it can smooth out some usability issues and continue adding to its already impressive collection of content, could seriously trouble the biggest dogs on the block.

HBO Max is here to stay, and from what I've seen, Netflix, Disney and Amazon should be seriously worried.

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It's Home Cinema Week here at What Hi-Fi?, which, as you would expect, has seen a lot of coverage of speaker packages, Dolby Atmos soundbars, 4K projectors and plenty of other good stuff.

But, as TV & AV Editor Tom Parsons has already written, home cinema in 2026 means much more than the usual screen-and-sound living room setup, and while traditionalists may deem this blasphemy, there's another increasingly popular way to enjoy movies at home: VR.

While most VR headsets will struggle to match the quality of a good home cinema setup, the technology is getting better all the time, and offers immersion and flexibility that most TVs can only dream of.

As the proud owner of a VR headset – the Meta Quest 2, to be precise, following a lockdown-era impulse buy – I've been hunted by virtual reality zombies and even braved the horrors of Among Us VR, but I've never once dabbled in its home cinema capabilities.

Until now. For Home Cinema Week, I have been exploring the possibilities afforded to us by VR home cinema, including the many headsets, apps and viewing experiences on offer.

It's a brave new world for home cinema – let's take a look at cinema in a whole new reality.

VR home cinema: the headsets

To explore the possibilities of VR, you will, of course, need a VR headset.

Luckily, there are several choices when it comes to VR headsets these days, from the relatively affordable to the super-premium.

Standalone VR headsets

The most accessible and most common consumer VR headsets are now standalone models.

The biggest selling point of these headsets is that they don't require a PC or console to work, so are completely wireless, which is of course rather convenient for relaxing and watching movies.

The standalone market is dominated by the Meta Quest series, currently made up of the Meta Quest 3 (£550 / $600 / AU$969) and a budget 3S model (£320 / $350 / AU$569).

Both have mixed reality modes, meaning you can watch a movie while still having full view of your living room, but the Quest 3 has a higher resolution at 2064 x 2208 per eye.

Other notable standalone options include the Pico 4 Ultra (£529 / AU$1299 / around $710), which has a smaller app store than the Quest 3 but a slightly higher resolution of 2160 x 2160, and the Apple Vision Pro.

With a starting price of £3499 / $3699 / AU$6299, the Vision Pro is most certainly a premium option, but with dual micro-OLED 4K displays, it's also the most technically gifted option in the standalone category.

Tethered headsets

As the name suggests, tethered VR headsets require a console or PC to function, but benefit from the added power.

Key examples include the PlayStation VR2 (£400 / $399 / AU$650), which, of course, connects to your PS5 console through a single cable and offers an HDR OLED display with a resolution of 2000 x 2040 per panel.

For PC, there are more options. The Valve Index (£919 / $999 / around AU$1750) has long been a favourite for gamers and features a resolution of 1440x1600 per eye.

The more budget HP Reverb G2 (£520 / $599 / AU$999) boasts 4K resolution per eye, while the HTC Vive Pro 2 (£649 / $800 / AU$1999) goes one better with an incredible 5K resolution per eye if you have a powerful enough PC.

VR home cinema: the apps

So you've just got yourself a brand new futuristic VR headset. The question now is – how do you watch movies in glorious VR?

There's quite a range of options across the various app stores, from truly immersive, cinema-like experiences to clunky streamers. I've tried some of the biggest and best and given you my impressions below.

Dedicated Streaming Apps

The easiest way to watch movies on a VR headset is much like on a TV – use the dedicated streaming apps. Prime Video and Disney+ are available as native apps, though Netflix and other services are available to stream through the headset's browser or by connecting a PC.

I boot up both Prime Video and Disney+ on my Meta Quest 2, and other than the usual password typing faff, they're responsive and easy to use. They're rather basic in the world of VR cinema as they simply offer TV shows and movies with no other gimmicks, but they get the job done if you simply want to watch a movie.

As VR often excels at, it does feel like you're watching movies on a ridiculously large screen – a viewing of Avatar really does feel immersive, like a massive IMAX screen. However, while my headset is supposedly streaming in HD, the image on my Quest 2 does look somewhat blurry – the newer Quest 3 and other more powerful headsets should improve on this.

Newer headsets such as the Quest 3 also offer passthrough, allowing you a full view of the room around you while you watch your VR film. Nifty stuff.

Annoyingly, 3D movies – which could well be experiencing a second wind in VR – are exclusive to the Apple Vision Pro on Disney+, locking an impressive library of 3D films behind a rather pricey paywall.

A special mention should go to YouTube, which, while not a fully fledged streaming service, is rather well-optimised for VR. All the usual 2D videos are available to watch, as well as 'spatial' VR videos that let you move your head up to 360 degrees in some cases.

Football stadium tours, VR tourism, horror videos... there's a surprising amount of content, and it really feels like you're actually there.

Bigscreen VR

If you want to customise your viewing experience, watch with friends or even just socialise in a cinema lobby, Bigscreen VR offers an incredible amount of viewing options.

The big draw of Bigscreen VR is that you can now watch movies in a 100-foot, virtual cinema, complete with chairs, an aisle, and a huge cinema-esque screen. There are several themes available, from a 1980s cinema, a drive-in, a campfire or even a space station.

The traditionalist that I am, I chose the 'Grand Cinema' setting – it was a little eerie sitting in a huge cinema on my own, but it did recreate the immersive, magical movie-going experience in a way that living room setups can't quite match.

There's a social element, too, as you create an avatar and can invite your friends to your cinema for screenings. Or, if you're feeling particularly brave, you can join a public screening with others online.

Props are available too for a bit of fun – a free box of virtual popcorn was included in my screening, but it wasn't long before it spilt all over the virtual floor.

To complete the experience, there's an optional cinema lobby complete with movie posters, a ticket counter, various screening rooms and the chance to socialise with fellow VR movie-goers.

Watch options include native apps such as Prime Video and Disney+, but you can also watch local video files, connect to your PC or rent from select online stores. There were also a few 24/7 'channels' screening free content, but I have to say there was no one else in the virtual cinema for the Classic Doctor Who channel.

Skybox VR

If you're not watching in a group, then Skybox VR might be your go-to VR media player, especially if you're keen on watching high-quality files.

Skybox markets itself as VR media player that can play anything – including video files in formats such as AV1, MP4, MKV, MOV, TS, WEBM, 3D and VR. Its AirScreen technology also claims to stream videos wirelessly from your PC to your VR headset without a loss of quality.

Now my PC isn't home to the most high-resolution of files, but Skybox nonetheless played back video content with impressive sharpness.

There are no social options on Skybox, but virtual cinema environments are once again on offer, complete with wacky options should you wish.

If you have a lot of movies stored on your PC and are keen to watch them alone in the best quality, then Skybox might be for you.

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LG has announced a new picture mode for its TVs. Creator Original Picture Mode is described as an "industry-first picture setting for streaming", and essentially lets the filmmakers decide exactly how the picture should look. Think of it as a step on from Filmmaker Mode.

Because while Filmmaker Mode disables post-processing enhancements for a truer picture, the new mode lets the filmmakers decide parameters such as shadow detail, colour balance, noise reduction and motion handling. These will differ for each film, allowing content creators to have their movies look exactly as they would like.

At least, we think that's how it works. We have a few questions, and have contacted LG for answers – we'll update this story once we've heard back.

The mode is exclusive to Prime Video (and possibly only the Masters Of The Universe reboot, but that's one of the many questions we have posed to LG). It's only available on LG's 2026 OLED evo TVs: that's the W6, G6 and C6 series.

You can also launch Masters Of The Universe by saying "I have the power" into your LG Magic Remote for LG TVs running webOS 23 or later.

Masters Of The Universe has a 67 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

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AWOL Vision might have only been around for six years (the blink of an eye by AV standards), but it’s already managed to cram an awful lot of progress into its short life.

As early as 2024, the brand was impressing us – without quite blowing our minds – with its LTV-3500 Pro ultra short throw model. And now, just two years later, the brand has massively upped the ante with the Aetherion Max.

This is another UST model, but the similarities with the LTV-3500 Pro pretty much end there. From its design through to its features and, most importantly, its picture and sound quality, it truly elevates AWOL Vision into the big leagues – all for a fraction of the price of its predecessor.

Price

Its steep price was arguably the Achilles heel of the LTV-3500 Pro, so it’s great to find the Aetherion Max selling for thousands of pounds (or dollars) less than that model – despite boasting a better design and an improved set of specifications and features.

There are, of course, UST models out there that cost much less than the Aetherion Max’s £3499 / $4499 / AU$6299 asking price – including the excellent Hisense PX3-Pro, which is now being discounted to as little as £1599 at some UK retailers.

If you’re able to afford £3499 for a projector, though, the Aetherion Max not only comfortably earns its extra cost but actually ends up feeling like a bargain.

Design

The Aetherion Max looks like a cross between an alien spaceship and a Robot Wars winner – in a good way.

At heart, it’s the usual UST projector low-slung rectangular shape with a recessed slit in the top where the light gets out, but that core design is embellished with a lovely metallic silver finish, a Battlestar Galactica Cylon-like blue illuminated strip running across the front edge that also sports a fetchingly designed speaker grille, and a host of false corners and angled panels that all catch the light differently, creating a strikingly futuristic, exaggerated 3D effect.

Eye-catching though the Aetherion Max is, its UST design means it’s still far less impactful on your room than a king-sized TV would be. We strongly suggest that such a premium projector be partnered with a good quality screen, but you can make this ‘disappear’ when you’re not watching it if you go for a retractable model that can roll back into its housing when you’re not using it.

As if by commercial magic, AWOL Vision actually sells its own impressive 100- and 120-inch ambient light rejecting motorised floor rising screens, with some dealers offering aggressively priced projector-plus-rising-screen package deals.

Having been sent a 120-inch screen with our Aetherion Max test sample, we can confirm that these are remarkably well built and effective screens for their money. They help images look substantially punchier and richer in bright rooms, while the screen’s black level performance holds up startlingly well in dark room set-ups too.

AV purists should note, though, that AWOL Vision’s screens use a 1.3 gain level, which is slightly higher than the neutral or 1.0 figures usually recommended for accurate dark room viewing.

The Aetherion Max is joined by a neatly designed remote control, complete with attractive and tactile metallic highlight elements, a clean and ergonomic button layout, and effective backlighting.

Features

AWOL Vision has equipped the Aetherion Max with a seriously impressive collection of facts and figures for its price.

Its DLP optics are illuminated by a triple laser lighting system, for starters, and this optical system is claimed to pump out both 3300 lumens of brightness and a colour range capable of covering the full BT.2020 spectrum.

That colour range is seldom really relevant to today’s content, though, which typically works within the smaller DCI-P3 range. Needless to say, 100 per cent coverage of the DCI-P3 gamut is promised, too.

A 7-level iris and an advanced black level enhancer algorithm are provided to try and maintain good contrast despite how bright the projector is, while owners of 3D Blu-ray discs will be pleased to hear that AWOL Vision’s latest projector supports 3D playback.

The Aetherion Max’s lens arrangement features so-called Sapphire glass elements that are made using an ultra-low dispersion design for enhanced sharpness, and coated with a Rare Earth material using a premium ‘planetary’ ultra-even coating process that’s claimed to boost light transmission, contrast and colour accuracy.

Backing up these hardware features is a PixelLock software solution that works to prevent pixel drift, where projected images can gradually lose focus over time due to changes in the projector’s optics or lens.

Unlike many of today’s ultra short throw and ‘lifestyle’ projectors, the Aetherion Max doesn’t carry a sophisticated automatic image installation system. The set-up features provided, though, are extensive and calibrated finely enough to make it possible to achieve perfect focus, geometry and corner-to-corner sharpness without having to work too hard.

The Aetherion Max joins the recently reviewed Valerion VisionMaster Pro 2 in sporting a new anti-rainbow effect technology. This manipulates the image’s refresh rate to reduce DLP projectors’ potential for red, green and blue stripes to flit over stand-out bright objects. The Aetherion Max’s Anti-RBE system works for 3D as well as 2D.

Gamers are extremely well supported by the Aetherion Max. Its HDMI ports support VRR and can stretch to 240Hz with Full HD (but not 4K) sources. We measure input lag at an excellent 9.7ms with 1080p/60Hz sources when the projector is set to its Game/PC preset, which drops to only just over 3ms at 240Hz.

These are fantastic results for a projector – though we should add that the refresh rate increases slightly to 12.0ms if you activate the projector’s AMD FreeSync VRR feature, and also increases to 15ms with 60Hz content if you forget to turn off the high frame rate feature you strangely have to manually activate to unlock higher frame rates.

The Aetherion Max carries three HDMIs – one more than many of its competitors – along with a USB-C DisplayPort you can use for connecting tablets or laptops, an S/PDIF digital audio output, an RS-232C control port, and a 3.5mm AV input.

ALLM support means the projector can automatically switch to its Game mode when a game source is detected, and its low-latency mode remains in play when you’re playing in Dolby Vision.

The only significant gaming limitation seems to be that using the AMD FreeSync version of VRR causes the Xbox Series X to default down to Full HD and SDR rather than 4K HDR.

We mentioned Dolby Vision HDR back there, but impressively the Aetherion Max also supports the rival HDR10+ format which, like Dolby Vision, passes extra signal information compatible displays can use to deliver more accurate picture results.

It’s still unusual for a projector to support even one of these advanced HDR formats, never mind both, so the Aetherion Max deserves major props for being able to play the best version of any content you feed it.

In fact, it even carries IMAX Enhanced certification, meaning it’s been deemed capable of getting the best from IMAX’s special mastering system.

As we’d expect to find with a UST projector, the Aetherion Max carries a built-in smart system. And as usual with projectors, that smart system comes courtesy of Google TV, accompanied by AirPlay 2, Chromecast and Miracast content sharing capabilities. As usual, though, the use of Google TV means there’s no BBC iPlayer support.

The Aetherion Max’s built-in sound system, finally, is impressively able to handle both the premium Dolby Atmos and DTS:X formats – and it does so with much more power at its disposal than your average projector. The two 25W full-range drivers and a pair of tweeters are driven by 25 and 20 watts of amplification, respectively.

Picture quality

The Aetherion Max’s picture quality isn’t just a big improvement over the already more than decent LTV-3500 that marks our only previous interaction with an AWOL Vision projector; it’s actually arguably the best picture quality we’ve ever seen from any UST projector. Or, at least, a UST projector selling for anything like as little as the Aetherion Max does.

Looking at it first in the relatively dynamic and bold presets (HDR Standard and Dolby Vision Bright) that showcase its more extreme capabilities, the projector delivers a fantastically vibrant, bright but also contrast-rich image that punches confidently through daytime living room levels of ambient light.

This is especially true if you’re using the optional AWOL Vision ALR screen mentioned earlier, but it still out-punches most UST rivals even using an essentially neutral screen.

While this bright room capability is likely to be very welcome to anyone in the market for a specifically UST projector, what really tips the Aetherion Max into outstanding territory is how well its picture charms hold up in a dark room setting. Colours look even more vibrant, and brightness for both full-screen and peak highlight image elements looks fantastically intense.

Crucially, though, the enhanced intensity the AWOL Vision delivers in dark rooms isn’t just eye-catching; it’s also endlessly watchable and immersive thanks to the way colours still look natural, balanced and full of subtle nuances and blends despite their vibrancy; the way the brightness doesn’t lead colours to start looking washed out; and the way the projector’s black colours and dark scenes still look compelling and convincing despite the brightness and colour punch they’re appearing alongside.

We need to dwell on this black level point more. After all, unlike premium TVs, the Aetherion Max doesn’t have any true hardware-based local light controls to draw on. Yet its image management is so impressive in its HDR Standard mode that it somehow manages to deliver some of the deepest, most convincing blacks we’ve seen from any 3000-nit or brighter projector, despite its price being far from outrageous by premium projector standards.

These impressive black levels are achieved naturally enough, too, to ensure the Aetherion Max can render stand-out bright objects without either dimming them down to maintain consistent black levels, or black levels slipping into heavy greyness to accommodate the bright object’s intensity.

As well as helping dark images look convincing, this sort of contrast consistency really helps you get lost in what you’re watching – something that should always be the ultimate goal of any display, regardless of how eye-poppingly extreme its on-paper specifications might be.

AWOL Vision’s HDR tone mapping is remarkably good for such an affordable high-spec projector. It consistently shows an excellent knack for delivering an unusually bold HDR image experience by projector standards without leaving the image looking strained or full of distracting over-exaggerations or imbalances.

While the Aetherion Max’s Standard mode imagery is so alluring that it may well become the only setting most households need, we’re very happy to discover that AWOL Vision’s projector seals its status as our UST projector of choice by also managing to turn its hand to accurate dark-room playback.

Whether you’re using the HDR Filmmaker Mode or Dolby Vision Dark settings, the projector does an excellent job of reining in its more extreme tendencies to deliver images that track creators’ intent without looking remotely lifeless and flat like they can on all too many rival projectors running in similar picture modes.

Images still look quite bright by projector Filmmaker Mode standards, for starters, and black levels look, if anything, slightly deeper without crushing out subtle shadow detailing or exposing noise in near-dark areas.

Colours still look balanced and nuanced too, even if saturations are slightly toned down for the most part, and detail levels are high without starting to look forensic or overly gritty.

Skin tones look even more nuanced and believable than they do in the HDR Standard and Dolby Vision Bright modes too, while motion avoids looking excessively juddery even with 24p sources without any potentially distracting side effects from the available multi-strength motion processing.

The Aetherion Max carries all the tools needed for a full ISF calibration if you’re willing to spend money to optimise the projector’s performance for your specific surroundings. AWOL Vision has shown such a fine understanding of both HDR and SDR images with its Filmmaker Mode and Dolby Vision Dark settings, though, that we really don’t think many owners will feel the need to go the extra ISF mile.

That’s not to say, though, that the Aetherion Max is perfect or doesn’t benefit from any intervention. For instance, bright highlights of HDR images can clip (lose shading and colour subtleties) quite strongly in Filmmaker Mode unless you turn off the Enhance Black Level feature. Yet doing that can cause black levels to look a little greyer.

The anti-rainbow-effect technology can cause the projector to output an extra whining sound, and at the time of writing is applied automatically to many of the projector’s presets. If the noise bothers you, you may find you need to turn to a setting that doesn’t have the feature active – so it’s handy that these settings tend to be the most movie night-friendly options.

Strangely, the Anti-RBE processing doesn’t seem as effective here as it did on the Valerion VisionMaster Pro Max. It does reduce the rainbow effect, but not as much – something that people who are particularly prone to seeing rainbowing might want to take note of.

The Dolby Vision Bright mode can generate a hint of shimmering effect over bright picture expanses, as well as introducing a mild green undertone to the image. This green undertone all but disappears in Dolby Vision Dark mode, though, helping it become one of our favourite out-of-the-box Dolby Vision projection options.

Even with its FreeSync VRR resolution and HDR limitation, the Aetherion Max is a fabulous big-screen gaming display.

It really is remarkably responsive for a projector, rivalling the best TVs for how quickly it seems to react to your controller or keyboard inputs. Its gaming images look crisp, punchy and vibrant, too, especially at the higher frame rates the projector can seamlessly handle.

Pro gamers may struggle with the time it takes to move their eyes around images as big as those the Aetherion Max is designed to deliver, but the projector’s silicon, at least, won’t cost such gamers many precious milliseconds of response time.

AWOL Vision provided a couple of pairs of its own DLP Link 3D glasses with the Aetherion Max – and we are mostly glad it did.

Early impressions of this projector had suggested that its 3D pictures might suffer from major crosstalk (ghosting) problems, but such issues seem to have been almost completely resolved with our sample. Its 3D images look impressively detailed and clean, in fact, with practically no crosstalk interference at all.

Judder can be a little distracting during 3D action scenes, but there isn’t any major flickering to worry about, and 3D images look brighter, more naturally coloured and richer in contrast – including excellent black levels – than they do on many 3D-capable rivals.

Sound quality

The Aetherion Max’s front-mounted speakers (where our description of front refers to the side of the projector that faces out into the room) are predictably far better than those you get built into most projectors.

They can get loud enough to create a cinematic presence in even quite large rooms, for starters, and they’re able to maintain impressive amounts of detail in a good movie mix even at near max volume levels.

More bass than many projectors can achieve is on hand to provide action movies with a good sense of weight and scale, and there’s enough headroom in the projector’s mid-range to allow the sound to shift up through a convincing number of gears as action and horror movie set pieces build to a climax.

Dialogue is usually clean without standing out too much from the rest of the mix, and expansive soundtracks are thrown clear of the projector very effectively, creating a soundstage so big it makes you forget that it’s being produced from the diminutive form of a UST projector.

There are a few limitations to its audio efforts, though.

Bass can become slightly strained and huffy under severe pressure, as well as sometimes struggling for timing with deep rhythmical/percussive effects.

Deep male voices can occasionally sound a little hummy/electronic too, and dialogue generally can sound as if it’s coming from below your screen, rather than being raised to the level of the onscreen action.

Finally, very high-pitched sounds can hit your ears a bit harshly at high volumes.

While these niggles explain why we’ve only given the Aetherion Max a score of four for sound, though, as we said at the start of this section, it still sounds much more immersive and cinematic than your average projector.

Verdict

While the AWOL Vision Aetherion Max isn’t cheap by today’s UST projector standards, it delivers a combination of specification and performance that ultimately makes it look like a bargain.

In fact, with the projector’s design, features, specs and picture and sound quality all given appropriate weight alongside its price, it’s sneaked right to the top of our current UST projector chart.

SCORES

• Picture 5
• Sound 4
• Features 4

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It's Home Cinema Week 2026 here at What Hi-Fi?, and we're celebrating our love for all things TV, projector and surround sound related.

One of our favourite TVs of the year has been the Samsung S99H, thanks to a stunning, contrast-rich picture and a feature set that blows most other TVs out of the water.

However, even the S99H lacks two key features found on LG's latest flagship, the G6: Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos Flexconnect. And the LG G6 is cheaper too – the 65-inch Samsung S99H is currently £2899, while the G6 is now down to £2564 at Richer Sounds.

That's quite the step down from the £3000 price we tested at! You can save even more if you're willing to claim cashback – purchase before 18th August and you can claim 10% (£256) cashback from LG. Full Ts&Cs are available here.

After a re-review of the LG following a major software update, we found the G6 to be an OLED of serious ability, as a viewing of Civil War next to its predecessor, the G5, showed.

"The flames in a burning night-time forest continue to offer an enthralling amount of extra detail as well as higher peaks, but, more crucially, characters’ skin tones look nicely realistic, retaining reds far better, to the point that the G5’s picture makes them look slightly jaundiced by comparison," our LG G6 review reads.

"Moving to a daytime scene in a military camp, "balanced" quickly becomes the word that best describes the G6. As a helicopter swoops into the camp over a forest, it's clear LG has backed away from its previous focus on aggressively pushing its TVs' peak brightness at all costs."

This picture quality comes courtesy of a Primary RGB Tandem OLED panel, which uses a ‘four-stack’ panel structure to help the OLED TV achieve higher peak and operating brightness levels while retaining colour volume and accuracy.

It's aided by a new Alpha 11 Gen 3 AI processor and its Hyper Radiant Colour Technology system, which enables higher peak brightness levels than the already dazzling LG G5.

Dolby Vision, HDR10 and HLG are all on board, though do note that HDR10+ is missing. We wouldn't worry too much though – Dolby Vision is far more widely adopted and supports a higher bit depth of up to 12-bit colour compared to HDR10+'s 10-bit standard.

Otherwise, the broader feature set is pretty much flawless. WebOS 26 supports pretty much every app you can think of, including Now, Apple TV, Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, and more niche streaming options.

LG has long been one of our go-to brands for gaming, and the G6 is no different. All four HDMI 2.1 inputs offer up to 4K/165Hz gameplay with VRR, ALLM, and Dolby Vision Gaming HDR all supported.

LG OLEDs have struggled with audio in the past, but the G6 is a step in the right direction. It won't beat a dedicated sound system, but the G6 offers a noticeably fuller, more robust sound than its predecessors.

There's also support for Dolby Atmos Flexconnect, which allows the TV to automatically connect to compatible speakers and use the G6's built-in speakers as the central channel of a surround sound package. It's still relatively new technology, giving the G6 an element of future-proofing.

If you're looking for a new, feature-packed OLED, then the LG G6 is a compelling option. It offers a nuanced, accurate and ultimately immersive experience complete with flawless gaming specifications, now with £436 off at Richer Sounds.

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2026 is quite the momentous year: not only is What Hi-Fi? celebrating its 50th birthday, but it's also 100 years since the TV was first invented by John Logie Baird in 1926.

The way TV technology (along with broadcast, film and smart features) has progressed over the past century is nothing short of astonishing: chunky CRT (cathode ray tube) TVs gave way to slimmer LCDs and then even slimmer OLEDs, while screen resolution has gone from cosy standard definition to widespread 4K to futuristic 8K.

We have seen the birth and death of plasma TV, while in 2001, What Hi-Fi? entered a new era of Sound and Vision to expand our coverage to TV/home cinema alongside hi-fi and audio. The 2000s also marked a historic time in broadcast TV as the UK switched from analogue to digital, and the introduction of Full HD resolution was a turning point in TV screen technology that paved the way for constant innovation and advancement in the 21st century.

The What Hi-Fi? review team has been at the forefront of all these technologies, and we've sifted through our magazine archives from the 2000s to today to find the very first instances of when a new TV format of the 21st century – Full HD, OLED, 3D, 4K, 8K and beyond – entered our test rooms to get the full review treatment.

They may not have been the best examples of each TV tech, but they were the very first of their kind to show off just what a new screen technology, format and resolution could offer.

NOTE: To read the full-size text of the magazine images below, click on the arrow sign on the bottom-left corner, and in some cases, further click on 'view original' at the bottom-right corner.

LCD 1080p: Sharp LC-45GD1E (2005)

In today's fast-paced world of constant cutting-edge technology, it's hard to imagine just how big a deal the advent of Full HD (1920 x 1080) resolution was.

Standard TV broadcast was a mere 720 x 576 resolution, and we were perfectly happy with that on the 25-/32-inch CRTs and widescreen LCD tellies that were popular throughout the 90s. Freeview's digital terrestrial service started in 2002 in the UK, while the first "high-definition" BBC HD and Sky HD channels launched in May 2006.

For the best part of the 2000s, most LCD and plasma TVs were 'HD-Ready'. These TVs' native resolution was 1280 x 720 (or 768), but they were able to accept 1080i/1080p videos, and would simply downscale the picture to fit the lower resolution screen.

The first flatscreen LCD TV we encountered with a native 1080p Full HD resolution was this Sharp LC-45GD1E in 2005. We said the picture looked "stunning" when fed Full HD video from a home cinema PC, and that it displayed "an extraordinary absence of noise and motion-smearing."

It was less successful when upscaling standard definition content – a contrast to how advanced upscaling tech has become when dealing with 8K TVs (see below) – and we said cheaper, smaller 42-inch plasma TVs coped better here.

The Sharp's higher resolution came at a premium – £5500 for a 45-inch LCD TV! – so we deemed it more for the "connoisseur" rather than an "everyday TV." Besides, it really needed Full HD content to look its best, and that was hard to come by at the time.

Plasma 1080p: Pioneer PDP-5000EX (2006)

In the 2000s, plasma versus LCD was about as heated as, well, OLED versus LCD is today. Fujitsu launched the first commercial plasma TV in 1997, but it was the legendary Pioneer Kuro sets that everyone still remembers fondly as the peak of plasma screen technology.

Back in 2006, Pioneer was also the first to provide us with a plasma screen that finally did native Full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution. Despite us having already experienced Full HD resolution in LCD TVs, this Pioneer PDP-5000EX was the first set to offer "full 1080p compatibility... with the appropriate input interference" to accept Blu-ray and HD-DVD picture.

Our praise was effusive: "staggering picture quality", "this is the best plasma ever made", "this is what the telly looks like in heaven" – we weren't kidding when we said Full HD resolution wowed us in a way that we never thought possible.

With over two million pixels on screen, we found the definition "extraordinary". When fed 1080p content, the picture was "bright, sharp, colourful and consistently lustrous" and it also coped well with standard-def broadcasts.

Anyone wanting this premium new tech would have to cough up £7000 (a trend for every new TV technology, as we'll see below), but it showed just how revolutionary this new Full HD resolution was to the future of TV as we know it.

OLED: Sony XEL-1 (2008)

LCD and plasma TVs were widespread at the dawn of the new millennium, but a new panel technology – one that was close in spirit to the beloved plasma – was about to change the course of TVs forever.

Like plasma, OLED panels don't need a backlight. Instead, they use self-emissive organic light-emitting diodes that generate their own (white) light, which is put through a colour filter.

The advantage is that when an OLED pixel is turned off, it is truly off and therefore pitch-black. This results in perfect blacks without any hint of backlight bleeding through the image, superior contrast, and richer, punchier colours. Not needing an extra backlight panel meant OLED screens could be much thinner than LCD TVs, too.

The downsides are that the pixels have a limited shelf life due to their organic nature, they can't go quite as bright as LCDs, and at the beginning, larger screens weren't possible to produce due to the difficult nature of manufacturing these panels.

The Sony XEL-1 was the world's first OLED TV. It launched in 2007, with a screen size of just 11 inches and a depth of just 3mm. It boasted a high contrast ratio of 1,000,000:1, while the display resolution was a paltry 960 x 540.

We covered its launch news in the May 2008 issue, which looked at the next-gen TVs entering the market. In 2009, in "the next big thing" TV feature (fifth slide in gallery above), we learned of 21- and 27-inch prototypes of the Sony OLED, while the XEL-1 got even skinnier at just 0.9mm!

Sadly, we haven't been able to find any other coverage or review of this Sony XEL-1 in our magazine archives. It would be a good few years yet before a full-size, full-production OLED TV hit our test rooms, while Sony finally entered the OLED market proper with the stunning A1 (KD-55A1) OLED TV in 2017.

3D TV: Samsung UE40C7000 (2010)

3D wasn't a new technology by any means in 2010. Cinemagoers had been experiencing it since before the television was even invented, with 1922's silent feature The Power Of Love widely considered to be the first commercially released 3D film, shown at the Ambassador Hotel Theater in Los Angeles.

Why would anyone want to watch 3D films at home, while wearing bulky glasses that needed charging? Was it headache-inducing or was it an immersive experience for films and gaming? The jury was split when we tested Samsung's UE40C7000, the first 3D TV to hit the What Hi-Fi? test rooms.

You needed a 3D disc and a Blu-ray player compatible with the format to make the picture (Samsung's own BD-C6900 3D player and a 3D Blu-ray of Monsters vs Aliens, in this case), but it did offer a genuine "depth of field" that was suitably three-dimensional.

If you didn't care about 3D at all, however, then the Samsung UE40C7000 was also a very fine TV in its own right. Across terrestrial TV, DVD and Blu-ray, this 40-inch LCD TV delivered "epic levels of detail", with a subtle colour palette that handled skin tones particularly well. Motion handling was impressively smooth, and the edge-lit LED backlighting balanced black levels, highlights and details well.

An "overall impression of unshakeable solidity" is high praise indeed for this five-star 3D TV.

Read the full review: Samsung UE40C7000

4K LCD TV: Toshiba 55ZL2 (2012)

The Toshiba 55ZL2 made headlines for being the first glasses-free 3D TV – that is, you wouldn't need to wear bulky active or passive 3D glasses to see the picture in three dimensions; the Toshiba's integrated camera and lens technology would track your eye movements and do the hard work for you!

It worked, but with caveats. The subtle depth of field was nice, it was less fatiguing on the eyes, and the picture didn't experience a drop in brightness as it did with 3D glasses. But the tech did require you to sit completely still; any fidgeting or movement would lead to a drop-off in focus, definition and 3D effect, which was less than ideal.

But who cares about 3D? Because the Toshiba 55ZL2 was also the very first 4K TV screen we tested, back when the new reality of "four times the resolution of Full HD/1080p" was still in its earliest stages.

There was no mainstream 4K content yet (and wouldn't be for a long, long time), but Toshiba's 4K picture hinted at what was to come. Fed some demo content of flowers, landscapes, and cityscapes from a hard drive, we said: "native 3840 x 2160 images look, frankly, astonishing. Detail levels are absolutely sky-high, and the most complex patterns remain steady and stable with the sort of casual efficiency that’s the mark of a properly effective device."

With Blu-ray and DVD films, the Toshiba TV's colour balance was "expertly judged", and we praised its black depth for being "excellent by the prevailing standards of LED-backlit LCD screens."

Costing £7000, the cutting-edge 55ZL2 was considerably more expensive than your standard Full HD 55-inch TV at the time, but nowhere near as expensive as the £25,000 84-inch Sony 4K and LG 4K LCD TVs that would hit the market later that same year.

For actual 4K content, we had to wait for another three years: in August 2015, BT Sport Ultra HD launched as the UK's first 4K channel, while the first few 4K Blu-ray discs hit the market in 2016.

Read the full review: Toshiba 55ZL2

Curved OLED: Samsung KE55S9C (2013)

Curved OLED TVs were a short-lived fad, not helped by the fact that you couldn't wall-mount them, viewing angles weren't great for anyone not sitting dead centre of the screen, and the early models quickly became outdated as they didn't support the upcoming 4K resolution.

But the Samsung KE55S9C is notable not for its curved screen, but because it was actually our first time seeing the OLED panel technology on a large screen beyond a mere 11 inches.

As with 3D, the test team argued about the curved screen continuously. Some found it a "distracting gimmick" as the picture distorted according to the curvature when viewing it from the side, while others (those sitting dead centre) found the curve led to greater immersion.

The frame surrounding the 55-inch screen also served as a (rather large) stand, and it was more curved than the screen itself, adding to the illusion. "That curve" was listed as both a Pro and a Con in our review.

What we all agreed on, though, was that OLED looked stunning, handling contrast far better than any LCD TV we had seen. "Dark scenes are some of the deepest and blackest we’ve seen, genuinely resembling the absence of light," we enthused, even if we would have liked subtler shading and variation in the extremes. Colours were rich and vibrant, while the picture was also crisp and clear.

Did we recommend it? Its "prohibitively expensive" £7000 price tag was three times that of our favourite 55-inch plasma at the time, and we can't imagine most people beyond early adopters took the plunge.

We didn't "really understand why we’re seeing curved OLED sets before flat ones" either, but it did point to an exciting future for OLED TVs.

Read the full review: Samsung KE55S9C

4K OLED: LG 55EG960V (2015)

We never tested the £10,000 LG 55EM970V OLED that first arrived in the UK in 2013, but in 2015 we did finally get to test a TV that combined two picture technologies we had been waiting on for years: 4K Ultra HD resolution and OLED.

And the LG 55EG960V was "everything we hoped it would be", delivering the two new technologies with "spectacular results" in a living room-friendly 55-inch screen size. The intensely pitch-dark blacks contrast brilliantly against bright whites, while the 8.3 million pixels on screen were delivered with crystal-clear and precise detail.

"The depth of colours is breathtaking. They aren’t just richer, there are simply more precise shades of them on the screen, giving a wonderfully vivid feel to the picture," we said. There were more subtleties revealed in the deep blacks than before, and while upscaling standard definition content was a little fuzzy around the edges, it was still a punchy picture.

Yes, it was also gently curved (but you could wall-mount it), it did convincing 3D, and its thin screen with floating effect looked rather "gorgeous", too. It was still more expensive than equivalent LCD sets, so we couldn't yet definitely say that OLED was better and better-value.

We can now, though, as OLED has gone from strength to strength and become more affordable in the past decade, delivering even more impressive picture quality with greater subtlety and accuracy alongside unrivalled deep blacks and punchy contrast – from the wildly popular and affordable LG C5 to our TV & AV Editor Tom Parsons' current favourite, the Sony Bravia 8 II.

Read the full review: LG 55EG960V

8K: Samsung QE85Q900R 8K QLED (2018)

Unlike the world of hi-fi, TV manufacturers are in a constant state of innovation and of pushing the boundaries of screen technology. It took ages for 4K UHD broadcasts, streams and discs to become a reality since the first time the screen tech was proposed, but it wasn't long after that 8K was being touted as "the next big thing."

Samsung got there first, with the QE85Q900R 8K QLED hitting our test rooms in 2018. The LED-backlit quantum dot screen (Samsung was still staunchly against using OLED then) had a mind-blowing 33 million pixels to 4K's eight, with this mammoth 85-inch set offering "the same pixel density (104ppi) as a 43-inch 4K model".

4K has pretty high resolution, but if you sit too close to the screen, you can start to see the individual pixels. The advantage of 8K was that you could sit as close to the screen as you want – we sat even a foot away – and still not see any pixels. With native 8K content provided by Samsung, it looked fabulous.

"Predictably, it’s all about sharpness and detail. The image is unbelievably lifelike, and draws you in to an extent that 4K simply can’t match. Naturally, it’s helped by the sheer scale of the 85-inch display – this is cinematic and then some."

The AI-based upscaling technology was almost as impressive, as it had to effectively "make up" so much of the picture on screen when watching 4K, Full HD or DVD content, which was sharp and detailed with no discernible "artefacts, shimmer or noise".

The problems? It's 85-bloody-inches massive, and black levels simply weren't deep enough, with backlight blooming issues pervading the screen.

Also, there was no actual 8K content and, eight years on, there still isn't any. 8K resolution remains an impressive technical feat, but without the practical availability of broadcasts or films (the sheer size of the file/disc needed to accommodate those 33 million pixels doesn't bear thinking), it's unlikely to overtake 4K resolution in the home in the foreseeable future.

Read the full review: Samsung QE85Q900R 8K QLED

Micro LED: Samsung 75-inch Micro LED 4K TV (2019)

While arch-rival LG was leading the way with OLED during the 2010s, Samsung was staunchly working on advancing LED-backlit LCD panel technology, such as its Quantum Dot Mini LED display.

In 2018, though, the brand veered away from LCD in spectacular fashion, with Micro LED, which made its debut at CES in Las Vegas that January.

Micro LED uses tiny, non-organic self-emitting diodes for each pixel, so it's capable of producing the perfect blacks we love from OLED, while also theoretically delivering brighter images, greater colour control, and a longer lifespan of 100,000 hours (just over 11 years of constant use).

Thanks to its modular architecture (each Micro LED screen is constructed using a number of small modules arranged in a grid pattern), these early Micro LED TVs could span huge sizes. They could be even thinner than OLED, too, and their inorganic nature meant they could be left on permanently – great for commercial purposes.

Since then, non-modular, more typical TV-style Micro LED screens have been produced by Samsung, but prices have remained staunchly sky-high – the 146-inch 4K version of Samsung's The Wall Micro LED TV will set you back an eye-watering £199,999 in the UK. Needless to say, both production and adoption of Micro LED haven't been widespread beyond B2B applications.

We did get to see a 75-inch Samsung 4K Micro LED model in 2019, and it gave us an insight into the complexity of its manufacturing process, as well as a taste of its potential picture quality.

The demo footage we saw gave us an impression of "stunningly punchy and vibrant image with truly exceptional colours. Everything looks real and life-like to an extent we've genuinely not experienced before."

"Perfect" bright whites contrast against "perfect" black backgrounds, while there is subtlety amongst the colours too, and viewing angles remain consistent no matter where we were in the room.

Micro LED TVs might well be the true successor to OLED, but even now, they're hard to get hold of at any sensible size, and they're well beyond the means of most people who aren't Premier League footballers.

Read the full hands-on review: Samsung 75-inch Micro LED 4K TV

RGB Mini LED: Hisense UR9 (2026)

With Micro LED parked, TV manufacturers have focused on advancing the backlight quality of LCD TVs, and so RGB Mini LED is the current TV technology du jour.

Unlike conventional Mini LED TVs that use a white backlight shining through a colour filter layer, RGB Mini LED uses independent red, green and blue Mini LEDs to generate colour directly. The result? Brighter pictures and more accurate colour reproduction.

Does that make RGB Mini LED an OLED-killer?

Not quite, at least not yet. Hisense led the charge here, with the Hisense UR9 (65UR9STUK) being the first RGB Mini LED we tested earlier this year, ahead of Sony's recent Bravia 9 II effort. The Hisense UR9 showcases a stable, consistent and controlled picture, with none of the flickering or shifting behaviour we find distracting on traditional backlit TVs. Subtle blooming effects are nicely controlled, too.

We praised the Hisense RBG Mini LED TV's ability to display "consistently strong" black depth, noting "impressive richness and stability to colours", while extra-bright HDR content is delivered with dazzling intensity.

It's impressive stuff for an LCD TV, but it still doesn't quite achieve the three-dimensional quality and solidity of a price-equivalent OLED screen. Deep black levels, subtle colour gradations and even the perception of bright whites against inky blacks are better reproduced on Sony's current best OLED TV.

"Despite its impressive local-dimming system," we said, "the Hisense simply cannot match the pixel-level contrast control of the Sony Bravia 8 II."

Read the full review: Hisense UR9 (65UR9STUK)

Over a decade on, and OLED still rules the roost when it comes to picture technology. Brands have also looked to advance OLED panel technology, with LG Display producing ever-brighter W-OLED panels and Samsung Display firing back with also-ever-brighter versions of its competing QD-OLED technology.

Considering how revolutionary Full HD felt in the 2000s – which was four times the resolution of standard def, which is the same jump in resolution between Full HD and 4K – it has been an astonishing rate of advancement for screen technology.

What will the next 50 years of TV look like? Considering the stunning picture quality available to us these days, it should look pretty darn spectacular.

MORE:

The best TVs of What Hi-Fi?'s lifetime

Our guide to the best TVs of 2026: flagship OLEDs and budget Mini LED sets tried and tested

22 of the best film scenes to test picture quality

How to optimise your 4K TV settings for Blu-ray, DVD and TV viewing

We're big fans of physical media here at What Hi-Fi?, but there is one rather big downside to hoarding it, as we do – how to store it.

While we love the idea of keeping all our Blu-rays and DVDs on show, that would take up a huge amount of space, which many of us simply don't have. Hence, lots of people turn to more space-efficient storage methods.

While a CD wallet will save you acres of shelf space, it could possibly damage your discs. Here's what you need to know and how to keep the shiny discs looking pristine.

How CD wallets can damage your discs

The issue concerns the plastic sleeves into which you slide your DVDs and Blu-rays.

The very act of sliding your disc into one of these sleeves can cause fine scratches on the disc's surface, especially if the sleeve is tight. But that's not the only danger.

If these sleeves are made of a cheap plastic like PVC, they can melt in high temperatures, melding with your disc and damaging it irretrievably. These high temperatures are more likely if the disc wallet is left in a car in direct sun, but thanks to the increasing number of heatwaves we're experiencing, it could happen in the home as well.

But even if you're extremely careful with how you slide in your discs, and you keep your CD wallet somewhere nice and cool, it's still not completely free of risk. How you store the wallet could also damage your discs.

If you keep your CD wallet on its end, the weight of the discs will bear down on those at the bottom, which could, in time, cause those discs to warp. Not only will this warped disc fail to be read by your Blu-ray player, it could also damage your player's spinning mechanism. Which isn't ideal.

How to store your discs safely

So what can you do? Thankfully, there are some pretty simple steps you can take to future-proof your Blu-rays and DVDs.

The safest option is to keep them in their original packaging, but if you want to save space, invest in a disc wallet whose sleeves are made from a soft, forgiving material like polypropylene, polyethene, felt, microfibre or netting. This will help prevent your delicate discs from picking up scratches while they're being slid in or out of the sleeves.

To avoid heat extremes, keep the sleeve out of direct sunlight, and don't take it anywhere in your car during the hotter months, unless you have extremely effective air conditioning. And definitely don't leave your CD wallet – or your money wallet, for that matter – in your car.

While it might be more convenient to store your wallet lying down, keeping it standing up will reduce the risk of any of your discs warping.

Follow these rules, and your discs should continue to give you much enjoyment for years to come and with no monthly fee. Take that, Netflix!

MORE:

Why I'll never give up my DVD collection

I never thought I’d see Netflix embrace physical media – but things are changing

Sony has waged war on physical media, and I think it’s terrible news for consumers and 4K Blu-ray alike

Nostalgia is a powerful force.

In the 50 years of What Hi-Fi?'s lifetime, we've seen the rise – and occasional fall – of several innovations, trends and fads, from Betamax to widescreen to, yes, 3D.

But are we looking back with rose-tinted 3D glasses? Are we, in fact, living in a golden era of home cinema, complete with perfect-black OLEDs, convenient HDMI eARC connections and affordable soundbar systems?

In honour of Home Cinema Week, I asked the What Hi-Fi? team what they thought about the matter. And it prompted quite the response, with some rather strong opinions popping up on both sides of the divide.

You can see their responses below – and feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments...

Yes – we are in a golden age of home cinema

While premium systems are still going to set you back a fair bit of cash, I still think this is a brilliant time to find a home cinema system if you are on a budget.

Of course, you are not going to get the same level of performance from an affordable TV screen compared to a model that costs thousands more. But the number of options out there for all price points feels like the best yet.

You can get a complete home cinema system for under £1000, which can include a bunch of five-star products that have performed brilliantly in our test room. For instance, the 50-inch TCL C6KS is available for about £429. The budget 4K model offers excellent brightness and contrast, and is an absolute bargain for the money. You could pair that with the Sonos Beam Gen 2 soundbar (£449) to upgrade the TV’s audio performance, delivering impressive Dolby Atmos effects and expressive vocals.

Budget systems might not suit everyone, but it’s great to see home cinema becoming more and more accessible.

I think it's incredibly hard to argue that we're not in a golden age of home cinema.

Home cinema has never been more accessible, whether in terms of price or practicality. At the same time, technologies such as Dolby Atmos and increasingly sophisticated room optimisation have made genuinely immersive sound achievable in spaces that simply wouldn't have supported it a decade ago.

All of this means that someone with a small budget and equally small and/or misshapen room can add an inexpensive, compact soundbar to their TV and find themselves audibly transported to the world of their movie, TV show or video game.

These days, you can even do this via certain tablet/phone and headphone combinations.

Of course, my argument depends on your definition of home cinema including soundbars, headphones and the like, which mine very much does, but even if yours doesn’t, the quality of ‘true’ home cinema has never been higher, either.

Sure, competitors in the AVR market have dwindled somewhat of late, but this hasn’t hindered quality, with Denon and Sony offering awesome entry-level models, Denon and Marantz producing the most feature-packed and user-friendly high-end models we’ve ever reviewed, Arcam and JBL producing uncompromising premium alternatives, and the likes of Anthem and McIntosh catering for the custom install and luxury markets.

Away from sound, meanwhile, the projector market has exploded with designs of all shapes, sizes, prices and technologies. For only a few hundred pounds, you can now buy a projector capable of producing a surprisingly watchable 150-inch image, and thanks to ‘coffee table’ and UST models with increased brightness and adaptive technologies, a projector can now be a viable option for a typical living room as well as a dedicated light-controlled space.

Still not right for you? TVs 100 inches and larger are now readily available and in many cases surprisingly affordable, allowing for a projector-sized experience with typical television convenience.

Essentially, whether your idea of home cinema is a £300 soundbar, a dedicated projector room or a six-figure custom installation, the choice and performance on offer today are unlike anything we've seen before. If that's not a golden age, I don't know what is.

No – we are not in a golden age of home cinema

There are lots of arguments to support the idea we’re living in a golden age of home cinema. New giant TV panel technologies are boosting performance, and the arrival of amazing wireless surround sound systems makes it much easier to get decent audio in the comfort of your own home than ever before. The list goes on.

But for me, there’s one reason I don’t think it’s fair to call it a golden age: the cost of living crisis. Yes, we are seeing a lot of great new tech appear. But the truth is most people are struggling with the price of groceries. So the fact that £5000 projectors and £2000 surround sound systems are better than ever is a bit of a moot point for most of us. I’m a firm believer we could only call it a “golden age” when the benefits of a proper, big-screen home experience are more openly available to people with regular sized bank accounts.

Which, outside of a few rare exceptions, still isn’t the case. Look at our best projectors, or best TV guide, and you’ll still see a number of four-star products with the strap “best cheap”. That’s because, while we’re seeing lots of innovation, it’s yet to trickle down to the mid, let alone the affordable end of the market. Until it does, I’m going to belligerently stick to my guns and refuse to call it a golden age. We only succeed when we all succeed, after all.

Even if we do live in an era of accessible 4K TVs and Dolby Atmos soundbars, there's little point if people aren't able to use these features properly.

This is, of course, due to the rise of streaming. And while there are plenty of upsides to streaming – it is highly convenient after all, providing thousands of films and shows at our fingertips – the cracks are beginning to show. Exclusive content is disappearing forever, with no legal way to watch it anymore. More and more services are springing out of the woodwork, and there seem to be monthly price increases at this point, making costs exorbitant if you subscribe to even just a few streaming services at a time.

This is especially true if you go for the premium tier on each service for 4K streaming and Dolby Atmos, which is now £17.99 a month on Netflix alone. This does mean the overwhelming majority of people are likely watching on the middle or lower tiers, which cap out at HD and 5.1. And even if you do shell out for the premium tiers, it's still a step down from the quality of 4K Blu-ray discs thanks to lower bit depth and compression.

Which wouldn't be a problem if physical media were still accessible, but it's becoming increasingly harder to watch 4K Blu-rays. Sony and Panasonic are the two mainstream manufacturers still offering 4K Blu-ray players, and neither has released a brand-new player in years. And with Sony ending physical disc production for the PlayStation, it seems highly unlikely that the next generation of consoles will have disc drives for 4K Blu-rays, or any other form of physical media for that matter.

Even if our actual home cinema systems are getting better all the time, it's becoming increasingly harder to use them at their full potential. As good as upscaling is these days, it's entirely possible that the average household has not actually watched their 4K TV at that resolution, let alone made use of HDR and all the other home cinema technology.

MORE:

These are the best AV receivers you can buy right now

Check out the best Dolby Atmos soundbars

And here are the best projectors

We’ve tested Denon’s entry-level, mid-range, and premium AVRs in recent years, but it’s been quite some time since we reviewed the brand’s most top-of-the-range home cinema amplifier.

Now, we finally have our hands on the AVC-A1H.

This flagship amplifier promises superior cinematic sound accompanied by a long list of home cinema features, but that all comes at a considerable price.

The thinking here is that if Denon can impress us with its mid-range amplifiers, then its flagship is sure to blow us away. And indeed it does just that…

Price

Officially priced at £6300 / AU$12,499, the AVC-A1H sits at the very top of Denon’s consumer AV amplifier range. It’s sold as the AVR-A1H in the US for $7200, with the ‘R’ in the name denoting the presence of an AM/FM, tuner, which is absent from the UK and Australian version. Otherwise, these amplifiers are functionally the same.

The AVC-A1H has been on sale for a little while now, which means that we are seeing some hefty price drops. It can be found for closer to £5000 in the UK, for example.

Generally speaking, the A1H sits between two notable five-star amplifiers. The Award-winning Marantz Cinema 30 launched at a lower price of £4000 / $4500 / AU$7900, though it can be found for £3500 in the UK (pricing in the US seems to have risen to $4800).

The JBL Synthesis SDR-38, meanwhile, launched at a more premium price of £7300 / $8550 / AU$16,999 – though that, too, is subject to considerable discounts at the time of writing.

Build

The AVC-A1H is one of the bulkiest home cinema amplifiers to cross our home cinema testing room’s threshold in recent memory.

Weighing in at a staggering 32kg, we recommend asking a friend to help you lift this behemoth out of the box and into position. It also has a large footprint to match, measuring 43 x 50 x 20cm (hwd), so you’ll need to make sure you have ample space in your TV unit or, more realistically, AV rack.

If you’ve seen a Denon AV amplifier before, chances are you won’t be taken aback by the AVC-A1H’s looks. This is essentially a scaled-up version of the other amplifiers found in Denon’s range; that’s to say it's a large metal cuboid that comes in either black or silver, with a rectangular screen stretching across the front edge flanked by asymmetrical source selection and volume wheels.

Much like the AVC-X6800H that sits below it, the A1H sports a door that opens downwards to reveal a selection of on-unit controls. However, we find that the backlit, metal-clad remote is the vastly preferable way to interact with the home cinema amplifier. Most Denon remotes we’ve seen on other models are all-plastic, so this is an appreciated change to reflect the A1H’s premium position.

The Denon AVC-A1H leans towards practicality rather than aesthetics, but as we’ll come to find out, the superb functionality is worth the sacrifice of form in this instance.

Features

Denon’s AV amplifiers are renowned for their extensive feature sets, so it should come as no surprise that this is one of the most thoroughly equipped amplifiers that we’ve seen.

With an impressive 15 channels of amplification, the A1H can support speaker configurations up to 9.4.6. Users with smaller speaker packages can also split those amplification channels across two additional zones, meaning you can comfortably power additional speakers in your home from just one amplifier.

Denon claims that the A1H delivers 150W of amplification per channel into 8 ohms, though that is with only two channels driven.

The sheer number of amplification channels is a considerable upgrade over the JBL Synthesis SDR-38, which sports just seven channels, although that amplifier touts a higher 180W output with two channels driven.

Denon has also outfitted the A1H with its most premium internal components. This includes the brand’s most powerful transformers, as well as 10 two-channel ESS Sabre ES9018K2M DAC chips, a high-spec DSP processing engine, and gold-plated speaker terminals.

All of these components have been specially selected and tuned by Denon’s highly experienced engineers at its Shirakawa audio works, where it is also tuned by the company’s Sound Master for the ultimate seal of approval.

This amplifier sports three HDMI outputs (eARC, Zone 2 and Zone 3), and seven HDMI 2.1 inputs. All of these can handle video signals up to either 4K/120Hz or 8K/60Hz, and a plethora of gaming features such as VRR, ALLM and QFT which aid smoother and more responsive gameplay.

This AV amplifier also supports all major HDR formats, including HDR10, HLG, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. The same is true for immersive sound formats, as the A1H can handle Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, Auro 3D and Sony 360 Reality Audio, and it’s IMAX Enhanced certified.

Wireless connectivity is also very comprehensive, with Denon’s HEOS wireless streaming platform handling the likes of Tidal, Deezer, Amazon Music and more. Spotify Connect, Apple AirPlay 2 and TuneIn are also supported, as is Bluetooth 5.0. HEOS also allows for multi-room playback, meaning you can tie this amplifier into a system with other Denon and Marantz wireless speakers and network amplifiers.

Finally, the A1H, much like the rest of Denon’s AV amplifiers, supports Audyssey MultiEQ XT32 room correction. Simply plug the included microphone in and follow the simple on-screen instructions, and the amplifier can measure your space to determine speaker levels and distances. Dirac Live Room Correction and Dirac Live Bass Control are also supported, though the licenses to use these need to be purchased separately.

Sound

Denon has piled on the features, but how does the AVC-A1H sound? That is the most important factor at the end of the day, so we’re pleased to report that this AV amplifier sounds simply incredible.

We’ve hooked it up to the five-star KEF R Meta 5.1 Speaker System for our testing, plugged in our reference Oppo UDP-203 4K Blu-ray player, and selected a handful of reference discs from our 4K Blu-ray library.

Starting with F1: The Movie, the Denon’s strengths are made immediately obvious during the opening 24 Hours of Daytona race. This amplifier makes light work of creating a hugely spacious and totally immersive sound, with every aspect of the scene bursting with three-dimensional energy.

Everything from the clattering of gravel hitting the tarmac and the screech of tyres as cars spin out, to the crackling of fireworks and a swooping helicopter sounds superbly crisp.

That detail is essential, as it ensures that while this amplifier sounds hugely spacious, it also remains superbly focused and positionally accurate. Most importantly, the A1H knows exactly how to handle each of these competing effects, ensuring that they’re all presented in a way that sounds natural, while ensuring nothing gets lost in the wider mix.

That is also felt with the presentation of dialogue. The way voices are handled, with a reverence to low-level dynamics and tonal variation, is truly impressive. The Marantz Cinema 30 also sounds superb in this regard, but the Denon takes things to another level with natural, balanced and realistic voices that sound as though the actors on screen are instead standing before us to deliver their lines.

What bowls us over most during our testing, however, is how this amplifier handles bass. Two of our favourite bass stress test sequences – Blade Runner 2049’s flight to the LAPD sequence, and Dune: Part One’s worm attack scene – both shine through this amplifier.

The rhythmic drumming of the Dune soundtrack feels wonderfully textured and expertly timed, whereas the tricky effects in Blade Runner’s chapter two balance deep bass and tonal variation with finesse, resulting in a steady build of tension throughout.

This is also a testament to how the AVC-A1H handles dynamics. This amplifier is extremely talented when it comes to dynamic expression, meaning that rather than presenting instant jumps in volume, we feel the swell of larger volume shifts, which once again makes everything sound more natural and immersive.

The Denon doesn’t feel sluggish or lethargic, and when needed it can punch through with big, bombastic dynamic shifts, and it moves sounds around with an excellent sense of agility and pace. Switching back to F1, we find that the rumbling engines of the GT3 cars build and dynamically move around our listening position as they approach and execute an overtake on the racetrack.

This bold, rich, warm and powerful sound also extends to music. Carly Rae Jepsen’s On Wires features a balance of soft vocals with a powerful chorus that suddenly bursts to life, alongside a mix of acoustic and electronic elements; all of which are handled with extreme finesse from the Denon.

The sizzling electronic score of Tron: Legacy (composed by legendary DJ duo, Daft Punk) is presented with equal vigour. The thumping bass and sparkling snares of Derezzed sound electric through the Denon, ensuring the pulse-pounding nightclub action sequence is presented with an appropriate sense of drama and style.

The real question is: how does this amplifier compare to our reference Marantz AVR? Simply put, the Denon takes everything we love about the Cinema 30 and dials things up multiple notches. Considering the price difference, this is sort of what we’d expect, and it certainly doesn’t detract from the Marantz's talents.

In other words, if you have the space in your budget, the Denon is well worth the extra outlay, but no one who can’t stretch that far will be disappointed by the sumptuous performance of the Marantz.

Verdict

Denon’s flagship amplifier justifies its large price tag, and even larger chassis. With a rich, powerful and natural sound, it takes every film and song we throw at it and makes them shine without breaking a sweat.

Equipped with an exhaustive feature set and an intuitive set-up, this enthusiast-level amplifier is actually a stellar choice for all levels of home cinema fans – providing they have a generous budget.

SCORES

• Sound 5
• Features 5
• Build 4

MORE:

Read our review of the JBL Synthesis SDR-38

Also consider the Marantz Cinema 30

Read our Arcam AVR31 review

Best AV receivers: the top home cinema amplifiers we've tested

Music is awesome. Movies are also awesome. So by the laws of mathematics, music videos should be doubly awesome. At least that’s the prevailing theory at What Hi-Fi?.

Which is why, during our latest Home Cinema Week special event, we’ve taken the time to create this list, detailing our favourite examples of the art form.

From golden oldies that have been given a new lease of life via a remaster, to new classics from cutting-edge artists in their prime, as well as sounding and looking great, every entry on this list also offers a great way to test at least one part of your home cinema setup.

As always, the list currently only includes the What Hi-Fi? team’s personal favourites. We have a separate list detailing our picks of the best music videos of all time. If you think we’ve missed any, make sure to get involved in the conversation using the comments section below or our social media channels and forums.

We’re always interested to hear from you, our ever-discerning readers!

Peter Gabriel – Sledgehammer (4K remaster)

Words by Alastair Stevenson

Peter Gabriel is one of the biggest names in music, with a decades-spanning career that started with prog rock legends Genesis, before blossoming into one of the most experimental solo acts to grace the latter quarter of the 20th Century. And while he’s still pumping out tunes to this day, there’s no denying that Sledgehammer from his 1986 album So, is still one of his most recognisable.

That’s as true of its music video as it is of the song itself. Made using claymation and stop motion techniques, the video required Gabriel to lie under a glass table for 16 hours, as they shot parts frame-by-frame. 40 years on, it’s also had an amazing remaster on Apple Music, bringing it up to 4K.

The mix of updated visuals acts as a wonderful accompaniment to the stellar track, which has aged like fine wine. Expertly blending a smorgasbord of genres, including pop rock, dance-rock, funk rock, and blue-eyed soul, Sledgehammer’s music video makes for a compelling listen and watch. We would challenge any hi-fi fan to hear one note of the track’s syncopated bassline and not immediately recognise it. Our only minor qualm is its subject matter (it’s about his crown jewels).

Watch Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer in 4K on Apple Music

Alanis Morrisette – Ironic (4K remaster)

Words by Alastair Stevenson

Ah, Alanis Morrisette. If you grew up during the late 90s and early 2000s, there’s a strong chance that at least one of her multitude of self-aware tracks featured in your formative years.

Which is why her classic hit, Ironic, isn’t just one of my favourite tracks; thanks to a 4K remaster, it’s also one of his favourite music videos. Sure, the video is basic, showing Morrisette driving a 1978 Lincoln Continental Mark V in the snow, singing to various versions of herself.

But the upgrades are welcome, adding more vibrancy to the colours, a welcome dose of extra detail thanks to the higher resolution.

However, most importantly, the track remains a masterpiece with Morresette's vocals, which flip from booming, life-affirming bellows to subdued, vulnerable pleas over its four-minute run time, are a delight – one that will give any speaker a run for its money when it comes to dynamics.

Ah-ha – Take on Me (4K remaster)

Words by Dan Furn

We could hardly write a list of visually complex, system-testing music videos without Take On Me. Luckily, A-ha have seen fit to spoil us with a 4K remaster so you can really push your setup and enjoy the many, many hand-drawn sketches in glorious Ultra HD.

If somehow you haven’t seen this early music video masterpiece, the premise is simple – a young woman reading a comic book in a café is invited into the comic by its rather suave hero, where the two get chased by thugs in a black-and-white, pencil-sketch world.

This was, in fact, the second music video for the song, and catapulted the track to the top of several worldwide charts and created a pop culture phenomenon. It’s a music video that still resonates today – it’s clocked up well over two billion views on YouTube, has been referenced by everyone from Paramore to Family Guy and even saw a recent resurgence during the FIFA World Cup after being adopted by Norwegian fans.

The pencil-sketch scenes are ideal for testing fine detail, contrast and, of course, motion, as the 3,000 rotoscoped frames should be displayed without judder or blur – the chase scene in particular is an excellent stress test, and, to be honest, just a delight to watch.

Pink Floyd – Money (from Pink Floyd At Pompeii MCMXLII, 4K Blu-ray)

Words by Alastair Stevenson

Pink Floyd is one of the most iconic bands in the world, especially if you’re a hi-fi or prog rock fan. And if you’re after an audio/visual tour de force to push your home cinema setup, we’d strongly suggest checking out the Pink Floyd At Pompeii MCMXLII 4K Blu-ray.

Yes, we may technically be pushing the definition of what counts as a music video, but the remaster is an amazing achievement. The entire set, which saw the band play to an empty amphitheatre, has been expertly remastered to offer 4K visuals and Dolby Atmos. And honestly, they've done such a good job that, if you have the hardware to do it justice, the upgrades really do make you feel like you’re there, at the gig, watching it all live.

You can see cuts of the set, like the one above, online, but the Blu-ray is what you need if you want to get the ultimate experience. If you’re short on time, the performance of Echoes Part 1 and 2 are a particular highlight that theWhat Hi-Fi? team, myself included, keep returning to.

Featuring a magnetic performance from the band against a stunning backdrop, you really want a big screen TV, or even a projector, to do it justice. The Atmos mix of the live performance then brings it to life, offering a unique dome of sound capturing screaming guitar and making it feel like the band’s psychedelic tour de force is marching straight through your living room.

Buy Pink Floyd At Pompeii MCMXLII at Amazon

Steven Wilson - Drive Home (4K remaster)

Words by Alastair Stevenson

Steve Wilson is a huge name in hi-fi circles. First, as the frontman of prog rock legends Porcupine Tree, second as a regular attendee and speaker at hi-fi shows across the globe, where he’s championed new technologies and the need for “good sound” for decades.

He’s also made a number of pretty awesome music videos over the years. But for What Hi-Fi?’s purposes, the 4K remaster of Drive Home is a particular favourite. The remaster was released in 2023 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Wilson’s third solo album, The Raven that Refused to Sing. The video is a work of art, with characters designed by Hajo Mueller and then animated by Jess Cope into a dark, evocative video that beautifully complements the track – especially with the new colouring by colourist Mozart Gabriel for the remaster, which helps evoke a true sense of melancholy and sadness.

The song itself is also incredible. Written after an intense period Wilson spent remixing classic prog bands’ work, it intentionally channels the spirit of King Crimson, Yes, Gentle Giant, and Jethro Tull. It’s a detached, haunting piece mixing flute, string and acoustic guitar parts with Wison’s vocals that slowly builds, only adding electric instruments much over halfway through its eight-minute, 20-second playtime.

My only bit of advice, outside of listening to it as soon as you can, is to jump over to Wilson’s website and invest in the Headphone Dust edition for the ultimate experience. The investment nabs you the Hi-res Atmos and 5.1 cuts of the song alongside an MKV file of the 4K video. Make no mistake, the stereo cut on the above video is good, but the Atmos and 5.1 versions are mind-blowing if you have the hardware to do them justice.

Buy the Headphone Dust edition of The Raven that Refused to Sing at Steve Wilson's website

Gunship – Dark All Day

Words by Alastair Stevenson

Our editor (me) is a big fan of two things: classic horror movies and synthwave. So, when a band creates a music video that combines both elements, well, you can imagine how excited they get.

Enter Gunship’s Dark All Day. The song merges the band’s iconic sound, which uses old synths to create a mesmerising, retro vibe, with a saxophone part from Tim Cappello and vocals from pop sensation Indiana.

Not sure who Cappello is? You’ll almost certainly recognise him either as the main saxophonist from Tina Turner's backing band during the 80s or the muscly front man wailing on his sax during the boardwalk scene of cult classic vampire film The Lost Boys. And the theme of vampires neatly brings us on to the video itself.

Available in 4K on YouTube, it starts with an animated segment, showing iconic vampire hunters from the 80s and 90s cinema battling a horde of the undead before flipping to a visually stunning live section halfway through. The second half, showing Indiana, Capello and the band playing in a pitch-black room with visceral, red blood pouring from the ceiling like rain – a clear homage to an iconic scene from a certain Wesley Snipes 90s vampire movie.

The result is a roller coaster ride that will test everything from your sound system’s rhythmic precision to your projector or TV’s motion handling and dark detail.

Avenged Sevenfold – Nobody

Words by Harry McKerrell

Look, I completely understand that this type of music isn’t to everyone’s taste. Heavy metal, progressive metal, metalcore, whatever you want to call it – it’s something of a niche within this world of Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter. In fairness, I actually quite like Sabrina Carpenter.

Even if this kind of thing isn’t your bag at all, please give Nobody a try. In abstraction, the track might take a few goes to get into, relying more on epic, pulsating soundscapes over catchy, refined melodies, but once it clicks, this is the sort of music that gets deep into your bones. Add the video into the mix, and it’s practically a spiritual experience.

I refer to bones quite deliberately. The accompanying video to Nobody is a miraculous masterpiece, wherein a man’s skeletal ‘soul’ leaves his body and begins wandering through the chaotic cosmos in search of matter, meaning and, you would hope, a bit of epidermis to cover his naked frame.

The result is mind-blowing, with Chris Hopewell’s spectacular stop-motion visuals giving the protagonist’s movements a charmingly comical clunkiness when set against awe-inspiring vistas of the shimmering cosmos. Just wait until you get to the 3:15 mark, where siren-like guitars accompany one endless tracking shot of skeletons fighting on some strange, semi-apocalyptic battleground. Goosebumps.

Avenged Sevenfold have gone all existential during the course of their last few albums, and it doesn’t get more Camus than this. I think the point of the whole thing is that we’re all already dead, like those monks who live with decomposing corpses to remind them of their own mortality. Cheery.

Pomme – Un Million

Words by Robyn Quick

You might not have heard of French artist Pomme, but she is one to watch.

Un million from the album Consolation is one of my favourite tracks from her, and not just because of the magical vocals and mesmerising instrumentals. The accompanying music video continues the minimalist approach of the song, as it is filmed in black and white, all on one spinning stage.

This setup could have resulted in an uninspiring final look, but there is beauty in the small details that make for a hypnotic watch and a great test for your TV or projector screen.

Pomme is dressed as a clown, complete with a ruffled neck collar and frilly sleeves. The intricate textures of the ruffles and a single tear running down her face call for a good level of detail without looking over-etched. As others join her on the spinning stage, this also challenges your system’s motion handling. There’s a delicate balance to strike between movement looking too smooth and juddery, and the swirling stage makes for a great test.

A bright sphere is the centrepiece of the video, which creates a gradual fade from white to black. With the right system, this gradient should look seamless, but there is the risk of banding where you can see the steps obviously between shades.

Talking Heads – Life During Wartime (from Stop Making Sense 4K remaster)

Words by Ioan Hazell

Few bands manage to pack all-out eccentricity into as digestible and catchy a package as Talking Heads. There is so much to talk about in this performance, from David Byrne’s wiry, maniacal dance moves to the contagious excitement of the band, who must have been aware of being at the height of their powers.

This performance of Life During Wartime from their 1984 concert film, Stop Making Sense, was blessedly remastered in 4K and for Dolby Atmos by 4AD back in 2023. At the time, I went to watch the re-release in an IMAX cinema and was astonished by the public response. Some people danced in the aisles; others wept in their seats. Nobody sat still.

While the purpose of resolution is always, to some extent, to revitalise the past, never before had I seen such a vivid example of its power. Coming away from the screening, my legs ached as if I had been at the real concert. My cheeks ached from an irrepressible grin.

With some of the downright coolest backing vocals, strangest gyrations, and grooviest basslines out there, this performance has to be seen to be believed. “This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco” – yeah, right!

Buy Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense on 4K Blu-ray at HMV

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They seem simple, but there are actually a lot of pitfalls that are all too easy to fall into when buying and setting up a TV.

But based on my personal and professional experience helping numerous friends and readers, most of us are getting better at the buying part. It's the second, "setting it up" part that many people are still outright terrible at.

Yes, based on my time as every person and their dog’s home cinema personal shopper, I’ve been inundated with every question you can think of when helping people find the right TV for their specific needs and budget.

Does it have everything I need to watch the football?

Do I need to get a soundbar too?

Will it work with my Sony Betamax LV-1901?

I’ve heard all of the above and more while giving curated advice on which TV to buy over the years.

But what always throws me is that after spending hours asking questions, researching the set to make sure, when they actually buy one, they nearly always go silent.

And that would be fine if I could put my feet up, pour myself a nice whisky and toast a job well done, safe in the knowledge they’ve set it up right and are making the most of their new purchase.

Except, based on my experience visiting friends and family I’ve helped, and some of the messages I’ve received from readers, most aren’t.

And recently, there’s one big mistake I’ve seen in living rooms, which is especially damaging during the summer months – placing the set right next to a window.

Why is that a problem, you ask? The answer is simple and an issue we’ve flagged many times before: light pollution.

Our TV and AV editor, Tom Parsons, has been a vocal enemy of the phenomenon for quite some time. But for those who have missed our past warnings, it is a problem, as if you place your TV in an incredibly bright area, you will impede its picture quality, regardless of how good the set is.

If it doesn’t go bright enough or doesn't come with an antireflective layer, look forward to watching your own reflection. If you can still make out what’s happening, contrast will still be impacted. Truthfully, lots of ambient light will stop your TV from delivering its best, regardless of the picture settings you use.

So why, oh why, do so many of us put TVs directly next to windows? Yes, it sometimes makes sense with the room’s feng shui, but I’ve had people who’ve spent multiple thousands on a top-end OLED make the mistake.

Many then send me, less than diplomatic, messages asking why I've recommended a terrible TV. They then get even more irritated when I point out it's how they've positioning causing most of the problems they're flagging.

If you’re going to spend that much money on a decent TV, surely it’s then worth investing a little time in creating a space that will let it shine?

Blackout blinds are a godsend, or if that’s too much, honestly, even moving your TV a few feet away can make a difference.

So please, for my and the team’s sanity, heed this warning and make sure to give your TV a good home, one that will give it the space it needs to live up to its full potential.

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It can be hard to sustain a love for film at the height of summer.

As the balmy prospects of barbecues, pub gardens and beach trips beckon, many home cinema set-ups lie forgotten, gathering dust in darkened rooms while their owners go off galavanting until the weather cools off again.

But we don’t believe that a love for the great outdoors has to come at odds with a passion for watching movies – least of all after compiling this list of products for Home Cinema Week that we think will give you the closest thing to a true home cinema experience, no matter where you’ve set up camp.

Of course, we aren’t suggesting any of these solutions as a total replacement for your dedicated system; but if the house is getting too hot to handle, these al fresco-friendly pairings might sate your cinephile desires without costing your daily dose of sunshine.

Best mobile set-up

Apple iPhone 17 + AirPods Max 2

We are well aware that the iPhone 17’s 6.3-inch screen can hardly be considered a premium viewing experience, but try fitting a flat screen TV into the passenger seat of a Toyota Aygo and you’ll get a taste for our thinking here.

The iPhone 17 features ProMotion, Apple’s variable refresh-rate panel technology, which automatically adjusts the refresh rate from 1 to 120Hz, depending on what you are viewing. This means that you can save battery life while rendering slower content but still keep up with the very speediest of action movies.

What's more, with a peak brightness of 3000 nits, you can be confident that you won’t have to worry about visibility, even in broad daylight.

This iPhone 17’s display also features HDR support in Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HDR10 and HLG formats, which should mean that all streaming services are able to look their best.

Fantastic though these visual features are, no home cinema set-up is complete without great sound. And for that we recommend the AirPods Max 2, which will be able to make the most of both Dolby Atmos and Apple Spatial Audio – both supported by the iPhone 17.

We awarded the AirPods Max 2 a five-star review, saying that these headphones “crossed the line from wireless audio into wireless hi-fi”.

So what’s behind our glowing praise? Well, for starters, they sound “detailed, dynamic and spacious” with an “appealing balance and cohesive organisation”, all necessary features for keeping up with busy action-packed moments and dense soundtracks.

Additionally, you’ll be able to block out intrusive sounds with Apple’s effective noise-cancelling, while their dynamic head tracking does a great job of keeping sounds positioned relative to the screen, for a stable and convincing soundstage.

We acknowledge in our review that movies wouldn’t be the top priority for many users, but, in this case, we feel confident that the AirPods Max 2’s “terrifically cinematic” spatial qualities will be just the ticket.

Best tablet set-up

Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra + Buds 4 Pro

Still car-friendly, but with whopping proportions for a tablet, the Samsung Galaxy S11 Ultra is our top pick for home-away-from-home cinema. That is in no small part due to its 14.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display, which makes movies look “considerably bigger” than on the iPad Pro.

The S11 Ultra’s peak brightness of 1600 nits matches the iPad Pro, and should allow HDR scenes to come through with popping colours and satisfyingly deep blacks. The tablet’s anti-reflective screen also lends a helping hand in terms of clarity when viewing dimmer scenes outdoors.

Worried that your suitcase is starting to get too full? Well, don’t fret, because the S11 Ultra is only 5.1mm thick and is very unlikely to take your luggage over any weight limits, at a measly 692g.

In our upcoming review (spoiler alert!), we say that the tablet’s battery life should get you “well into a second day” of viewing, provided an eye is kept on screen brightness. So, unless you are planning on watching the entirety of the James Bond canon, this tablet has your back.

In this case, we think your best bet for audio is the Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro 4. These earbuds thrive in pairing with up-to-date Samsung devices that support the brand’s hi-res SSC UHQ codec.

With their grippy, responsive bass, and a detailed midrange, we enjoyed the sound of these earbuds when listening to compatible Samsung devices.

Controls for the earbuds are also integrated within your Samsung device’s native operating system, meaning that many of their features, from noise-cancelling adjustment to immediate pairing, can be accessed without having to fire up an app.

As well as ANC, the Buds 4 Pro feature head tracking, which works only when paired with a Samsung device. So, using them alongside the S11 Ultra will keep your movies’ soundstages stable.

These are a strong contender with battery life too, with 30 hours of charge (including a fully charged case) when ANC is turned off, and 26 hours with it switched on.

Finally, the Buds 4 Pro’s IP57 rating means that dust ingress and immersion in water up to a metre for around 30 minutes won’t cause any permanent damage. So if flash floods strike, you’ll be sacrificing your tent before your audio quality.

Best portable projector set-up

Anker Nebula Mars 3 + JBL charge 6

For those unwilling to sacrifice a big-picture experience, we have to recommend the Anker Nebula Mars 3 portable projector. You’ll need something to project your movies on to, however, unless you’ve parked your boat beside the white cliffs of Dover.

The Nebula Mars 3 packs a 1080p-resolution, LED-lit DLP projection system with a peak brightness of 400 ANSI Lumens into its portable body. Thanks to that brightness, the maximum image size for Mars 3 is claimed to be 150 inches – although pushing the size that far will inevitably sacrifice brightness.

We recommend striking a balance with an image size between 70 and 90 inches.

In our review, we were “really struck by how sharp and detailed everything look[ed]”, with little evidence of visible pixel structure even as we pushed the image beyond 100 inches. We were also impressed by the projector’s saturation and darkness while streaming HDR sources.

The Mars Air 3 has a battery life of 2.5 hours, which should be enough for most movies, but it can also be powered by mains if you are on a campsite with hook-up. If you are using the projector’s built-in speakers without mains, the run time will decrease.

Helpfully, this portable projector contains a Google TV operating system with an official Netflix app, which recognises the projector as HDR capable.

External sources include a single HDMI port, a USB port and integrated Bluetooth, wi-fi and Chromecast.

We are relieved about the Bluetooth functionality, because while the in-built speakers are actually fairly impressive, for a more cinematic experience, we suggest pairing this projector with the JBL Charge 6.

The Charge 6 is even more outdoors friendly than its four-years-running What Hi-Fi? Award winning predecessor, the Charge 5. In our review, we say the speaker has a “durable design that you feel confident will survive all sorts of adventures and inclement weather”. Perfect for rainy camping holidays.

And this isn’t just an impression: the Charge 6 boasts an IP68 waterproof and dustproof rating.

For connecting to other speakers, the Charge 6 supports Auracast, and wired connections are also made possible via USB-C, allowing lossless streaming for outdoorsy audiophiles.

Sonically, the JBL Charge 6 packs a punch in the low end, while maintaining a clear and solid midrange – ideal for picking out dialogue above bassy ominous soundtracks.

When it comes to battery life, this portable speaker has you covered, with 24 hours of charge, which can be extended to 28 hours by enabling the Playtime Boost setting. Notably, the Charge 6 can also be used as a portable charger for smartphones.

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Most movies would be lucky to have just one scene that’s considered an all-time classic, so the fact that Michael Mann’s Heat has two is just plain greedy – but only one of them is likely to earn you noise complaints from the neighbours.

Released in 1995, Heat united two Hollywood heavyweights for the first time. Robert De Niro and Al Pacino had both starred in The Godfather Part II in the mid-’70s but never actually shared the screen, so while Heat’s unrehearsed diner scene where the two face-off is certainly iconic, it won’t test your home cinema system like the film’s other most memorable moment.

Almost two hours into the film, De Niro’s Neil McCauley leads a small team of bank robbers on a heist that could net them a cool $12m if they manage to pull it off. And it seems to be going as planned until it comes to the getaway, when all hell breaks loose on the streets of downtown LA.

What’s most immediately striking is just how loud Heat’s heist sequence is. Even when you know it’s coming, the explosion of noise when Chris Shiherlis (Val Kilmer) opens fire on the police outside the bank is almost enough to make you jump clear out of your seat.

McCauley’s crew are armed with assault rifles, and in the film-makers’ quest for realism they chose to load them with full-load blanks, which means they use the same amount of gunpowder as real shells.

If you’ve got the volume cranked up, each volley of gunfire is a complete assault on the senses, and you should really be able to hear the difference between the weapons as the three thieves battle against Pacino’s detective Vincent Hanna, and what appears to be the entire LAPD.

Bullets pierce cop car bodywork as if it’s made of paper, while windscreens burst like balloons full of broken glass, with everything echoing off the surrounding office blocks and creating a wall of noise that puts most war films to shame.

Heat isn’t just a great test for the best soundbars or surround sound systems either, there’s plenty here for your eyes to feast on too.

Available to stream in 4K HDR, Heat is famous for its steely blue colour palette and is packed with scenes that juxtapose almost pitch darkness with the bright lights of LA’s seedier side.

You’ll need a TV that’s capable of drawing the detail out of dark scenes to really see what’s going on when Hanna and his team stake out the scene of an attempted break-in in the dead of night, or when McCauley pays a visit to the home of a suspected snitch.

The final shadowy showdown between the two alpha males takes place around the runways at Los Angeles International Airport, where dazzlingly bright lights periodically illuminate the Tarmac for approaching planes, making it a brilliant test for your TV’s contrast.

As with McCauley and his crew’s scores, time is very much of the essence here. Heat is only available to stream on Prime Video for the next two days before it disappears into thin air, so catch it while you still can.

Stream Heat on Amazon Prime Video

For even better quality, buy the Heat 4K Blu-ray from Amazon

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We are in Home Cinema Week, so it seemed appropriate to celebrate the occasion by marrying our festivities with the superb summer of sport we are enjoying in these balmy (perhaps that should be barmy) days of July.

So we took a look at some top sports (and okay, yes, one game) that have featured heavily in movies we have enjoyed over the years. This, as you will see, is an eclectic list, but each entry, we believe, stands up to be counted as a sporting scene, or subject to be revisited.

And please, do feel free to add your own suggestions for your fellow readers’ enjoyment.

Golf: Goldfinger

You all knew it was coming, so we’ll get this one ticked off first. The original James Bond, Sean Connery, made his third outing as 007 in this tale of a megalomaniac industrialist who wants to rob the US’s gold depository at Fort Knox.

Goldfinger was the film where the Bond franchise really got into its stride, with the introduction of the cool gadgets from Q department, and the humour that became one of the series’ trademarks.

And, of course, it has one of the canon’s great henchmen, in the steel-brimmed hat-throwing Odd Job, whom we first meet toting a golf bag for his boss in the money match that Bond and Goldfinger enter into.

(There’s then a lovely example of how times change in what would, in 1964, have been almost unimaginable ways, when Goldfinger apologises to Bond that he is still having to teach Odd Job the niceties of the game as his caddy: “Golf is not yet the national game of Korea, hey?” Well, it pretty much is now…)

The five-minute scene showing their match is a lovely duel of wits between the industrialist and the spy, with verbal feint and counter-feint interspersed with the thud of gold bars hitting the green, the thwack of the ball – and some spectacular cheating all round.

It sets up the relationship between the characters beautifully, and is a lovely example of how they don’t make ’em like they used to – this is a scene given time to breathe by the director. Wouldn’t be allowed now…

Buy the Goldfinger 4K Blu-ray from Amazon

Buy or rent Goldfinger on Apple TV

Baseball: The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!

The Naked Gun took its cue, of course, from the brilliant TV series Police Squad!, which took its cue from Airplane!. There are worse places to seek inspiration.

This type of silly slapstick is commonplace now, of course, but it’s great to look back at the original and find that it can still make you laugh.

Of course you’ve seen it all before, and of course it’s hit and miss, but that’s almost the point. It’s a relentless barrage of verbal and sight gags that simply refuses to pause for breath; and, once the momentum has built up, it proves utterly irresistible.

This scene finds our hero, Frank Drebin (the incomparable Leslie Nielsen), having to take on the role of home-plate umpire in a baseball match in an attempt to foil an assassin’s plot. It is, naturally, utter carnage, extremely silly, and still able to elicit real belly laughs.

From the first strike, when Drebin seems to forget that he is not there only to find the assassin but has to call the game as well, it isn’t long before he is making it all about him, moonwalking down the third-base line, and frisking the players as he goes.

It’s a real joy. “Steee-riiike” indeed.

Buy The Naked Gun 4K Blu-ray from Amazon

Watch The Naked Gun on Amazon Prime Video

Tennis: Strangers on a Train

From the utterly ridiculous to the sublime. This is Hitchcock in peak mid-season form (with apologies to PG Wodehouse, but to continue the sports theme), and one of the master’s movies that film and media schools regularly study.

From the set-up, where professional tennis player Guy (Farley Granger) falls into conversation with charming psychopath Bruno (Robert Walker) on a train, it’s a study in psychology, guilt and ambition. For Bruno proposes that, since it seems they each have someone inconvenient in their lives who would be far better off out of the way, they should swap murders. “Criss-cross”, as Bruno says. That way, there is no motive for the police to follow, and each of them can have a cast-iron alibi.

Guy doesn’t really take things too seriously. But then Bruno carries out his part of the bargain. And he expects Guy to follow suit.

There is an earlier scene at a tennis match, where the crowd’s heads are turning to the left and right in time with the thwack of ball on racket. With one exception, where a man in a fedora is staring across the court. It is truly unsettling, and sets the psychologically dissonant tone of the movie beautifully.

The main tennis scene, though, is near the denouement. Guy is playing a tennis match, while Bruno is desperately trying to retrieve the cigarette lighter from a drain that he intends to plant to mark Guy as a murderer. Guy, then, needs to finish his match as quickly as possible to prevent the unthinkable. Hitchcock’s brilliance as a suspense film-maker is all here: cuts from one protagonist to the other, desperately reaching fingers for the lighter just out of reach. It’s all stress and anxiety – with the music to enhance all those emotions.

Truly a masterful scene from the master of suspense.

Rent or buy Strangers On A Train on Apple TV

Cricket: Fire in Babylon

This astonishing documentary isn’t really about cricket at all. I mean, it is, of course, but it’s about so much more than simply the game. It is without doubt a worthwhile watch even for those who know nothing about the game – it’s certainly a clear example of where sport and politics definitely mixed.

At face value, this is the story of the great West Indies team that dominated world cricket for about two decades from the mid-1970s.

But just a few minutes in, it becomes clear that this, really, is more of a story about societal change and civil rights, both in the West Indies and the UK; the story of former slave colonies breaking out from under the yoke of empire and finally being able to control their own destinies as free men.

And what men.

When you hear the likes of Viv Richards, Gordon Greenidge, Clive Lloyd, Andy Roberts and the incomparable Michael Holding (and many more) explaining just how important the team was to West Indian and black people all around the world, you can see that the cricket wasn’t the main issue here. And they knew it.

From the pummelling the team took against Australia in 1975, via then England captain Tony Greig’s infamous “I intend to make them grovel”, to world domination for years, these men shouldered the responsibility for the pride of more than a nation – for West Indians everywhere.

And, because it’s the West Indies we’re talking about here, the soundtrack is also a wonderful collection of calypso, ska and reggae tracks – indeed, Bunny Wailer is also a prominent interviewee.

It’s a bit tricky to get hold of at the moment, although it is available to stream with a bit of a search – and you can buy the DVD or Blu-ray, of course.

I urge you to make the effort. This is a fascinating, sobering, yet uplifting documentary that highlights hugely significant societal change; and, much as I love cricket, it’s that that makes it so important.

Buy the Fire In Babylon Blu-ray on Amazon

Football: Marvellous

This Bafta-winning drama, based on the true story of Stoke City's beloved kit-man, Neil "Nello" Baldwin, again takes the sport as the hook, but is actually about so much more. Neil, superbly played by Toby Jones, is a man with learning disabilities – not that he acknowledges that himself. He simply refuses to let life get him down.

The film is both sentimental and remarkably profound at the same time. Fairly early on in the film, for example, Neil says: “I always wanted to be happy. So I decided to be.” Easier said than done for most of us; but for Neil, it’s his way of life.

Neil, a Stoke City fan, has the almost unbelievable knack of making friends, or at the very least acquaintance, with some of the great and good, from all spheres of society: to which end he finds himself on the umpire’s boat at the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race; archbishops and senior politicians all fall under his spell; and, most importantly for Neil, so did Lou Macari, Manchester United legend, and (soon into the movie) newly appointed manager of Stoke City FC.

Macari ends up employing Neil as the kit man for the squad, seemingly on a whim; but it soon becomes clear to the manager that Neil offers his squad far more than simply clean kit.

The joy of this movie is its simplicity, and the almost unbelievable situations in which Neil finds himself. And yet, as the various cameo appearances in the film confirm, all of this really happened.

Lou Macari, Gary Lineker, former top-level referee Uriah Rennie, and circus ringmaster Norman Barrett (sorry, I hadn’t mentioned that Neil was also “Nello”, a circus clown) all make appearances, as does Neil himself, to reassure Toby Jones that it all happened just as he is depicting it.

It’s a charming, moving, funny film that is all the more affecting because it’s true. A real delight.

Buy the Marvellous Blu-ray from Amazon

Stream Marvellous on Amazon Prime Video

Fencing: The Princess Bride

I admit some bias here. The Princess Bride is one of my top five favourite movies, and it’s our family film. It merits its place in a list of movies with great sporting scenes and connections because of the epic fencing duel between country-boy Westley, played by Carey Elwes, and Mandy Patinkin’s swordsman Inigo Montoya.

The movie plot is a film within a film, with a sick little boy (Fred Savage from The Wonder Years) being read a story by his grandfather (Peter Falk). And then, a couple of quick interjections apart, we get on with the fairy tale. There are wonderful cameo performances from the likes of Billy Crystal, Peter Cook and Mel Smith, and it’s a great tale that will (genuinely) delight young and old.

One of the standout scenes, though, is the duel between two of the heroes of the story. It’s a beautifully choreographed set piece that brings to mind Robin Hood from 1938, starring Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone. Athletic, good-humoured and genuinely impressive, this is a hugely entertaining tussle, with dialogue to match – “I know something you don’t know.”

And it’s one of the most memorable scenes in a movie full of memorable scenes. Inconceivable though that may sound.

Buy The Princess Bride Blu-ray from Amazon

Rent or buy The Princess Bride from Apple TV

Poker: Casino Royale

We top and tail our list with Bond, without apology. It might not be a sport, but Texas Hold ’em is a hugely televised game that, therefore, merits its place on this list.

This scene is classic Bond (see Goldfinger above) with Bond meeting his protagonist in public. This time, rather than the golf course, it’s the casino where our two stags butt heads. And this time it’s nearer the end of the movie than the beginning.

Anyone who knows anything about poker will know that the hands being dished out to these guys are completely insane – many millions to one against, etc – but that’s hardly the point. There is much shuffling of chips, many bold stare-downs, a slew of sardonic smiles and plenty of tension-filled pauses. Just what you want, then, in your Bond movie.

In many ways, it is similar to the Goldfinger golf match: the scene is granted time to play out in a way that has been increasingly rare in this era of jump cuts and incessant action – and it feels all the better for it.

Mads Mikkelsen gives us a glimpse of the Hannibal Lecter to come in his portrayal of Le Chiffre, and Daniel Craig, in his first outing as 007, proves all the doubters over his casting well and truly wrong.

This is classic Bond. Just don’t expect your own hands of hold ’em with your mates ever to come out like that.

Buy the Casino Royale 4K Blu-ray from Amazon

Rent or buy Casino Royale from Apple TV

MORE:

Check out all of our Home Cinema Week coverage

Here are the best TVs and best soundbars you can buy right now

Q Acoustics makes a long-awaited return to our home cinema testing room with its new 3050c 5.1 speaker package.

Built around components from the recently introduced entry-level 3000c series, this surround sound system inherits crucial driver technology and design cues from Q Acoustics’ higher-end ranges.

The brand has built an impressive reputation over the years for delivering massive, room-filling sound in both the hi-fi and home cinema senses, so expectations are high for this new surround sound package.

We’re also eager to see how trickle-down speaker technology performs in practice; top-tier engineering doesn’t always mesh seamlessly with mid-range components, after all. So, how does the 3050c 5.1 package perform?

Price

Q Acoustics doesn’t officially sell the system it's provided us with as a complete set, though it has given us a combined price of £1,896 / $3,506 for this package. It does sell an identically named pack on its website and through other retailers, though this comes with a different subwoofer, so we expect the performance to be different.

The package we’ve been supplied comprises the 3050c floorstanders (£749 / $1349 per pair), the 3010c bookshelf surrounds (£249 / $479 per pair), the 3090c centre channel speaker (£229 / $399), and the Q SUB100 active subwoofer (£699 / $1199). The widely available pre-bundled package swaps the Q SUB100 for the 3060S subwoofer, and costs £1626 here in the UK.

Competition at this price sits squarely with the Award-winning Bowers & Wilkins 606/607 S3 speaker system, which is currently available at various retailers for around £1950, down from its original price of £2496.

The B&W package has proven to be an issue for Q Acoustics before, as it edged out the 5040 5.1 package at our 2023 Awards – who doesn’t love a rematch?

Build & design

The 3050c 5.1 package is a good-looking and well-built collection of speakers. They sport smooth corners and metallic embellishments, resulting in a modern, high-quality look that should blend nicely into many living rooms or home cinema environments.

Our system is in the Satin White finish, though you can also buy the speakers in Satin Black, Claro Walnut, or Pin Oak finishes. All colourways come with a unique champagne-gold baffle surround surrounding the drivers, which gives them an elevated look. The speakers also include magnetic grilles in the box.

The 3050c are a pair of mid-sized floorstanders, measuring 102 x 32 x 32cm (hwd, including spikes and stabilisers), and the 3010c are a very compact set of surrounds at 25 x 16 x 25cm (hwd).

Though it's the 3090c that surprises us most; at just 16 x 43 x 22cm (hwd), it’s one of the smallest centre channel speakers to cross the threshold of our home cinema room in recent memory. The Q SUB100 also keeps things relatively compact at 35 x 35 x 38cm (hwd).

The 3000c family sports a multitude of design features aimed at improving sound. All components feature rear ports, and Q Acoustics has implemented its P2P (Point to Point) bracing system throughout the range for enhanced rigidity, aimed at “improving the focus of the stereo image and giving the soundstage more accuracy than ever before”, according to Q Acoustics.

Specific to the 3050c floorstanders is the inclusion of HPE (Helmholtz Pressure Equaliser) tubes, which are fitted inside the speakers to nullify internal cabinet pressure and improve frequency response, all in the pursuit of eliminating unwanted standing waves and colouration.

Features

Core to the 3000c series is Q Acoustics’ C3 Continuous Curved Cone driver design, which first debuted in the 5000 series speakers; namely the Award-winning 5040 floorstanders.

Found here in the mid/bass drivers, the proprietary speaker design reportedly touts the “bass performance advantages of a traditional straight conic cone with the midrange and high-end control of a flared cone”.

Similarly, the tweeter design for this range also takes inspiration from the more expensive 5000 series speakers. The high-frequency drivers within the 3000c series are hermetically sealed and mechanically isolated from the baffle, which Q Acoustics says will prevent “internal pressure modulations from within the cabinet and from the adjacent mid/bass driver”.

The floorstanding 3050c sandwiches a 22mm tweeter between dual 14cm mid/bass drivers in a vertical arrangement. The 3010c surrounds and 3090c centre channel share the same tweeter, paired with a single 10cm driver in each surround speaker and a symmetrical, dual-driver layout flanking the tweeter in the centre speaker.

Moving onto the subwoofer, the Q SUB100 (and for that matter, the whole of the Q Sub range) is touted to be more powerful than the Q12 subwoofer included with the 5040 5.1 package. It sports a 25cm driver, a claimed peak amplification power of 500W, and a clever source detection system that can distinguish the input type (whether that’s a stereo amplifier or a multi-channel home cinema receiver) and level to adapt bass performance.

Sound

Good looks and an extensive feature-set only tell a small portion of the story; it’s the sound performance that we care most about.

We have the 3050c 5.1 package hooked up to the Award-winning Marantz Cinema 30 for our testing. While this amplifier is undeniably overkill for a speaker package of this price, its revealing sound and plentiful power should help us to identify the strengths and weaknesses of this system.

We also have the Bowers & Wilkins 606/607 S3 speaker package on hand as a reference, and we’ve raided our library of reference 4K discs to assess performance.

Starting with F1: The Movie, the 3050c 5.1 is off to a flying start. The energy and pace of this speaker system are immediately evident, resulting in an exciting, almost nerve-wracking sound during the tense 24 hours of Daytona race at the beginning of the film. As cars overtake daringly and spin out in a spectacular display of carnage, the Q Acoustics’ agility is a clear asset.

The 3050c 5.1 also does an excellent job of putting us in the middle of the action. The cohesion between the front and surround channels is excellent, ensuring there are no noticeable gaps. As such, the surround speakers are also integrated well, meaning we’re not made aware of them in a distracting way.

The sense of space and height is also a highlight of this system. The voices of David Croft and Martin Brundle as they commentate over races have a genuine sense of height, and the wide, enveloping soundfield puts us squarely in the centre of the action.

Moving onto Dune: Part One, we watch the sequence in which the Atreides family survey the spice desert from the air. The voices are clear and crisp, making dialogue easy to understand, and the thunderous drums that command the soundtrack flex the Q SUB100's muscles with a strong leading edge to each strike, and a touch of tonal variety that sprinkles in some texture and life to the rhythmic beats.

Switching our testing disc to Marvel’s Thunderbolts, we use the sequence in which the anti-heroes escape a facility in the desert with the mysterious Bob. The speaker system’s positive attributes are perfectly suited to this sequence; its agile and exciting nature makes the fight sequences feel wonderfully intense, and the talented subwoofer brings a hefty dose of bass to a big explosion and a flurry of gunshots.

However, this scene also affirms a shortcoming of the package, specifically the centre channel. While the majority of the system works in harmony to create a cohesive and cinematic sound, the centre channel feels like it's the only component at odds with that.

Voices sound too narrow and boxed in, making us acutely aware of where they’re coming from. While this does aid vocal clarity, it also means that voices don’t feel particularly well integrated into the greater mix. They also sound tonally quite flat, which makes the snide jabs thrown from one team member to another feel as though they’re lacking in character.

This package has a clear tendency to sound lean. The agility and crispness that are, in a vacuum, two positive attributes can also result in the 3050c system sounding a bit too forward and, at times, slightly insistent. It’s lacking a touch of warmth and naturalness that the Bowers & Wilkins 606/607 S3 5.1 system brings to the table.

This is felt most when it comes to music. Switching to Pure Direct for some stereo content, we find that Maggie Rogers’ Dog Years, Bon Iver’s There’s A Rhythm and Phoebe Bridgers’ Lost Boys all come across as slightly shouty, despite all being fairly soft-sounding tracks.

That said, we can’t dispute the 3050c’s detail and timing, as both are excellent when we listen to music through them.

Verdict

Q Acoustics has launched another eye-catching and exciting-sounding home cinema package that is sure to appeal to those who want a 5.1 system that is bursting with energy. While we feel that it can sound a bit too lean at times, and we wish that the centre channel paired better with the rest of the system, we still think that there is plenty to like here.

SCORES

• Sound 4
• Features 4
• Build 5

MORE:

Read our review of the Bowers & Wilkins 606 & 607 S3 speaker package

Also consider the Fyne Audio F500E AV Pack 2

Read our Wharfedale Diamond 12.1 Home Cinema Pack review

Best surround sound systems: home cinema speakers and soundbars put to the test

It's Home Cinema Week here at What Hi-Fi?, and it seems as if Epson is joining in the celebratory spirit.

The Epson EH-TW7000, one of the Japanese brand's entry-level 4K projectors, was already affordable at launch – and has just hit a new low of £799 at Amazon.

That's an incredible price for any 4K projector, but particularly impressive for one with the picture quality of the five-star Epson EH-TW7000.

Let's get this out of the way first – to achieve this price Epson has not included a smart platform or built-in speakers, meaning almost all we have to judge is the picture performance.

However, the picture quality alone was enough to blow us away.

"We play Venom on 4K Blu-ray and this projector explodes into life from the start, with some excellent HDR handling and dark detail in the opening shuttle crash scene," our Epson EH-TW7000 review reads. "The light levels run from the dark forest shadows to the extreme brightness of the floodlights. Despite this range, the tone of the scene is expertly controlled."

Detail is brilliant for this price point, capturing subtle textures and skin details, while colours are controlled yet dynamic.

Set-up is simple by projector standards, and there's plenty of lens flexibility to boot.

While there's no smart platform, there are two HDMI ports, so you can easily add one of the best Blu-ray players or streaming sticks. There are also two USB 2.0 sockets, as well as the option to send out audio via Bluetooth or a 3.5mm cable.

If you thought a 4K projector was out of your price range, you might want to think again. The Epson EH-TW7000 is an affordable 4K projector done right, stripping out features so all of your hard-earned cash goes towards picture quality – all for £799 at Amazon.

MORE:

These are the best AV receivers you can buy right now

Check out the best Dolby Atmos soundbars

And here are the best projectors

What is home cinema?

It sounds like a simple question, but it’s one that I think is worth considering during our Home Cinema Week, and I suspect you'd get wildly different answers depending on who you asked.

For some, it's impossible without an AV receiver, a projector and at least seven speakers. For others, it's a big TV and a Dolby Atmos soundbar. I'd even argue that, in the right circumstances, it can be a pair of headphones connected to a streaming box.

Perhaps that's controversial, but I genuinely think home cinema is pretty much anything you want it to be.

Now, before anyone thinks I'm trying to rewrite the rules, let me be clear: if your goal is the very best home cinema performance possible, the traditional route is still the right one. A quality AV receiver paired with a carefully matched speaker package and, if your room allows, a projector, remains the pinnacle of what's possible.

I'm fortunate enough to experience setups like that regularly. We evaluate AV receivers, Atmos speaker packages and projectors in a dedicated home cinema test room, and when everything comes together, there's simply nothing else quite like it. I've also owned a traditional 7.1.4-channel system myself, so I know exactly what that experience is capable of delivering.

But here's the thing: somewhere along the way, I think we've started to confuse the best home cinema with the only home cinema.

My own current setup is proof that those aren't the same thing.

When I moved house, I swapped my traditional separates system for Sony's HT-A9 wireless speaker system and a subwoofer. Is it as accomplished as the 7.1.4-channel system I had before? No. But it suits my living room far better, it took minutes rather than days to install, and it still produces a wonderfully immersive Dolby Atmos performance that regularly reminds me why I love this hobby.

And when everyone else has gone to bed, my favourite way to watch a film is with AirPods Max connected to an Apple TV 4K. Is that better than listening through a room full of speakers? Of course not. But it's very immersive in its own right, and it lets me enjoy late-night movies without disturbing the rest of the house.

That's still home cinema to me.

In fact, I'd argue that if you've deliberately chosen a setup because it helps you become more immersed in the films, TV shows or games you love, you're already part of the home cinema community.

Whether that's a flagship projector and a 7.1.4-channel speaker package, a premium Atmos soundbar, a wireless surround system or even a tablet paired with headphones capable of reproducing Dolby Atmos through spatial audio technologies, the goal is the same: to bring the magic of the cinema into your home.

The equipment is simply the means of getting there.

None of this is meant to diminish traditional home cinema. Quite the opposite. If you have the space, budget and enthusiasm to build an AVR-powered surround system, I wholeheartedly encourage you to do so.

But I don't think owning that sort of system should be the entry requirement for calling yourself a home cinema enthusiast.

After all, very few of us started there.

Most enthusiasts build their systems over time, upgrading piece by piece as budgets, homes and family life allow. Others discover that a high-quality soundbar or wireless speaker system gives them the balance of performance and practicality they're looking for. Neither approach is more legitimate than the other – they're simply different stages of the same journey.

One day, I still hope to convert my garage into a dedicated home cinema room featuring an AV receiver, a projector and at least 12 speakers.

Until then, I'll continue enjoying films through my wireless Atmos system. I'll continue watching late-night movies through my AirPods Max, too, and I'll continue recommending traditional separates systems to anyone who wants the very best performance money can buy.

Because I don't think those things are contradictory.

The best home cinema I've experienced has been in dedicated cinema rooms filled with high-end equipment. The home cinema I use most is in my living room. And some of my favourite movie nights have happened when wearing a pair of headphones.

They're all different. One is objectively capable of higher performance than the others. But all of them remind me why I fell in love with home cinema in the first place.

To my mind, that's what really matters.

MORE:

Check out all of our Home Cinema Week coverage

Here are the best projectors, best AV receivers and best surround sound systems

And here are the best TVs and best soundbars

McIntosh never does things by halves, but even by its standards, the MX124 is quite an AV receiver. Its 13.4-channel arrangement means it can connect to four subwoofers at once. This thing is not meant for your spare room.

Rather it's aimed at "today's most advanced home cinema systems", whether that's a pro-level viewing room setup or whole home entertainment system.

Support for 8K video comes as standard, and it's compatible with room correction software to optimise the sound to your environment.

Inside is updated processing architecture, promising advanced audio and video processing.

Its 13 audio channels support speaker configurations up to 7.4.6 or 9.4.4. And its four subwoofer outputs is twice as many as its predecessor, to support more sophisticated system layouts and more precise bass management.

McIntosh is positioning the MX124 as a way to extend the lifespan of your home cinema setup. That's thanks to its support for immersive audio formats like Dolby Atmos, DTS:X Pro, Sony 360 Reality Audio and MPEG-H Audio, as well as its versatility in outputs and next-gen processing architecture.

With nine 32-bit digital-to-analogue converters, it promises "exceptional detail, dynamic range, and sonic accuracy", and it has bass and treble controls for tweaking the sound to your liking.

Room optimisation smarts comes courtesy of not only Dirac Live, but Dirac Live Bass Control and Audyssey MultEQ XT32. So it should sound its best in pretty much any room, with optimised bass performance, imaging, tonal balance, speaker integration and overall clarity, and all while preserving McIntosh's signature musicality.

On the video front, you get seven HDMI inputs and three HDMI outputs, one of which has eARC. They all support 4K/120Hz (and 8K/60Hz) as well as Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HLG and IMAX Enhanced. Gamers will enjoy the addition of ALLM and VRR.

Streaming? You got it. As well as Apple AirPlay and Bluetooth, it supports Qobuz Connect, Spotify Connect, TIDAL Connect, and Roon Ready, with support for high-resolution streaming up to 32-bit/192kHz.

You also get four digital audio inputs, one balanced and eight unbalanced analogue stereo inputs, component and composite video inputs, dual analogue stereo outputs for two additional listening zones, and support for Bluetooth headphones.

And if you're looking to install it professionally with custom integration, you'll welcome the web-based configuration, pre-configuration and file upload capabilities, back-up and restore support, RS232 and IP control, and certification for Control4 Simple Device Discovery Protocol (SDDP) integration.

The McIntosh MX124 is out now, and costs £16,900 (around $23,000 / AU$32,000).

MORE:

The best AV receivers around

AV receiver vs AV separates: which are better?

The best surround sound systems you can buy

A soundbar is a must-buy for any home cinema enthusiast who doesn't have the budget and/or space for a full speaker package – but, with a wealth of options, how do you know which one is right for you? You could start by looking at the size.

While size may not be everything, it does have a big impact on how the bar performs and how it fits into your home entertainment set-up. Let me explain.

Like a glove

First of all, and most obviously, you need a soundbar that fits your space. You might be tempted to get the biggest, most powerful model you can afford, but if it doesn’t fit in the area allotted, it's not going to be much good.

But there's a lot more to it than just making sure it physically fits into your TV cabinet. There are also the aesthetics to consider. Remember, you'll have to look at it every time you settle down to watch something, so you want a soundbar that’s of a piece with its surroundings.

I was so keen to try out the Sonos Arc Ultra for a feature a while ago that I eschewed the tape measure altogether. As you can see from the photo at the top of this article, it made my ageing LG TV look like it had wings.

For the neatest look, go for a soundbar that’s roughly the same width as your TV, or slightly shorter. We’ve made some pairing recommendations below to get you started.

A soundbar that’s too big for your TV won’t simply look awkward; it will skew the sound, too. Soundbars are designed to project sound from just below the screen, and if yours extends way beyond the dimensions of your TV, it could throw the staging off.

Made to measure

There are other, more practical considerations, too. You need to make sure the soundbar doesn’t obstruct the bottom of the screen while you’re watching – otherwise you could miss elements such as a key plot development, visual gag or match-saving tackle.

Most premium TVs let you adjust their height to accommodate a soundbar. But it’s still vital you measure the bar’s height first to make sure it fits.

Your TV cabinet might have a shelf on which your soundbar fits perfectly, but there are other factors to consider.

Lots of the best Dolby Atmos soundbars have upwards-firing drivers to add height channels to the mix – that way, a helicopter on-screen will sound as if it is passing overhead. But if your soundbar is on a shelf, those height channels will be shooting straight into the underside of the surface above. Imagine turning your hi-fi speaker against the wall, and you get the idea.

Wall-mounting avoids a lot of these pitfalls, but that brings hazards of its own – the most important being weight. A big soundbar such as the Sennheiser Ambeo Soundbar Max tips the scales at 18.5kg, so you want to make sure your wall is up to the task of supporting it. No one needs their movie watching interrupted by the soundbar thundering to the floor, ripping off half the wall in the process.

The best soundbars for big and small TVs

So now you know what to look out for, which models of soundbar should you consider? We have collected some of the best below to match to your TV size.

The best soundbars for small TVs

When it comes to choosing a soundbar, you might restrict your choice to the big hitters (Samsung, Sonos, Sony), but that would be a mistake. Lesser-known brands can deliver too – just take the Creative Stage Pro.

At 55cm wide, it’s small enough to fit under a 32-inch TV, though you will have to find space for the separate subwoofer. Despite its small size, it delivers a surprisingly cinematic performance, with impressive detail and solid low-level dynamics.

Stepping up a gear is the Sony HT-SF150, which is ideally suited to a 43-inch TV. It is also very affordable, yet feels much more premium, and has Bluetooth for wireless playback from your phone or tablet. Sony’s S-Force Front Surround technology is on board, too – this applies processing to make the sound more enveloping, adding more weight and separation to the mix.

But probably the best of the small soundbars is the Sonos Beam Gen 2, which we have no hesitation in recommending – it has won a What Hi-Fi? Award for five years running. It offers Dolby Atmos but without the upwards-firing drivers. It still puts in a convincing performance, though: rich, three-dimensional and full of detail. It will even serve bigger TVs well, such is its power.

The best soundbars for bigger TVs

At 114cm wide, the Sonos Arc is more than twice the width of the Beam, making it ideal for TVs around 55 inches in size (such as the Sony Bravia 8 II and TCL C7K and LG C6).

It has 11 drivers (two of which are upwards-firing) to create one of the most convincing Atmos performances you can get from a single-chassis soundbar. Placement is superb, and there’s great weight and dynamism to the sound.

The Focal Mu-so Hekla is another great option at this size, though it doesn’t come cheap. Though when you consider that it’s basically a home hi-fi system as well as a soundbar, it looks like considerably better value.

Because of its unusual skillset, it is an odd shape, and so harder to accommodate than a more traditional bar. But one listen and you’ll know that it’s worth it.

The best soundbars for massive TVs

If your TV is more like an advertising screen than a television, then you have some great options for soundbars.

The Samsung HW-Q990F managed to outdo even its Product of the Year predecessor. This soundbar package comes with a subwoofer and two surround speakers, making it a bit more intrusive than a simple ’bar alone. But a big TV demands a big room, so hopefully you’ll have space for these extra components.

And it’s worth making space if you can. The subwoofer unearths new levels of bass, but manages to sound wholly integrated into the overall sound at the same time.

The Sonos Arc Ultra is Sonos’s flagship soundbar, and another Award winner. Its sound is clean, precise, spacious and three-dimensional, with enough scale to do even huge TVs justice.

The KEF XIO also won a What Hi-Fi? Award last year – a stunning feat for KEF’s first-ever soundbar. It blesses larger TVs with impressive musicality, tight bass and a full-bodied midrange.

Finally, the Sennheiser Ambeo Soundbar Max is a hulking beast of a ’bar. It stands 127cm wide and weighs a whopping 18.5kg. Good luck getting it in place, but once you have, the results are glorious.

MORE:

The best soundbars you can buy

The best Dolby Atmos soundbars around

Strapped? The best budget soundbars

Streaming can feel like fantastic value, with huge libraries of movies and TV shows available for a relatively low monthly fee.

But when you add up the cost of a full year of access, especially to multiple services, the picture starts to look rather different.

How different? We've crunched the numbers, and the results might surprise you.

Paying the price

Streaming isn't that expensive in the grand scheme of things – the top, all-singing, all-dancing tiers of Netflix and Disney+, for example, cost £18.99 and £14.99 a month, respectively.

Many people (though clearly not all) probably don't even notice that coming out of their bank account each month. But while these prices might seem relatively low, they soon add up.

Here's what you'll pay over a year for the top subscription (we hate ads and love 4K / Dolby Atmos) of each streaming service:

Watching the costs add up

The annual cost of TV streaming services

Price

Netflix

227.88

Disney+

179.88

Amazon Prime Video

119.88

Apple TV

119.88

Mubi

227.88

Shudder

59.88

Crunchyroll

83.88

Paramount+

131.88

075150225300

£

Price Data

Product	Value
Netflix	227.88
Disney+	179.88
Amazon Prime Video	119.88
Apple TV	119.88
Mubi	227.88
Shudder	59.88
Crunchyroll	83.88
Paramount+	131.88

For the equivalent of an annual Netflix subscription, you could buy 11 4K Blu-rays at £20 a pop (more if they're on a deal, as they often are). That's nearly one a month.

There are other factors to consider. Most of us have more than one streaming service because of their different content libraries, which makes the habit even more expensive. And with life having a tendency to get in the way, some months we won't watch very much at all.

Suddenly, it doesn't seem such great value.

Admittedly, you do get unlimited viewing of the streamer's entire catalogue, but you never own any of it – if you cancel your subscription, all of your favourite films and TV shows are gone, just like that.

Also remember that some services (Prime Video, we're looking at you) charge extra for certain films and shows not included in the subscription price. So you could end up paying more on top.

Let's have a look at what this looks like over five years and a decade.

And these are at today's prices. Price rises are a given – Netflix has increased its prices in the UK four times since 2021. Take more than one service, and you're looking at a hefty bill.

Someone with Netflix and Disney+, for example, will pay over £400 a year, over £2000 in five years and a whopping £4000 in a decade.

Consider that a 4K Blu-ray costs around £20-25, gives you better picture and sound quality and is yours to keep forever, and streaming starts to look like very poor value indeed.

And that's before you consider how streaming changes your relationship with the content itself.

Faced with an endless carousel of content, all of which feels free (even though it isn't), you inevitably adopt the infinite scroll mentality – even if you like the look of something, you keep searching in case there's something better.

It all becomes disposable, with low-budget fare such as Is It Cake? sitting alongside critically acclaimed films such as Emilia Pérez. When everything is flattened, nothing stands out. This is the landscape we find ourselves in.

There's no curation; that's the problem. Whereas a Blu-ray is a considered purchase – something you'll watch more than once, in the best possible quality, and may even work your way through its extensive list of special features. Now that's value for money.

A word on our methodology

We've made certain assumptions here. As mentioned, we've based our prices on the best possible picture and sound quality for each service (though not the family plans, which would push prices up even further), as we assume that's what our readers desire. Most streaming services have cheaper tiers if you're willing to suffer worse quality and adverts.

Some services can also be bundled together to save money, such as Netflix and Disney+ with Sky. Though that means paying for Sky as well.

Some (such as Disney+ and Shudder) also offer annual plans, which are cheaper than paying month by month. But then you're locked in for a set period, instead of having the flexibility to cancel your membership at any time.

Prime Video is cheaper for Prime members, though that comes with its own cost. And Mubi's Go plan (which we've used in our calculations) includes a cinema ticket each week, so you can remember what it's like to watch a film properly.

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Now Showing: challenge your home cinema system with these top-notch discs

Home Cinema Week is in full swing, and so far it has been a joy to delve into topics from 4K projectors to dissecting the definition of home cinema itself.

But we shouldn’t forget the story of how we got to the point of being able to have home cinema systems in our houses. That’s right, we are going way back to the early days of cinema.

I have found the perfect place to venture down this nerdy rabbit hole. Hidden in a residential corner of Kennington in London, there is a rather grand red-brick building with a story to tell.

The building used to be part of Lambeth Workhouse, with notable residents such as a young Charlie Chaplin throughout the late 1800s. It had a life as a hospital, but now it has taken its latest form as the Cinema Museum.

Founded in 1984, the museum is run by volunteers. It acts as a treasure trove to remember and celebrate the history of cinema. There are artefacts and memorabilia everywhere you look, from 100-year-old film cameras to cardboard cut-outs of Lara Croft.

On the top floor is a small cinema featuring plush velvet seats and disused signage, which is still used for screenings throughout the year.

The museum is open on selected dates every month, so I bagged myself a ticket to a tour led by our guide Andy. He tells me that much of the collection was rescued from rubbish bins back in the 1970s in Scotland, when many picture palaces were being demolished at an alarming rate.

Despite it being in the peak of one of the recent UK heatwaves, with everyone glugging from water bottles every few seconds, the volunteers conducted their tour with unrelenting enthusiasm and curiosity.

Really, there is too much to talk about – and I don’t want to spoil all the amazing finds for those of you who want to attend. So, just to whet your appetite, here are my three favourite spots at the museum.

The Latham Loop

One thing that is immediately made clear is that the early days of cinema were not for the faint of heart. It was an incredibly dangerous career, with experiments with new technology leading to numerous deaths and injuries.

Perhaps the most well-known cause of these incidents was the material used for the projector film itself. Early filmmakers tried out a whole bunch of materials, Andy says, from paper to celluloid.

The latter was more durable and flexible than paper, but it was also highly flammable, and the heat from the lamp light source only fanned the flames (so to speak).

That meant that there were countless fatalities during many screenings in the early days of cinema, including the audience members and staff. One of the most infamous examples of this comes from the Paris Bazar fire in 1897, which killed more than 100 people.

On top of that flammability, the celluloid would frequently be pulled and jolted through the projector, which led to rips that left the film unusable. That meant that films could never be very long, as longer lengths risked more of the film being damaged. A small yet essential innovation then made filmmaking a little easier. Enter the Latham Loop, which is – you guessed it – a small loop in the film strip that reduces the tension and pulling of the celluloid.

It’s still used today, and the film cameras scattered around the museum each feature that all-important loop. Keep your eye out for it the next time you have the chance to see a film projector in real life…

The birth of cinema sound

We take audio for granted now, but in the early days of cinema, it was an almost impossible dream.

The Cinema Museum houses a variety of ways that sound was delivered with picture, including vinyl, which had the sound recorded separately and was used until the early 1930s. Andy tells us that this caused its own problems, as the distributors would sometimes send the wrong record with the film. On top of that, the disc would have to be perfectly synced up with the projector, which would certainly be quite a skill to master.

Also on display is a 10-inch record used in the Hepworth Vivaphone. The ultimately unsuccessful audio attempt was made up of a gramophone record that the actors lip-synched along to, meaning you had to make sure the record matched the image.

This was all quite a challenge for cinema managers, and there was a fair bit of pushback as it was expensive and complex to integrate these methods into the cinema itself.

Compared with modern sound systems, where we can adjust voice-sync with the touch of a button, we certainly have it easy.

Frankenstein’s lab

There aren’t a huge amount of movie props around the museum – the focus is more on the behind-the-scenes of the cinema; but this bizarre-looking item sits between both categories.

The strange octopus-like item in the image above is actually a mercury arc rectifier, and its job on early film sets was to convert an AC to a DC current.

When it was being used, it would have a little bit of liquid mercury at the bottom, which would have produced a bright blue light. Sadly, I didn't get to see this in action as it is long out of commission, but it would have looked like something from another planet.

The director of the 1931 Frankenstein movie iteration, James Whale, clearly thought the same, as he spotted it behind the camera during filming and asked for it to be added to the set of the crazed scientist’s laboratory.

The scary-looking piece of kit would not have made a huge impact on screen as it was filmed in black and white, but it still played a key part in movie history. Thank you for your service, strange mechanical Kraken.

If you are looking to delve into the history of cinema with knowledgeable guides and early movie-making kit, the Cinema Museum makes for a fascinating visit. And who knows? It might give you a newfound appreciation for your fast-working AV setup.

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These are the best Dolby Atmos soundbars

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I love the idea of a soundbar. Who wouldn’t want the quality of a proper home cinema sound system in a form that fits unobtrusively below the television? Just one box and none of the wiring spaghetti. That was the highly appealing promise offered by the first soundbar What Hi-Fi? reviewed, the Yamaha YSP-1.

That was back in 2005, and I distinctly remember the What Hi-Fi? team’s excitement about this new concept; and, with certain provisos, how much we liked that product.

The YSP-1’s design was hugely ambitious for the time. It featured 42 drive units and clever processing technology that could focus beams of sound to produce a proper multi-channel effect, all from a single, one-box product.

Over the years, I have grown increasingly disappointed with the direction of soundbar design. The cleverness of the YSP concept hasn’t been used as a foundation to progress the category.

Single-unit soundbars largely seem to have given up trying to deliver proper surround sound – the kind that wraps around you – choosing instead to focus on Dolby Atmos to deliver a sense of height. The days of a single soundbar enveloping the listener in a (mostly) convincing soundfield are long gone.

If you do want more of a surround soundfield, manufacturers now offer soundbar systems with separate speakers that sit behind you, and usually a subwoofer, too. Such systems, good as they can be, seem well removed from the original, minimalist soundbar idea.

So, if you are looking for a simple way to improve your TV’s sound, I would like to suggest an alternative. Given that single soundbars often no longer even try to emulate true surround sound, maybe forgo the idea altogether and try stereo.

Stay with me on this.

The stereo system could be a pair of powered speakers or even a traditional two-channel amplifier driving a pair of passives. As long as you can get a signal in, whether through HDMI, optical, coaxial or analogue, and can position the speakers on either side of the screen, it will work.

Not convinced? Think of it this way. Soundbars tend to be pretty thin and long in proportion. It is impossible to use anything other than tiny drive units in such an enclosure.

It isn’t unusual to have a driver count in double figures, so internal volume is at a premium, leading to restriction in the kind of amplification and power supplies that can be fitted

While clever use of DSP and a lot of engineering know-how get a surprisingly capable sound out of such limited ingredients, the two-channel route I have suggested allows much more scope for the designer.

The drive units are larger, and there is more space for amplification, power supplies and drive units to breathe. The result, in my experience, is better sound almost across the board.

Sure, the result is limited to stereo, and you’ll have to live with that. There isn’t necessarily a separate subwoofer to augment the lows, either – but even relatively humble solutions such as Fyne’s Cubitt 5 can produce a sound of such insight, resolution and subtlety that similarly priced soundbars are invariably left floundering.

Height information, too, is off the menu. But, for me, the extra expression in voices and greater dynamic finesse more than compensate. Soundtracks sound more thrilling, and dynamics have more delicacy and punch.

Bass may not be as prominent, unless you add a subwoofer to your stereo pair of speakers, but it is invariably more tuneful and better integrated.

Then there is the added bonus of stereo music sounding better, too. Even the best soundbars on the market tend to struggle to convince with music, but a good, dedicated stereo system won’t.

So, if you want to improve the sound from your TV, I suggest leaving the herd and going full retro with a dedicated two-channel set-up rather than a dedicated soundbar. Take the jump; I suspect you’ll be happy you did.

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When you have a home cinema speaker package that is centred around some five-star stereo standmounts, it makes sense to make as much use of them as possible.

That is why, for this premium cinema set-up, we have married the KEF Q Concerto Meta speaker package with Arcam’s AVR5 AV amplifier.

The system

• Projector: Epson EH-LS9000 (£2999 / $3999 / AU$7299)
• Blu-ray player: Panasonic DP-UB820 (£349 / $550 / AU$849)
• Streaming box: Apple TV 4K (£199 / $150 / AU$299)
• AV amplifier: Arcam AVR5 (£1499 / $1999 / AU$3995)
• Speaker system: KEF Q Concerto Meta 5.1 (£2549 / $4050 / AU$5650)
• Total system price: £7595 / $10,748 / AU$18,092

The AV receiver

Arcam puts sound performance as the main selling point of all its amplifiers, not merely bunging as many features into the box as possible to appeal to its buyer. More features means the potential for more issues with sound, and that is not an acceptable compromise for the brand.

That single-minded insistence on sonic ability is also why the Arcam will power only seven channels of amplification. It will process up to 12 channels of Dolby Atmos, but you’ll need to add external amplification to drive those extra channels, should you want to do so.

What it will do here, though, is provide a brilliant 5.1 experience – and should you want to take advantage of those Dolby Atmos capabilities (which we would urge you to consider) you can invest in a pair of KEF’s Q8 Meta Atmos toppers. Then you would be using the Arcam amp to drive a 5.1.2-channel Dolby Atmos system, without the need for extra external amplification.

Importantly, you would also have an impressively musical two-channel option as well, removing the need for a separate stereo set-up. If space is at a premium, this is a neat solution that should suit most people really well.

A glimpse at the images at the top of this page reveals that this is a substantial set-up, though. And more than seven grand is quite the outlay, of course. But consider that this is a system that can cover both stereo and home cinema – and perform both with aplomb – and things don’t seem quite so eye-watering.

It is, however, a set-up that requires a dedicated space. This is serious home cinema, after all, so a permanently plumbed-in projector and screen, and a room that can be made dark, should be your first aim.

Assuming you have the appropriate space to accommodate it though, this set-up is simply stunning value for money.

The nimble, surefooted Arcam can handle movie scores and sound effects with impressive ability. This really is an impeccable musical performance, and it’s one that can go really very loud without seeming to feel the strain.

The speaker package

An impeccable musical performance can apply equally as well to the KEF speaker package, of course – no great surprise with the five-star stereo abilities of the Q Concerto Meta standmounts that perform the front left and right channel duties.

It’s not all about that pairing, though. The KEF Kube subwoofer holds its own, with a powerful and dynamic low-end kick, and the Q1 Meta surrounds, despite being smaller than their front-channel siblings, certainly don’t let up on a movie as far as sonic scale goes.

No, this package puts in a truly impressive surround-sound display, putting us squarely in the centre of any movie action, while also revealing the subtle abilities of its centre channel by making dialogue pin-sharp and clear.

The projector

While the sound is a massive part of any home cinema experience, it would all be for naught, of course, without a brilliant 4K picture to do it justice.

Which is where the projector comes in. A Best Buy in the What Hi-Fi? 2025 Awards, the Epson EH-LS9000 is, for us, the top performer in its category.

It may not have a native 4K resolution, rather getting to its 4K image via pixel-shifting, but that technology, far from being the red flag it might once have been, has proved time and time again to be capable of producing brilliantly sharp and detailed picture quality. And so it proves here.

The Vivid preset (perhaps surprisingly – certainly unusually) is the setting that, for us, makes the most of the LS9000’s specification and processing. It produces a picture with quite exceptional vibrancy and three-dimensionality without making things look forced or veering drastically away from cinematic intent.

As we say in our review: “Playing Thunderbolts on 4K Blu-ray… we’re instantly struck by the sharpness and detail of the image. There’s an awesome solidity and depth to the picture, which is particularly impressive at the 100-inch scale of our screen, and you almost feel as if you could reach into the image and poke the little figures in the distance.

“Colours are both vivid and natural, and the shading is excellent: the sky over the desert fills the top third of the image and blends beautifully from very light blue on one side to a deeper, more vibrant blue on the other.”

The Blu-ray player

Talking of blue, we would urge you to invest in physical media for a home cinema of this quality. There are fewer and fewer 4K Blu-ray players available to buy these days, with the prevalence of video streaming, but there is no doubt, in our eyes, that the format is the best way to get a top-notch 4K image.

The Panasonic DP-UB820 is our current Award winner, and has been claiming What Hi-Fi? Awards since 2019.

And, as we say in our review verdict, “If you’ve bought into the 4K Blu-ray format and have a suitable home cinema set-up, you need a dedicated player that can deliver on multiple fronts. The Panasonic DP-UB820 is just that, supporting all major HDR formats, delivering a hugely immersive and impactful picture, backed up by a strong audio performance.”

The streamer

While a Blu-ray disc is perfect for those full-on movie nights, we are not obsessive or unrealistic enough to say that everything we watch should be via that somewhat restrictive medium.

Video streaming has come on leaps and bounds over the past decade and more – and the quality of the 4K images on offer is now extremely impressive. The very best option, though, for a home cinema such as this is undoubtedly Apple’s brilliant TV 4K.

Suffice to say that its predecessor romped away with Awards aplenty, and this superb little box is better than it in every department. For us, this is a no-brainer.

Hisense has clearly decided that it’s time to capitalise on its huge success in the lifestyle projector world by launching a shiny, new no-holds-barred flagship model.

Boasting 6000 lumens of brightness, a triple laser lighting system, liquid cooling, a built-in Devialet sound system, an all-glass lens and support for every HDR format in town, the XR10 certainly makes all the right flagship noises.

But can Hisense marshal all these expensive pieces into a class-leading performance?

Price

With Hisense usually found successfully plying its trade in the mid-range lifestyle projector arena, the £5999 / $6000 / AU$9995 price of the XR10 really is a major step up for the brand.

In fact, it will doubtless be a step too far for many home cinema-loving households, and even raises the question of whether a projector that seems from the outside at least to have been designed more as a ‘lifestyle’ model than a serious home theatre machine really makes sense at such a price.

As we’re about to explain, though, we think the XR10 makes all kinds of sense, even at its very high price.

Design

The XR10’s design is nuts in all the best ways. For starters, it ships in a beautifully designed, built-to-measure real leather carry case complete with wheels and an extendable handle that looks like Hisense thinks you’re going to love the projector so much you’ll want to take it on holiday with you.

The projector’s spectacular bodywork, meanwhile, is actually transparent in some places, so that you can marvel at some of the cool things going on under the projector’s hood.

A huge lens aperture sits within a bold bronze-coloured metallic square on one side of the projector’s front, while the left side houses two vertical stripes, one recessed, one not, housing sensors that the projector can use to help it deliver a more effective automatic set-up system.

The projector’s left, right and top edges are finished in the same bronzy colour as the area around the lens housing, while the projector’s shape resembles a larger (and much heavier) version of the sort of roughly cubic designs we’ve started to see dominating the living room projector market in recent times.

The top plate sports a beautifully designed round dial-style volume adjustment, as well as a large ambient light sensor the projector can use to optimise its picture performance to different room conditions.

That volume control, along with the grilles built into the XR10’s left and right edges, reflects the fact that the XR10 carries a built-in sound system deemed powerful enough to enable the projector to be used as a standalone wireless speaker if you so desire.

The various finishes to different sides and even within the front edge of the XR10 ought, by all rights, to make its design look a bit of a mess. Actually, though, it all comes together remarkably well in a vaguely cyberpunk kind of way.

Features

The XR10 is mostly specced to kill.

Its 6000 claimed lumens of laser-delivered peak brightness is huge by serious projector standards, for starters. That’s easily enough to punch through quite a bit of ambient light if that’s what you want it to do; drive a particularly big screen (Hisense claims 300 inches); and/or potentially handle HDR sources better than most projectors can.

Brightness alone can actually be anything but a friend to projector picture quality, though, so it’s impressive to see Hisense backing this brightness up with a healthy claimed native contrast performance of 6000:1. This jumps, too, to a very impressive claimed 60,000:1 courtesy of the projector’s premium lens iris system. As ever, though, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating.

Hisense has gone the extra mile, too, to avoid the sort of rowdy cooling-fan noise you might normally expect to hear from a 6000-lumen projector by integrating liquid (water) cooling into the XR10’s chassis. This is the first time, we believe, that such cooling has been used in an albeit premium living room projector.

Another big justification for the XR10’s price is its use of an all-glass, 16-element lens system that Hisense claims will deliver better light transmission and temperature stability than a plastic system could, resulting in more brightness/contrast and more consistent 4K sharpness.

The colour coverage claimed for the XR10’s laser lighting/DLP optical system is huge too: up to 110 per cent of the massive BT2020 colour space. That’s well beyond the DCI-P3 colour system used for most HDR mastering.

Talking of HDR, the XR10 is one of a very rare breed in the projector world that’s capable of playing all four of the AV world’s main HDR formats: HDR10, HLG, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. It’s even received IMAX Enhanced certification, meaning it has been deemed capable of doing justice to the special IMAX mastering system (which focuses on creating a noiseless look to the image). Basically, the XR10 will take in the best version of any content you feed it.

For all their advantages, setting up premium projectors can often be a pain. Hisense couldn’t have worked harder to simplify the physical aspect of set-up, though. The XR10 carries an industry-first four-8MP-camera and dual Time-of-flight (TOF) intelligent sensing set-up that it can use to correct image size, keystone and focus without you having to lift a finger. Plus, that ambient sensor we mentioned earlier can tie its readings into the calculations of a ‘Smart AI’ auto-adjustment system so that images can auto-adjust to compensate for changing room conditions.

As well as all its sensors and AI brainpower, the XR10 carries an exceptionally wide-ranging 0.84-2.0x optical zoom and bags of vertical and horizontal image shifting. It’s therefore able to (auto) adapt itself to a seriously wide range of different room sizes and layouts – and is also capable of delivering a 100-inch image from a throw distance of just 1.86m.

As we’ve come to expect from today’s lifestyle projectors, the XR10 carries a built-in smart system so that you can stream video without the need for any external sources. Rather than the Google TV system found in most projectors, though, the XR10 turns to Hisense’s own VIDAA system. This is good news, as it’s straightforward and stable to use, and it carries all of the streaming services the vast majority of households will need, including the BBC iPlayer app that’s almost always absent from Google TV systems.

The XR10 is, of course, a 4K projector. It doesn’t have a full 3840x2160 count of digital mirror devices (DMDs) that would be needed for a ‘true’ 4K experience, though. Instead, it features Texas Instruments’ XPR technology to create a 4K image from a lower DMD count using pixel-shifting. The Consumer Technology Association in the US deems the resulting images to be true 4K, though, and as we’ll see, it’s hard to disagree with that stance based on the XR10’s real-life 4K performance.

The XR10’s connections impressively comprise three HDMI ports (one 2.0, two 2.1), three USBs, an optical digital audio output, a headphone jack, an Ethernet port, and the now-expected wi-fi and Bluetooth wireless options. Apple AirPlay 2 is included in the projector’s wireless content sharing options, too.

There is one connection disappointment, though, as we couldn’t manage to get even the two HDMI 2.1 ports to handle 4K content at 120Hz from our Xbox Series X. 120Hz is possible at 1440p resolutions with the HDMI ports set to Enhance Mode Pro, but there’s no VRR support in this set-up, and nor can the projector sustain HDR gaming at any refresh rate above 60Hz.

One last premium aspect of the XR10 is its audio. Not only does it carry a 2.1 speaker system that includes a dedicated bass driver and supports DTS: Virtual X playback, but this speaker system has been tuned by acclaimed audio brand Devialet, picking up on a relationship Hisense previously forged for the speaker systems of its high-end TVs.

Picture

We’ve consistently referred to the XR10 so far as a ‘lifestyle’ or 'living room' projector, based chiefly on its appearance and convenient set-up features. It’s worth reflecting before we get into its performance, though, on the fact that Hisense describes the XR10 as being “built for cinephiles who want the big-screen theatre experience without sacrificing design, flexibility or fidelity”.

In other words, Hisense is backing the XR10 to be good enough to satisfy proper home cinema enthusiasts as well as the more casual projection market. And we’re happy to report that it’s absolutely right.

Particularly spectacular and key to its success is its ability to deliver both extreme levels of brightness and some of the deepest, most convincing blacks the HDR projection world has to offer.

Using any of the XR10’s relatively aggressive picture presets, bright HDR images are absolutely radiant, punching through even high levels of ambient light if you’re watching the projector in a regular daytime living room environment. In a dark room, meanwhile, this brightness can be used to deliver HDR with levels of intensity that we’ve only witnessed a handful of times before – mostly on ultra-high-end laser theatre projectors costing way more than the XR10.

Dark room viewing makes it obvious just how good the XR10 is with dark scenes and, even more impressively, scenes that contain a mix of light and dark elements. Provided you’re careful with the settings you use (more on this later), the XR10 can not only deliver dark imagery with much less greyness around than most, if not all, very bright, HDR-friendly projectors, but it also manages to retain all the faint shadow details you want to see if dark scenes are to feel consistent in depth with bright scenes. There’s little if any ‘black crush’ to worry about here.

Even better, the XR10 doesn’t just retain detail in the darkest image areas; it also retains excellent colour tones and saturations in such light-limited areas, avoiding the widespread tendency in both the projector and TV worlds for dark images to become desaturated.

The XR10’s colour performance is more obviously spectacular, of course, with very bright HDR images. Rather than the brightest highlights of HDR pictures starting to look thin or washed out, the XR10’s colour volume just keeps expanding as it’s fed more light.

Colour volumes push into places, in fact, that we haven’t seen before, beyond, perhaps, a couple of Xgimi models. Crucially, though, the XR10 does a substantially better job than those admittedly more affordable Xgimi rivals of making even the most vibrant colours across almost all of its picture presets look balanced and surprisingly natural. Or, at least, extremely believable.

To put it another way, while the XR10 is proud to show off what it can do, it only does so on a foundation of immersive consistency and a constant connection to the source material.

Despite the extreme vibrancy, brightness and contrast of which the XR10 is capable, as you’d hope of such an expensive and ambitious projector, it also cares about the little things in AV life. Its 4K pictures look fanatically detailed and densely textured, for instance – and this is down as much to the almost infinite subtlety of its colour rendition as it is to raw sharpness. The sharpness feels natural rather than forced or processed even in the projector’s most aggressive settings, and motion is handled without smearing or resolution loss.

If you find judder a touch obvious with 24p content, especially during bright scenes, the projector’s Film motion processing option does a pretty smart job of reducing judder without the results devolving into the dreaded soap opera effect.

While many will find it hard to resist the fantastic dynamism and richness of the XR10’s relatively aggressive image presets, film fans who want to see images that look as their creators wanted them to look can rest assured that their needs are catered for brilliantly, too, by the projector’s Filmmaker Mode preset.

This removes a big chunk of the brightness that is one of the XR10’s strengths. But the resulting images look natural, beautifully balanced, full of subtlety and still just excellently watchable despite Filmmaker Mode turning off many of its picture enhancement technologies.

If there’s an issue with the default Filmmaker Mode, it’s that black levels look a bit grey without any of the projector’s contrast enhancement tools in play. Simply setting the projector’s manual iris setting to its ‘One’ level, though, immediately improves black levels, at the expense of a just slightly cooler look to the image.

Aside from some DLP rainbow striping with very extreme contrast content, this set-up suggestion leads us to arguably the XR10’s one major image flaw. Namely, you need to be prepared to tinker with a few of the projector’s settings to get the best from it. It’s not quite the simple 'unbox, switch on and instantly relax deal' you might have been hoping for.

For instance, while the Dolby Vision Bright preset the XR10 defaults to with Dolby Vision content delivers great contrast for such a bright projector, it pushes some colours too strongly. Greens are over-dominant and skin tones look too ripe. The core colour temperature can also fluctuate within a shot if there are significant light level variations to cope with, and you can sometimes see the projector’s dynamic iris system doing its work too obviously.

Setting the manual iris setting to level 1 helps balance colours and eliminates the fluctuating colour tone, but suddenly sees green tones taking on a strangely brownish hue. Fortunately, there’s an easy solution to this one that simply involves switching to the Dolby Vision Dark preset. This instantly fixes colour balance/consistency issues, delivers natural blacks and skin tones and, if you set the iris feature to ‘0’, leaves the image looking totally stable.

The XR10’s complex iris options include a few presets alongside the multi-step Manual mode. Cinema 1 delivers a nicely judged combination of brightness and contrast, but leaves you having to hit the colour calibration tools to try and stop skin tones and red colours looking too pink, and can also cause some noticeable fluctuations in brightness from the dynamic iris. Cinema 2 delivers some of the best black levels we’ve seen from any projector, but at the expense of huge amounts of the brightness that’s so enjoyable a part of the XR10’s usual picture make-up. Only in a fully blacked-out room is this setting even worth considering, and even then, maybe only the most die-hard accuracy enthusiasts will find the dimness tolerable.

In the end, even where the XR10 offers pre-programmed attempts to provide helpful out-of-the-box feature presets, we ultimately end up reverting to manual intervention via the all-important manual iris setting. A setting which, for better or worse, is kept outside of the picture settings encompassed by the projector’s defined picture presets, so that whatever lens setting you choose applies across every preset for every source until you go back in and change it again.

There are other bits of tinkering we’d recommend too, including turning the sharpness setting to zero but leaving a separate Super Resolution feature active, and braving the projector’s more in-depth colour and white-balance controls, too, if you dare.

The bottom line, though, is that for the most part, making the effort to spend just a few minutes fine-tuning images when you first get the XR10 rewards you with what can be absolutely spectacular but also thoughtful and subtle results. Results capable of adapting, moreover, to pretty much any room shape or ambient light condition.

It’s important to add, too, that the projector responds excellently without manual intervention to the extra picture information provided by the HDR10+ format, making us wish more projectors would adopt this alternative/rival to the Dolby Vision system.

Maybe even more importantly, the XR10’s out-of-the-box dynamic tone mapping system with basic HDR10 content is outstanding. The way it maps the available image data of core HDR10 sources to the projector’s capabilities so that they look dynamic and punchy without succumbing to clipping, unevenness, black crush or colour imbalances is superb, and actually requires less manual intervention than you’d usually expect with most HDR projectors.

The XR10’s automated hardware image correction features work brilliantly, too. So while some of its presets could be better, it’s also actually more helpful than most rivals in other areas of usability and set-up.

One last strength of the XR10 to mention is how incredibly quietly it runs for such a monumentally bright projector. The liquid cooling system Hisense has taken considerable trouble to integrate into the projector proves well worth the effort.

Sound

The XR10’s speakers are capable of pumping out levels of volume and dynamic range that shame many premium TVs. Even at just 50 per cent of its maximum volume, it’s loud enough to satisfy even a quite large room.

Trebles reach high peaks without sounding brittle or warbly, even at high volumes, while at the other end, bass reaches remarkably deep without falling prey to dropouts or crackles, or causing the projector’s metal bodywork to start buzzing. This helps low frequencies avoid sounding overly dominant or distracting, despite how present and deep they are. Similarly, the XR10’s ability to produce high levels of detail in a film or TV mix doesn’t leave busy soundtracks sounding too forensic or ambient effects too bright.

Voices are clean and well-rounded too. The only issue is that they sound a bit trapped inside the projector’s bodywork compared with the rest of the sound mix, which means they also sound rather dislocated from the onscreen action on the other side of the room, and sometimes rather decontextualised from the rest of the soundstage.

Verdict

While it might be the XR10’s startling, beautifully built design that first catches your eye, Hisense’s new showcase projector ultimately justifies its premium price tag with its combination of a startlingly powerful sound system and the best picture quality we’ve seen from any lifestyle or, more accurately, lifestyle/home theatre crossover projector before.

As statements of intent go, it’s hard to see how the XR10 could have served Hisense much better.

SCORES

• Picture 5
• Sound 4
• Features 4

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Best projectors: the best options tested by our home cinema experts

The high street has been struggling in recent years, and it's easy to see why.

The convenience of online shopping is compelling, as is the ability to read reviews (both ours and from other buyers) and to do your research in the next browser tab along. For bigger purchases like a TV, you can also see the dimensions and measure exactly where it'll go. Plus, you can compare prices across hundreds of retailers from the comfort of your sofa.

But there are still plenty of reasons to buy a TV from your local shop. You'll be supporting a local, possibly independent business. The staff can give you expert advice. And, of course, you can see the set for yourself in the flesh.

A TV is a big purchase. You wouldn't buy a car that you hadn't seen for yourself.

So please, go forth and buy your next TV from a shop. Just don't make these five classic mistakes when buying in-store.

Mistake 1 – assuming the picture will look the same at home

You might be bowled over by the stunningly bright picture in the shop, but wait. In-store, TVs are put into a special demo mode to make them look as eye-catching as possible under the glare of the shop's bright lights.

This mode amps up the brightness and colour volume, but doesn't fare well with fast motion like sport or gaming. Which is why most in-shop TVs only show nature footage to showcase their bright colours.

To get a more realistic idea of how it will look in your lounge, you can ask the shop to put it into a different mode for you – try Filmmaker mode for cinematic fare. Sadly, you can't ask them to dim the lights.

And if they won't change the mode? Make sure you read our review of that particular model for a thorough analysis of how it performs.

Mistake 2 – not measuring up

We get it – you're in the shop, the TV looks so alluring and you can picture it right at home in your lounge. So what if you haven't measured the space first? It'll fit. Of course it will.

Maybe. But then maybe not. And if it doesn't, you've got two choices: navigate the shop's returns policy, or live with a TV that's just too big for its space. Of those two, we would opt for the former. Having to look at a TV that doesn't fit every day would just remind us of our rash decision-making.

Instead, look up the dimensions and measure the space before you head to the shop. And make sure it's the correct size model too – there's a big difference between the 42-inch LG C6 and the 48-inch one.

Trust me, as someone who once assumed the Sonos Arc Ultra would fit on my TV cabinet, I know the importance of measuring first.

Mistake 3 – trusting it will sound OK

Understandably, most TVs are on mute in the shop. It's the only way; otherwise, you'd be met by a cacophony of demo soundtracks as soon as you walked through the door.

Which poses a problem – how do you know what it sounds like? An obliging member of staff might turn the volume up for you, but given all the other sounds in the shop, that will only show how loud it can go.

We have the same issue at trade shows. While companies are keen to talk up their TVs' sound quality on a stand at a trade show, it's impossible to tell how they actually sound. The only real way to find out is to get it into a lounge or testing room, pull the curtains and settle in for some serious viewing. Which you can't really do in a shop.

The salesperson might tell you it sounds great, but don't assume that's true. Again, check our review, and leave yourself some budget for one of the best soundbars to accompany your new TV. Because even a relatively affordable soundbar will outdo most TVs' sonic abilities.

Mistake 4 – taking it home yourself

For most people, buying a new TV is a once-in-a-decade experience, if that. So we don't blame you for wanting to get your new purchase home as soon as possible. But we would urge a note of caution – are you sure you've got room in the boot of your car? Unless you're driving a transit van, you're going to struggle to get a 65-inch TV in there.

Even if you are driving a transit van, do you have the means to secure your new TV and stop it sliding around every time you turn a corner? And as for speed bumps...

It's far better to get the shop to deliver it instead. Yes, it might take a few days, so you'll be stuck with your old TV a little longer (or with nothing, if your old set is kaput). But once you leave the shop with it, a new TV is your responsibility. Any screen cracks from it being bounced around in the back of your Kia Rio are on you.

Mistake 5 – making an on-the-spot decision

This is probably the biggest error of all. Yes, the salesperson might have a compelling pitch, and yes, they might offer you a small discount if you agree to buy there and then. But without reading up on the product to see what it offers and how it compares to what else is available, you could end up buying the wrong TV for you. That's an expensive mistake.

Instead, do your research beforehand, read our reviews, measure up and compare prices. Then, when you do go to the shop to see it for yourself, you'll be armed with plenty of knowledge so you're not swayed by the sales patter. This gives you a much better chance of buying the TV that's genuinely right for you.

A new TV is a big decision, and the right one should serve you well for many years to come. Happy viewing!

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The best TVs around

Which TVs have the best sound (as well as great pictures)?

How to choose the right TV: a complete guide

I don’t know about you, but I’m rather excited to see The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan’s cinematic take on Homer’s peerless epic poem.

Ignoring all of the tedious internet chatter and naysaying from self-appointed experts who really should take the time, in the very spirit of their beloved wandering Greek hero, to go outside and touch some grass, early signs point to the blockbuster to end all blockbusters. Reviews seem positive, to say the least.

Nolan at the helm? Check. A star-studded cast working at the top of their respective games? Check. One of western literature’s greatest stories providing the riveting source material? You betcha’.

“But they’re not using the original overlapping bronze armour, and those helmets should be made of boar hide. And why does Odysseus have an American accent?”

Go dump yourself in the River Styx.

I’ll be booking my tickets to The Odyssey as soon as I can, and while my optimism might end up crashing down like the walls of once-glittering Troy itself, I’m relatively confident that you should be doing the same.

Forget Avengers: Doomsday, the cinematic event of the year is here!

The second-best composer named Ludwig

I’m excited for all of those aforementioned reasons of director, production and cast, but I’m also keen to see The Odyssey on the big screen because it once again brings together two of cinema’s most potent trump cards: Christopher Nolan and his composer du jour, Ludwig Göransson.

Nolan has recruited the services of the ever-enthralling Hans Zimmer for many of his greatest barnstormers, including the Dark Knight saga and Interstellar, with Göransson latterly becoming a sort of Zimmer 2.0 as he begins to forge his own reputation as one of the world’s premier composers.

This is the man who did the music for Disney Plus’s The Mandalorian and, under Nolan’s charge, Oppenheimer. Projects don’t get much bigger than that.

The Oppenheimer score is, while we’re on the subject, truly worthy of the movie which it accompanies – we use Can You Hear The Music regularly as a track for testing home cinema and hi-fi – but it is Göransson’s work on the lesser-know (certainly less-understood) blockbuster Tenet that has me setting sail on my Trireme and making for the multiplex to discover what the Swedish composer can do for The Odyssey.

If you’ve seen Tenet, you’ll know exactly the sort of challenges which must have faced Mr. Göransson as he prepared to give it his best. About as confusing as trying to solve a Rubik’s cube inside a hall of mirrors, it stands alone as one of the most mind-bending and elliptical of all of Nolan’s creations.

When you consider this is the man who gave the world Memento and Inception, that’s some feat.

A soundtrack built to last

Thankfully, the accompanying score is a triumph, and one I use often whenever I’m digging deep into the capabilities of a new pair of headphones or a box-fresh (but properly run-in, of course) amplifier. In fact, it’s become something of an obsession even when I’m outside the test rooms – a sort of musical comfort blanket that I don’t seem to be able to take off.

POSTERITY is the track that has lodged the deepest roots in my psyche – so much so that I’ll often simply whack it on without thinking whenever I have a spare moment of silence which needs filling, lest the voices are given room to make themselves heard.

At nearly 13 minutes long, it is by far the longest track across the Tenet score, yet what’s remarkable about POSTERITY is that not a second feels wasted across what is a sprawling, Herculean runtime.

That obviously means you’ll need to set aside quite a bit of time if you’re using it for testing; but the reward is worth the considerable effort. POSTERITY, in the same vein as Hans Zimmer’s Supermarine (written for another Nolan movie, Dunkirk), is all about the progression, about the slow but inexorable build-up as it rises and swells from glowing embers to a roaring, engulfing blaze.

Not once is that repetitiveness ever dull. POSTERITY has such a potent sense of momentum that it enraptures from its first note, hooking you in by virtue of its unrelenting intensity and strange, hypnotic instrumentation. I have previously described some of the sound produced as being like a zither being whacked with a bit of old drainpipe, and in truth, I’m yet to come up with a better description.

Drainpipe and zither it is.

There’s a lot, then, for your system to capture. Not only that inexorable build as the composition becomes denser and more intense, but the very particular tone and feel of the piece conjured by its oddball instrumentation and unique soundscape. It’s also a treat if you want to see how your system conveys both small-scale and big-picture dynamics, from the chuntering analogue synthesisers to the intermittent stabs of drums and pianos.

Or it might just be one piano, singular.

You don’t have to stop at POSTERITY, either. FREEPORT recruits those strange zither-like synths to great effect, again trading on continuous instrumental loops punctuated by intermittent percussive whacks and electronic pulses to keep your system’s dynamic reproduction honest.

Or, if you want something quieter and more delicate, the sparseness of THE PROTAGONIST is well worth seeking out, offering up woozy synth rumbles accompanied by a rich, mysterious guitar.

RAINY NIGHT IN TALLINN makes for a similarly keen showcase of how well a system or set-up can really put a piece of music together. It bounds constantly between a mesh of styles and tones in a manner that is as bamboozling as Tenet’s very subject matter.

RAINY NIGHT accompanies the movie’s intense ‘opera siege’ opening scene, so if you want the full audio visual experience, seek it out to see how sound and screen work together in harmony.

As an aside, it’s well worth watching Tenet for its peculiar use of music and non-diegetic sound. For instance, the accompanying soundtrack will often be too loud or overbearing as a way of expressing – or perhaps masking – the mood and intentions of the characters on-screen. Check out this scene in particular and you’ll get the idea.

Music maketh movie(s)

Music is just as important to a great movie as anything on the screen itself – Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton aside, sound and sight go hand in hand when delivering the true masterpieces of modern cinema.

Where would Star Wars have been without John Williams? How diminished would the Lord of the Rings trilogy become without Howard Shore? Where is Sergio Leone without Ennio Morricone?

While the prospect of Christopher Nolan directing an adaptation of Homer's Odyssey is sufficient to have most right-headed people champing at the bit to get to book a screening, the addition of Ludwig Göransson providing the music should be more than enough to have you hammering on the doors of your local Cineworld as if they were the gates of Ilium itself.

Around this time last year, my local cinema closed – seemingly for good. Defying all odds, its doors are once again open, meaning I’ll be able to experience for myself the sights and sounds of Nolan’s epic adaptation in all of the 12-channel, Dolby Atmos-powered glory. It’s not quite the Waterloo IMAX, but it’s the next best thing.

The Odyssey has all the makings of a milestone cinematic event. Now that it’s finally in cinemas, I can’t wait to see – and hear it – for myself.

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Yes, there is an ultimate prog rock album for testing hi-fi – at least according to What Hi-Fi? readers

Check out our ultimate test tracks collection

Welcome to Home Cinema Week 2026 – our annual celebration of all things (you guessed it) home cinema. That covers everything from projectors to AVRs, and all sorts of products and topics in between.

This celebration is extra special for us, as it is What Hi-Fi?'s 50th birthday this year. Home cinema has played a massive part in our journey, as we have been reviewing a range of categories since they emerged many moons ago. We have seen trends come and go, but our quest to find the best kit on the market has never changed.

We have got a whole host of exciting content coming throughout the week to mark the occasion. That includes a look back at the first types of television technology to hit the shelves, reviews of premium AV kit, and a behind-the-scenes peek at our testing facility.

On top of that, we take a tour of London's only cinema museum, discuss the best ways to store your Blu-rays, and decide whether 8K TVs have well and truly died.

Keep an eye on our Instagram, TikTok and YouTube pages as well, where we are posting extra content to celebrate.

We will keep this page updated with all published articles throughout the week, so you can stay on top of the latest content. We have certainly enjoyed getting even more stuck into the wild and wonderful world of home cinema than usual, and hope you will too.

Day 1

Day one of Home Cinema Week gave us a five-star projector review, a home cinema setup made from Award-winning products, and an ode to the music from a particularly popular director's films.

You can find all of our Home Cinema Week 2026 day one articles below:

• Hisense XR10 review
• Excited for The Odyssey? This divisive Christopher Nolan movie has the perfect test score to get you in the mood
• Buying a TV from a bricks-and-mortar shop is a great idea – just avoid these 5 mistakes
• Arcam and KEF star in this home cinema system that also stuns in stereo
• 5.1 vs 7.2 surround sound: which is better?

Day 2

We had a bumper crop of home cinema content on day two, including a review of a new Q Acoustics speaker package, a behind the scenes look at London's hidden cinema museum, and a piece questioning what actually counts as home cinema.

• Thinking of buying a soundbar? Here’s a better alternative
• I took a tour of London’s only cinema museum – and these are my three favourite finds
• Here's how much your streaming habit actually costs each year
• Does it matter what size soundbar you buy?
• The McIntosh MX124 AV receiver wants to be the beating heart of your monster home cinema setup
• 14 of the best musical movies to test your 5.1, 7.2 or Dolby Atmos surround sound system
• What is home cinema? Perhaps this is controversial, but I think it’s anything you want it to be
• Looking for a 4K projector on a budget? This quality five-star Epson is highly recommended by our home cinema experts
• Q Acoustics 3050c 5.1 with Q SUB100 review

Day 3

Another big day of AV content, including a review of Denon's powerhouse flagship AVR, a selection of recommended portable systems for when you want to take home cinema out of the home, and a comparison of Dolby Digital and DTS.

• From Bond to Hitchcock: 7 non-sports movies with brilliant sports scenes
• Why Hollywood's greatest gunfight is also a great test for your home cinema
• Dolby Digital vs DTS: our experts explain the two big surround sound technologies
• The three best portable systems for picture and sound quality on the move, recommended by our experts
• Why do so many people make this rookie mistake with their TV?
• Our reviewers' picks of the best music videos to test your home cinema hardware – from 4K Peter Gabriel remasters to Pomme’s modern classic
• Denon AVC-A1H review

Day 4

Day four brought with it a tour of our test room and reference home cinema system (complete with a video!), a review of the best UST projector we've ever tested, a trip through the What Hi-Fi? archives at the defining TV formats of the millennium so far, and much more...

• Are we living in a golden age of home cinema? What Hi-Fi? writers, editors and experts weigh in
• Warning! If you’re storing your DVDs and Blu-rays like this, you could be damaging them
• The defining TV formats of the 21st century – 1080p, OLED, 3D, 4K, 8K and beyond – and the first time What Hi-Fi? reviewed them
• If you want a future-proof, five-star flagship OLED with two key features you won't find on its rival, our experts recommend this punchy LG TV
• AWOL Vision Aetherion Max review
• Behind the scenes in our AV testing facility – here are the reference home cinema products we use every single day
• LG's Creator Original Picture Mode lets filmmakers tweak your TV's picture – but we have questions

Day 5

The Friday of Home Cinema Week was jam-packed with AV-related content, including a review of Denon's new mid-range AV receiver, opinions from the industry on 8K TVs and the best scenes for testing, and how you can use VR to transport yourself to a private cinema.

• I traded my home cinema setup for a VR headset for an evening – here's everything you need to know
• How far away should you sit from your TV? We work out the ideal distance for the best viewing experience
• I've finally given in to HBO Max – but does it merit the hype?
• Are 8K TVs dead? I asked the industry heavyweights, and the silence was deafening
• We've just reviewed this futuristic AWOL 4K projector, and it might just be our favourite UST yet
• Denon AVR-X2900H review
• “This sequence is an absolute torture test for your subwoofer and amplifier” – AV engineers reveal the ultimate test scenes to benchmark your home cinema
• 5 movies and TV shows we’re watching (and testing home cinema kit with) this month

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These are the best AV receivers you can buy right now

Check out the best Dolby Atmos soundbars

And here are the best projectors

Movie scores are a sure-fire way to test your sound system’s performance. There’s a whole lot of variety in that category, from emotive scores to pull on the heartstrings (hearing any piece of music from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial immediately takes me into a nostalgic wormhole) to tense action tracks to get the blood pumping.

In our AV and hi-fi test rooms, we often turn to movie scores to decide how well a sound system performs.

We have a page dedicated to tracking the best movie scores to test your system, although it has been a fair few years since it had a much-needed spruce-up. There are a bunch of brilliant soundtracks missing from the list, and we have a few entries in mind already that we will be adding.

That includes John Williams’ Theme from Jurassic Park, which features sparkling brass and is an excellent test of dynamics. There’s also the energetic soundtrack from Mad Max: Fury Road by Tom Holkenborg that can make for a punchy and tense listen with the right system.

But for this month’s Ask the Reader, we are opening the floodgates to you, our trusted readers, for your favourite scores that you use to put your sound system to the test. It could be a niche release or a decorated blockbuster, whatever floats your boat.

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Check out the best speakers

And these are the best Dolby Atmos soundbars we have tested

If there’s one thing my 20-plus years of writing about AV tech have taught me, it’s there’s no such thing as the perfect product.

Whether it’s wireless earbuds, music streamers or flatscreen TVs, there’s always room for improvement, even in the very best five-star performers.

And the world of Dolby Atmos soundbars is no different. It’s a category that has exploded in recent years as support for the audio format has gained momentum, thanks to its ability to add an extra dimension to traditional surround sound.

But what if I had a blank sheet of paper and could create the perfect Dolby Atmos soundbar, combining the best bits from models we’ve had through the What Hi-Fi? Test rooms?

Below, I’ve attempted just that. My aim? To try and build a bar that delivers a bit of everything in your hunt for convenience and amazing, immersive sound quality.

What would you like to see in your ultimate Dolby Atmos soundbar? Let me know in the comments below.

JBL's flexibility

Part of the selling point of a soundbar is the convenience. Many people want to improve their TV’s audio but haven’t got the space for a traditional full-blown surround sound set-up and all the big boxes and reams of cabling that it entails.

This hasn’t stopped the emergence, though, of what we’d call soundbar systems. These halfway house packages include surround speakers, such as the Samsung HW-Q990D.

But even this solution still leaves you with extra boxes cluttering up your living room and, in many cases, these boxes (specifically rear surround speakers) require a power cable running to them.

However, JBL has come up with a genius solution which I would love to see more manufacturers implement. The unique feature of the JBL Bar 1300 is that it has speakers at either end of the soundbar, which, when detached, turn into wireless surrounds.

Not only this, they can be used as portable Bluetooth speakers, which gives you an immense amount of flexibility and added value.

The wireless surrounds even have an upfiring driver, which helps with the dispersion of effects at the rear of your viewing position.

Worried about them running out of steam before the end of your LOTR movie marathon? Battery life of around 12 hours should put your mind at rest (and should even cover you for the extended editions of the Rings trilogy).

Sonos' precision

The Sonos Arc Ultra is arguably the best Dolby Atmos soundbar you can buy if you’re looking at all-round performance for the money. And a huge chunk of its appeal comes from the sound quality it spits out.

In particular, it delivers some of the most precise placement of dialogue, Dolby Atmos effects and bass that we’ve experienced from a standalone soundbar.

In our Sonos Arc review, we noted that the “increased precision helps keep everything organised both rhythmically and spatially”. It’s a dab hand at extracting a real sense of atmosphere from any soundtrack it’s asked to handle.

Lower down the frequency range, we noted that “bass notes hit with greater force and stop more precisely, and they’re tuneful in a way that makes the bass from the original Arc sound somewhat leaden and one-dimensional”.

Partly responsible for this awesome audio are the bar’s Sound Motion drivers. These clever units have four smaller, lightweight motors in opposing corners, which push the cone more than the single motor you find in most traditional drivers.

These motors push the cone to shift far more air and produce far more bass. But the extra agility in the low-frequency performance also makes the Arc Ultra even more musical than its close rivals.

Sony's scale

No Dolby Atmos soundbar we’ve tested does room-filling sound quite like the Sony Bravia Theatre Bar 9.

While it’s not difficult for a good soundbar to bring an improvement to your TV’s sound, it can be difficult for a soundbar to truly fill your living room and deliver a proper home cinema experience with enough of a sense of scale to make the bar just blend into the background.

Step forward the Bravia Theatre Bar 9. It features 13 drivers and quad passive radiators with the array designed to create a 'bubble of sound' in your room using Sony’s 360 Spatial Sound Mapping.

This extra processing creates phantom speakers in places where physical speakers don’t exist, and the effects are fantastic.

Sony also uses its Sound Field Optimisation processing to get the soundbar performing optimally for your particular room layout and viewing conditions.

In our Sony Bravia Theatre Bar 9 review, we said it “puts in arguably the most Atmos-y delivery we’ve heard from a solo soundbar”. We also remarked that it “pushes sound far out to the left and right, a long way into the room and right up to the ceiling” – which is exactly what you want from a soundbar.

The last thing you need to hear is gaps in the sound field, and the Sony is an expert at filling these in.

Samsung's bass

If there’s one area where soundbars can struggle, it’s in the bass department.

Given the laws of physics and the slim dimensions of many soundbars, it probably doesn’t come as much of a surprise that, generally, they can’t unleash a lot of low frequency heft.

But even when a subwoofer is added, the integration between bar and bass box isn’t always perfect and can make the sound more disjointed. The quality of bass can be sub-par too, with explosions and rumbles sounding thick, wallowy and ill-defined.

Which is why I’d take the bass performance from the recently tested Samsung HW-Q990F.

This soundbar package includes a cool cube subwoofer that not only hits hard with plenty of power behind it but also sounds controlled and dynamic, and paints low frequencies with the kind of tonal texture you rarely hear from such systems.

In our Samsung HW-Q990F review, we said bass sounds "organic, balanced, and seamlessly integrated into the system", which is a tricky thing to accomplish.

Nakamichi's features

The Nakamichi Dragon 11.4.6 might not have blown us away in the sound department, but there are a few features I’m drawn to that seem to make sense for a Dolby Atmos soundbar.

Take the satellite speakers. Each unit features two drivers pointing in different directions so that they can serve as surround or surround-back speakers.

Not only this, each one has an upward-firing driver on top that can be rotated to five pre-set positions to angle the overhead sound towards your seating position.

Other soundbars could learn from the Nakamichi’s wired connectivity and excellent choice of inputs too. These include an HDMI eARC socket plus three full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 connections that support 4K up to 120Hz, or 8K up to 60Hz, as well as VRR and ALLM.

The Dragon 11.4.6 also supports HDR10, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision HDR through those HDMI passthrough ports. All Dolby formats are supported, as is DTS:X Pro, which is a rarity in the world of soundbars.

Oh, and did I mention this bonkers bar even has a concierge service, which you can use if you’re having any technical difficulties?

MORE:

After hours of measuring, I have come to the conclusion that full-fat Dolby Atmos doesn't work in normal homes

3 reasons why video streaming devices remain relevant TV upgrades – but probably not for long

We asked you, What Hi-Fi?'s readers, if movies are better streamed or on a disc – and your responses made one thing clear

2025 has been a truly left-field year for projectors. Whereas 2024 was the year for traditional, premium home cinema projectors such as the Sony Bravia 8 Projector and JVC DLA-NZ800, 2025 has seen the rise of quirky portable and lifestyle projectors.

We've seen some truly unique projectors enter our AV testing room, including the Xgimi MoGo 4, Optoma Photo Go, Samsung Premiere 5 and Nebula X1.

Each of these projectors has its oddities, whether that's a nifty folding design, a modular expansion kit to improve the audio performance or the fact that a couple of them are redefining the definition of ultra-short throw.

I'll start with the positives and list some of the things I really do like about the aforementioned projectors.

Starting with the Xgimi, I think the design is great. It's stylish and functional, with a handy rotating stand that allows for easy positioning, and it can be folded away into a neat cylinder to take on the go.

The same can be said about the Optoma Photon Go, as it also features a unique form factor that makes it the smallest and most portable ultra-short-throw projector we've seen to date.

It also happens to sound quite good, which can't be said for many portable projectors.

I also want to give Xgimi and Optoma some extra credit for including built-in batteries, as many portable projectors somehow still rely on a connection to the mains in order to work, which sort of defeats the point.

The Samsung Premiere 5, on the other hand, delivers a genuinely impressive sound performance, and its fully-fledged TizenOS streaming system supports every app we could hope for.

The Nebula, on the other hand, is the closest we've seen to a traditional 4K home cinema projector. It features a chassis that our TV and AV Editor, Tom Parsons, likened to a sci-fi turret you'd find in the likes of Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica.

It uses AI to find the perfect picture position and is compatible with a full range of modular accessories, including a handy gimble mount, a wireless speaker system, and even wireless karaoke microphones.

However, there is one unifying aspect that means that, personally speaking, I can't see myself investing in any of them.

While I understand that compromises need to be made for smaller, more portable form factors, I can't get fully on board with the picture trade-offs.

Now, that's not to say that a couple of these projectors don't impress; the Xgimi and Nebula both scored an admirable four for picture.

But as someone who puts picture performance above all else, I'd rather opt for a less convenient projector that delivers the goods where picture performance is concerned.

The Xgimi, Optoma and Samsung feature 1080p resolutions, which can look a bit soft compared to the 4K beamers that we're used to seeing. The Nebula is a 4K projector, but we did find some issues related to picture noise and motion.

Furthermore, the Samsung Premiere 5 and Nebula X1 both sport price tags in the region of £2000. For that money, I could get the five-star BenQ X3100i (£2099), Epson EH-TW7100 (which can now be found for £1349), or even the BenQ W1800 (which currently sits at around £999).

Hisense's C1 projector also sits at around £999 currently, and it features a 4K picture, as well as a rather impressive JBL sound system.

Furthermore, its moderately-sized cube chassis is easy enough to pick up and move around, and with Vidaa on board, streaming is taken care of.

Those final three options are cheap enough that I could also budget for a screen, or even an affordable AV receiver to kick-start a proper home cinema setup.

Admittedly, the most affordable model in this list is the most appealing to me. Xgimi's MoGo 4 projector is cheap enough to justify a good rather than great picture (we reviewed it at £509), and its ultra-compact form factor has truly won me over.

So, if I had to go with any of these quirky new projectors, it would be the Xgimi. However, the Hisense looms large as it steps up to 4K resolution, and it sounds pretty great too.

It might not be super practical to take on the go, but I can always invest in an extension cable if needed.

MORE:

Check out our picks for the best portable projectors

As well as our Xgimi MoGo 4 review

And our list of the best projectors

Home cinema speaker systems are our preferred method of achieving immersive cinematic sound. We’re willing to admit, though, that they are, frankly speaking, a bit of a hassle to set up and live with.

We wouldn’t blame anyone for not wanting to traipse cables around their living room, or have floorstanding speakers take up precious space – so what’s the alternative?

The wireless soundbar surround-sound system, of course! This genre of easy-to-use sound systems has been steadily growing in popularity, with more and more manufacturers adding wireless surround speakers and a subwoofer to their Dolby Atmos soundbars.

When it comes to nailing the concept, we have to give Samsung some kudos, as last year’s HW-Q990D was an absolute doozy. This all-in-one surround sound solution skyrocketed its way into the Product of the Year slot, as it delivered grade-A audio performance in an easy-to-use, fuss-free package.

So, when the Korean tech goliath announced the newest version of this neat concept, we were immediately intrigued. Enter the HW-Q990F, a soundbar package that, on the surface, doesn’t look a whole lot different from its predecessor.

In fact, the spotlight seems to be placed mostly on an adorable new subwoofer, but don’t be fooled by its cute cubic chassis, as it packs an almighty punch that takes this already superb soundbar system into a whole new league.

Price

The Samsung HW-Q990F is officially priced at £1699 / $1999 / AU$1999. That’s the same price as its predecessor in the UK and Australia, though the US has been subjected to a $400 price increase.

That being said, we’re already seeing discounts that bring it down to $1600. That’s still $200 more than its predecessor’s launch price in the States, but it's a start.

Therein lies a wider issue; the HW-Q990D is still available at a wide selection of retailers, and it can be snapped up for around half the price of the new model.

The good news is that the 2024 model has seen some truly aggressive discounts throughout its lifespan, so we expect to see some equally good deals eventually come to the HW-Q990F.

Largely speaking, Samsung is its own biggest competitor in this sector, as LG’s equivalent package scored an underwhelming three stars in our review, so we can’t really recommend it as an alternative.

There is the Sonos Arc Ultra Immersive Set, which combines the power of the Sonos Arc Ultra (five stars) with a pair of Era 300 speakers (Award-winners), but you’re looking at £2969 / $2969 / AU$4596 for that package – and even more if you also want to add a sub.

Build

If there is one area where we’d like to see Samsung change things up with this concept, it's the design. Most of the elements of the Q990F package look very similar to the Q990D, which in turn looked very similar to the Q990C.

The bar itself is an angular hexagonal shape measuring 7 x 123 x 14cm (hwd), with a lined pattern running the length of the top panel. You’ll find a selection of buttons on top to change source, mute the onboard microphones and adjust the volume, with a simplistic dot matrix display on the front displaying corresponding information.

Samsung bundles a simplistic remote with functions to change the input, sound mode and EQ for the system, as well as adjusting the subwoofer level and enabling or disabling the SpaceFit Sound feature.

The surround speakers are also the same boxy, angular design as found with the 2024 model, including the handy cable guide on the bottom edge. They also carry identical dimensions to the 2024 versions, measuring 20 x 13 x 14cm.

Where this version truly differs from its predecessor is with the included subwoofer. Samsung has swapped from a tall, narrow cuboid sub to a much more compact, rounded-cube subwoofer. Side by side, the old subwoofer absolutely dwarfs the new model, with its dimensions of 25 x 25 x 25cm (hwd).

Features

We can’t really find fault with the HW-Q990F’s feature set. It’s an 11.1.4 system with 23 drivers across the bar, surrounds and sub. That’s 15 drivers in the main soundbar, three drivers in each of the surround-sound units, and dual 20cm force-cancelling drivers in the subwoofer, which features a claimed 300W power output.

The soundbar and surrounds feature upward-firing drivers for Dolby Atmos height effects (DTS:X is also supported). Samsung recommends placing the rear surround speakers at a 135-150-degree angle behind the listening position, though the system will compensate if you opt to place them in a different position.

Interestingly, the Smart Things app, which can be used to control a variety of functions on the soundbar, has an option to reconfigure the system with the surround speakers at the front to work in tandem with the soundbar. We strongly recommend placing them in the intended rear position for the best surround-sound experience, though.

Speaking of the Smart Things app, we deem it to be a solid, and in many cases, the preferred method of interacting with the bar. The included remote has plenty of useful buttons, including a dedicated rocker to increase or decrease the subwoofer level, but the simplistic dot matrix display on the front of the soundbar is often hard to interpret.

The wireless surrounds and subwoofer connect to the bar seamlessly with an easy pairing process, and once they’re in position, you shouldn’t need to adjust anything. Samsung kindly provides different-length cables in the box, despite all components of the system using the same connection for power. It’s worth saving the longest leads for the surround speakers as this allows for greater flexibility during set-up.

Samsung has, unsurprisingly, imbued the Q990F with a hearty helping of its proprietary functions and technology.

SpaceFit Sound Pro returns, which utilises the built-in microphones to constantly monitor and adjust the soundbar and subwoofer to accommodate your viewing space. It’s an optional feature, but we find it to work rather well and see no reason not to switch it on.

Q Symphony is also on board, allowing Samsung TV users to utilise the speakers in their TV alongside the soundbar system, using the power of AI to synchronise the sound. Your mileage with this feature will vary depending on the Samsung TV you pair it with, though we often find that the different drivers within the TV don’t always gel well with the rest of the system; especially considering that the Q990F features excellent tonal balance between its components (more on this later).

There are a handful of Samsung-specific sound processing modes too, many of which can also be found on Samsung TVs – who doesn’t love a bit of synergy? Active Voice Amplifier Pro, which is an AI-backed dialogue enhancement sound mode that can adapt to ambient noise levels in your viewing space, is on board.

Private Listening mode, on the other hand, disables the soundbar and subwoofer and instead relies on the surround speakers to direct sound to your specific listening position. This is an interesting alternative to the sort of Night mode that is found on many sound systems.

There is also a Moderate Bass setting, which disables the subwoofer to allow the soundbar to handle lower frequencies, and a Party mode, which synchronises the rear speakers to play music in all directions.

On top of these are a handful of other sound modes, including Standard, Surround, Game and Adaptive. The last of these will automatically adjust the sound based on the content you’re watching, whereas the Standard option will output the audio channels carried by the original signal.

This is, of course, restricted to anywhere between 2.0 to 7.1.4, meaning the system will never utilise the full 11.1.4 channels that the system is capable of. Instead, the named sound modes above will use processing to upmix signals into the full 11.1.4 output.

Alongside Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, this is the first soundbar in Samsung's range to support Eclipsa Audio. Samsung partnered with Google to develop this open-source immersive audio format as an alternative to Atmos, though it can only be accessed via YouTube currently, with no current plans to extend this to films or TV shows via the mainstream services that we are aware of.

Finally, we have the connectivity features of the HW-Q990F. HDMI eARC and optical ports handle audio transmission from your TV, while the additional HDMI sockets, of which there are two, serve as passthrough sockets.

Both are rated to the HDMI 2.1 standard, with support for up to 4K/120Hz signals, plus HDR10+ and Dolby Vision.

Wireless connectivity is also stellar, with Google Cast, Apple AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect, Amazon Music and Deezer, and it's even Roon compatible.

Alongside the music services, the HW-Q990F is also compatible with a duo of voice assistants, with Amazon Alexa built in and Works with Google Assistant certification.

Sound

It takes a moment to decipher the upgrades that the Q990F delivers over its predecessor. However, once we become attuned to the new system, we realise that Samsung has taken a spectacular soundbar package and turned it into an exemplary one.

We’ve paired the system with our reference Sony Bravia 8 OLED TV, Oppo UDP-203 4K Blu-ray player, and a handful of our reference discs, including Civil War, Dune: Part Two, Blade Runner 2049 and The Dark Knight Rises.

We set up this system in the same way we did its predecessor, opting for the Surround mode with SpaceFit Pro on.

Adaptive is also a good option for those who appreciate a punchier and more assertive sound. However, we feel that it makes certain sound effects stick out in an unnatural way. That being said, it's a close second to Surround, and we especially like that it can, as the name suggests, adapt to different types of content.

We’ll start with the positives that translate from last year’s model. The Q990F retains its clear and crisp sound. Dialogue, such as the conversation between Officer K and Joi in the former’s apartment, sounds excellent, with natural and detailed voices that carry plenty of subtle inflection. This carries forth to sound effects, with the slashing Fremen knives in Dune sounding crisp and textured.

Furthermore, we have to commend the Q990F’s delivery of Dolby Atmos effects. The “bubble of sound” that we look for in any Dolby Atmos system is well and truly present here, and it’s not just the impressively placed height effects that we like. It's the way that the soundbar and surrounds are so tonally well matched, while the audio processing ensures that sounds move organically between the channels, that truly seals the deal for us.

The disembodied voices that narrate the hologram adverts outside K’s apartment in Blade Runner are at an appropriate height and are placed relative to their position on screen with impressive accuracy. It’s not miles apart from the Q990D, but the Q990F’s handling of Dolby Atmos is certainly an improvement on an already very capable product.

We try a non-Atmos movie in the form of The Dark Knight Rises, using the plane heist sequence from the beginning of the film. The HW-Q990F once again has no issue delivering a convincing surround-sound experience, and while the height effects are missing, we still hear plenty of effects being passed from the ’bar to the surrounds in the ensuing chaos.

Another familiar area that the Q990F excels in is dynamics. The pulse-pounding battle sequence in the final third of Civil War features dynamic build-ups with punchy and weighty payoffs, while immediate dynamic shifts, such as sudden gunshots, are impactful too.

Subtle improvements in areas we already approved of with its predecessor are one thing; however, the Q990F has an ace up its sleeve in the form of its new subwoofer. To cut a long story short, it is incredibly effective, and it elevates the system as a whole.

We run our bass stress test, Blade Runner 2049’s chapter two sequence, which includes the notoriously tricky Flight To The LAPD track. The crackle and occasionally unfocused low-end that we observed on the Q990D’s subwoofer is nowhere to be heard. Instead, the Q990F’s rich and powerful bass sounds are controlled and dynamic, as we gain a sense of mounting tension as K approaches the police precinct.

There is a much greater sense of tonal variation from this sub, which unearths a new layer to the bass. The Q990F’s bass feels more organic, balanced, and seamlessly integrated into the system as a result.

Dune: Part Two’s Harkonnen Arena sequence has a range of bass-heavy alien chanting and a bone-rattling score, and we are immediately immersed thanks to the Q990F’s encompassing sound and rich, textured bass.

Switching to music, we put the bar into the Standard sound mode for some two-channel testing, though we should mention that the subwoofer is still activated in this setting.

Aurora’s Churchyard and Wolf Alice’s Bloom, Baby Bloom (via Tidal Connect) are both presented with a clear-cut sense of timing and rhythmic drive, more so than the previous model. Vocals sound clear and emotive, while instruments have depth and texture.

Our music testing ultimately affirms the positive attributes that we discovered with our movie testing.

Verdict

This is how to take a product that was already highly regarded and make it even better. Samsung’s upgrades didn’t appear to be that striking on paper, but the HW-Q990F’s enhancements need to be heard to be believed.

Once again, this system should be on the radar for anyone who wants a full Dolby Atmos experience without having to buy an AVR or finding the space to place countless speakers around your room.

The compact new cube subwoofer is easily the star of the show, offering a richer, more focused sound with greater tonal variation. Who knew shrinking down a core component of your system could deliver such huge performance gains?

SCORES

• Sound 5
• Features 5
• Build 4

Also Consider

FAQs

MORE:

Check out our picks for the best Dolby Atmos soundbars

The best surround sound systems for anyone looking to upgrade from a soundbar

Best soundbars options for every need, recommended by our experts

I watched 28 Years Later during its opening weekend in late June 2025. Two weeks on, and Danny Boyle and Alex Garland's post-apocalyptic film has remained at the forefront of my mind.

The film is still showing in cinemas, so you can be reassured that we won't be revealing any plot spoilers here. However, if you want to watch the film completely fresh – and we would highly recommend you do so – save this page, go watch the film, and come back and read this after.

Because I think 28 Years Later will make a terrific test disc and deliver a heart-stopping, beautiful experience in your home cinema set-up.

If you've seen the incredible trailer (above, set to the haunting recording of a 1903 Rudyard Kipling poem "Boots" about the horrors of the Second Boer War, recited with increasing intensity by American actor Taylor Holmes in 1915), you'll know that 28 Years Later takes place 28 years after the events of the first film, where a rage virus resulted in the breakdown of society in the UK.

In the present day (year 2031 in the film), the rage virus is now largely contained, but the British Isles remain under strict quarantine. The new film focusing on the small, ration-controlled and technology-absent community of survivors on Lindisfarne island (also called Holy Island) off the north east coast of England.

You cannot access this island at high tide – a real-life location.

There are two reasons why I think that 28 Years Later will become a go-to test disc for our AV reviewing team when it comes out on 4K Blu-ray later this year.

The main reason is that the film is full of nature and realism. This is no tech-laden, metallic-hued sci-fi dystopian film; the cast's venture out onto the mainland shows an England where nature is allowed to flourish and run wild.

The English countryside has never looked more bountiful and beautiful. Lush, green landscapes for as far as the eye can see, with bright and tall yellow wildflowers swaying prettily against a clear blue sky. It is idyllic.

It's this naturalistic tone of those greens and blues that can be difficult to get right on a 4K TV screen or a projector. They need to look subtle, nuanced and detailed and not overblown, but with subtleties pulling through even while giving us the deep, punchy hues of the healthy trees and sparkling sea.

The film's unusual 2.76:1 widescreen aspect ratio also creates a level of immersion that works for these natural scenes as well as for the creeping terror of any surprises appearing at the edges of the screen.

Coupled with this are the skin tones of the characters. Newcomer Alfie Williams is a stand-out talent as 12-year-old Spike as we follow him throughout the film. There are many scenes that focus on his face, with such wide-eyed innocence and fear, that will be a true test of how a screen will juggle such natural skin tones while still delivering enough texture and dimensionality around him.

The second reason is focused on one particular scene in the early half of the film. It's no spoiler to say that there is at least one chase scene in the film, but this one is so fraught, so tense that it frays the nerves – from a cramped scene in an attic (which will be a great test for surround sound) to a heart-in-mouth night-time scene that is a race against time.

As father and son break from the mainland to the coast, we are met with a jaw-dropping scene of the night sky – absolutely splattered with stars and the Milky Way galaxy in a scene that completely took my breath away. The widescreen format shows the vast scale of the landscape, with the clouds and dust of the Milky Way illuminating the dark night sky and reflecting on the sea's surface with so many different hues.

Like the greenery and forests, it emphasises a world where there is zero light pollution – a startling beauty as a consequence of the horrors faced by humans.

Of course, this scene will be a stellar test of your OLED TV's black levels: luscious depth to show the contrast of those shining stars against inky blacks, but enough detail and subtlety in shadows to show what is actually happening as the plot unfurls.

Danny Boyle takes an inventive and immediate tone with his filming, much like he did with 28 Days Later in 2002. The first film was revolutionary in using a standard-definition (480p) Canon digital camcorder to shoot scenes quickly (such as early morning scenes of a quiet, abandoned London), which lends to the film's gritty and grainy low-res aesthetic.

In 28 Years Later, Boyle and co. have honoured this digital filmmaking tradition with the use of drones and, surprisingly, iPhones. An iPhone 15 Pro Max, in particular, was used in various ways to film portions of the film – the cast would use it to shoot scenes themselves, special rigs were built to hold multiple iPhones, including a custom-built circular rig with 20 iPhones to achieve certain action shots.

It was used so that the crew could film quickly and with less equipment being lugged around, along with having the film feel more immediate and personal from the characters' POV in certain scenes.

I had read that an iPhone was used for filming, but I completely forgot about it until after I had watched the film. At no point does it ever look anything short of cinematic. That stark naturalism that Boyle and Garland clearly wanted to achieve is apparent, but such is the advancement of the lens on an iPhone (4K, 60fps) that its high-resolution quality surpasses the old Canon XL1 camcorder beyond belief.

This film will easily age far better – in terms of picture quality and retaining its clarity, tone and depth – than 28 Days, when seen on any 4K (or even Full HD) screen.

Regardless of how it was filmed, I think 28 Years Later is an arresting, layered and deeply beautiful film that will stay with you long after the credits roll. Seen on a talented screen with a sound system that is capable of revealing quiet detail and heart-stomping intensity, it will make an astounding addition to your home cinema library.

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Optoma’s latest home entertainment projector sure knows how to grab your attention.

Big numbers such as 30,000 hours of uninterrupted viewing from its dual laser light engine, 95 per cent coverage of the most common HDR colour spectrum and a huge claimed 5000 lumens of maximum brightness all raise hopes that the UHZ68LV will have more than enough in its picture quality locker to stand out from the mid-range projector crowd.

Add to all of the above the fact that it’s the first projector we’ve seen that supports both of the premium Dolby Vision and HDR10+ high dynamic range video formats, and the UHZ68LV sounds almost too good to be true…

Price

The UHZ68LV’s £3999 / $5999 price places it relatively high up in Optoma’s current home projector range, and establishes it as a fairly serious home entertainment proposition at a time when even the upper end of the casual projector market tends to come in at below half that.

So it’s likely either a dedicated home cinema room projector or, possibly, with its 5000 lumens brightness, a lifestyle projector for a particularly large and bright living room along the lines of some of the premium Ultra Short Throw projectors we’ve seen. Except that it isn’t a UST model.

Rivals in the same sort of ballpark would be the excellent Epson EH-QB1000B and equally impressive BenQ W5800. The UHZ68LV is going to have to pull out all the stops to keep up with such illustrious company.

Design

The UHZ68LV’s design manages to look stylish while simultaneously leaving you in no doubt that this is intended to be a serious bit of home entertainment kit.

It leaves a large footprint, indicating both some relatively uncompromising optics and, hopefully, a good integrated exhaust system for limiting the heat and noise from its cooling fans. The lens at the centre of its front edge is large, too, raising hopes of relatively uncompromised clarity from the projector’s claimed 4K resolution.

While the black finish of the majority of the bodywork is designed to blend into a proper dark home theatre room, a mixture of slightly different finishes (including a highly reflective gloss top panel), a slightly curved top edge and some eye-catching angular indents on the front and side edges ensure that it doesn’t look ugly with the lights on.

The unusually small remote control you get with the UHZ68LV isn’t the easiest thing to spot in a dark room. Its buttons are backlit, though, and their layout is reasonably logical and spacious.

Features

The UHZ68LV is packed with premium features and specs – so much so that its price (in the UK, at least) has the potential to end up feeling like a bargain.

The 5000 lumens Optoma claims the UHZ68LV can get out of its dual laser light engine lies at the heart of its appeal, beating the light output of the previously mentioned Epson QB1000B and BenQ W5800 rivals by a mighty 1700 and 2400 lumens respectively.

Optoma choosing to push the UHZ68LV’s brightness to such an extreme level can indicate two things: either it wants its projector to reach areas of performance with home cinema-friendly HDR content that projectors typically can’t get to, or it wants its projector to be able to punch through quite high levels of ambient light in a regular living room environment.

The UHZ68LV ultimately feels much more tuned and set up for the home theatre scenario than the bright room one. It’s not exactly portable enough, nor easy enough to set up, to easily cart between different rooms, while its colossal 3,200,000:1 claimed contrast ratio certainly sounds like something designed with the extreme contrast of serious movie nights in mind.

Its support for 4K resolution playback courtesy of DLP projection’s so-called XPR technology (a system the US Consumer Technology Association considers to deliver a true rather than pseudo 4K experience) also confirms a willingness to take on board the best quality sources the AV world currently has to offer. Something that’s underlined in big red ink by the UHZ68LV’s ability to play both the HDR10+ and Dolby Vision HDR formats, with their extra scene-by-scene picture information.

This essentially means that the UHZ68LV can take in the best version of any content you play into it. Supporting either of these premium HDR formats is still rare in the projector world; supporting both is unprecedented where What Hi-Fi’s test rooms are concerned.

The claimed ability to cover 95 per cent of the DCI-P3 colour spectrum typically used in HDR mastering is promising, too – especially as this is apparently delivered without the need to call in a brightness-reducing wide colour filter.

Yet another premium picture quality touch comes with Optoma’s Pure Engine Ultra system. This includes colour calibration by Optoma’s in-house image experts, contrast and detail enhancements, and an impressive array of setting options that let you customise many of the most critical picture quality elements.

Setting the UHZ68LV up doesn’t reveal one of those clever full auto-image optimisation systems we’re starting to see on most of the more obviously portable/convenience-based projectors these days. Optoma does, though, provide a decent array of manual set-up aids, including 1.6x optical zoom, four-corner correction, and adjustments for optical horizontal and vertical image shifting housed under a pop-up flap on the projector’s top edge.

The UHZ68LV doesn’t carry any built-in smart features, but further underlining its home cinema focus, it does carry both a Filmmaker Mode image preset and support for full ISF calibration.

Its connectivity is mostly excellent, headed up as it is by three HDMIs rather than the two that most projectors stop at. All of these HDMIs support eARC audio, including the ability to pass-through Dolby Atmos sound to a connected soundbar or AVR, and one of them is a 2.1 port capable of handling 4K/120Hz game feeds.

There are also a pair of powered USB ports; optical digital audio and 3.5mm audio line outs; a 3D Synch jack for adding an optional 3D transmitter if you’re still into watching stuff in the third dimension; as well as RJ45, RS-232C and two 12V trigger ports for integrating the projector into a home control network.

While there’s no support for VRR or Dolby Vision HDR at anything higher than 60Hz refresh rates, the UHZ68LV does carry a low-latency mode for gaming with all sources, including Dolby Vision.

In fact, it provides both Low Latency and Ultra Low Latency options. The ultra low latency option turns off the aspect ratio, Edge Mask, Digital Zoom, Image Shift and Geometric Correction set-up features, on top of the various processing features already turned off by the basic Low Latency setting. In Low latency mode, input lag measures 34.7ms at 60Hz, while in Ultra Low Latency mode, this drops to an extremely speedy (for projectors) 17.8ms.

Picture

Unfortunately, no amount of picture adjustments or promising tech specs can save the UHZ68LV from a couple of pretty major picture-quality shortcomings.

First and worst, as we’d feared might be the case, the projector’s huge brightness comes at the expense of the sort of contrast and black levels during dark scenes we now like to see from a projector with such seemingly serious home cinema ambitions.

Dark scenes look routinely washed out and grey, especially using the 100 per cent power option that’s the default across all picture presets when the projector is receiving HDR content. In fact, as well as the greyness leaving dark scenes looking generally unconvincing and uncinematic, it’s potent enough to cause subtle shadow details to become lost in the general cloudiness, robbing the image of depth and texture.

The other major issue with the UHZ68LV’s pictures, again at least partly related to its extreme brightness, is the DLP rainbow effect. This finds stripes of pure red, green and blue flitting over bright highlights, and while susceptibility to seeing it can vary from person to person, in the UHZ68LV’s case, everyone on the What Hi-Fi? team who watched the projector for any amount of time commented on how obvious and distracting the issue was with HDR sources.

Both the washed-out black levels and, to a lesser extent, the rainbowing problems can have their impact reduced by shifting away from the default 100 per cent Brightness HDR setting and choosing one of the three provided Dynamic Black light output settings instead. All three Dynamic Black options significantly dim HDR images down, though, so that even the gentlest Dynamic Black 1 option ends up denying you a substantial amount of the brightness that you were probably excited about when you bought the projector.

The darkest Dynamic Black 3 option takes so much light out of the picture that it leaves dark scenes almost unwatchable. As does the Dolby Vision Dark option that becomes available with Dolby Vision sources.

Trying to improve black levels by simply reducing the UHZ68LV’s brightness setting doesn’t really work; all that happens is that you get the same greyness but with less visible picture detail. This proves that the UHZ68LV’s black level limitations are pretty deeply ‘baked in’, rather than just something you can fix in the settings.

While the Dynamic Black 1 option is probably your best bet with HDR10 sources, its automatic brightness optimisation system can introduce a touch of instability into dark scenes as it struggles to settle on the optimal light level for a particular shot. This is a pretty mild issue in truth, though – and it isn’t accompanied by any distracting hyperactivity from the built-in cooling fans.

In fact, we can start the good news part of the UHZ68LV’s performance by saying that it runs remarkably quietly by any projector standards, never mind one capable of pumping out 5000 lumens.

That brightness makes its presence felt with bright HDR content as you would hope, delivering it with more impact and punch than the vast majority of projectors sold at the happy side of £5000 / $5000 manage.

This brightness also unlocks some formidable colour vibrancy and volume for the projector world, and while tones (especially skin tones) during dark scenes don’t always look totally natural, there’s enough subtlety in the overall colour presentation to prevent pictures feeling flat and cartoonish. Unless you’re actually watching a cartoon, of course.

The UHZ68LV’s expressive colours help bright HDR scenes look reasonably sharp and detailed, too. Not quite class-leadingingly so, but enough to ensure that 4K pictures don’t look soft or coarse.

One reason, perhaps, that the UHZ68LV’s pictures only enjoy good rather than emphatic sharpness and detail is that motion with 24fps movies feels a little uncomfortable. Judder is quite strong by projector standards with no motion processing in play, yet while the lowest power option of the provided PureMotion processing can take the edge off this judder, the results can look a little processed and unnatural, as well as suffering from a slight stuttering effect.

Having slipped back in to finding niggles with the UHZ68LV’s pictures, one last quirk that rather undermines one of the projector’s most appealing on-paper attractions is that it consistently delivers better picture quality with relatively basic HDR10 sources than it does with HDR10+ and Dolby Vision sources.

HDR10+ pictures look more washed out in dark scenes, with seemingly less you can do to try and remedy the situation, while the Dolby Vision Bright and Dark presets are affected by a strange green tone – as well as the Dark setting going so dark that the picture almost disappears during dark scenes. Setting the Dynamic Black setting to level 1 reduces this green tone issue with Dolby Vision Bright mode, but again, only at the expense of more brightness than we’d have liked.

Letting us finish this section on a positive note, the UHZ68LV’s punchy approach to pictures and speedy response times make it quite an enjoyable king-sized gaming display, especially with 120Hz titles, and its pictures actually adapt a bit better to SDR playback than we might have expected for a projector so clearly built with HDR in mind.

Sound

Despite its substantial size, the UHZ68LV can’t produce sound that is in any way comparable to the scale of its pictures.

In fact, its sound is so small and quiet, even at maximum volume, that at times you can barely make out even quite key elements in a movie mix. The sound struggles to escape from the projector’s bodywork, too, leaving everything trapped inside and very distant from the onscreen action.

The speakers do at least seem to be working well within their capabilities, meaning there’s no sign of distortion or brittleness in what little sound they produce. In fact, there’s quite a pleasantly rounded tone, with even a hint of bass creeping into play from time to time.

Overall, though, the UHZ68LV’s sound is just so small for such a big and bright projector that we couldn’t help but wonder if it was really worth including it.

Verdict

It’s easy to admire Optoma’s ambition with the UHZ68LV. Pushing brightness to the HDR-friendly extremes it does and, especially, supporting all of the current HDR formats so that the projector can always take in the best version of any source are both signs of a brand keen to embrace the next generation of picture quality, no matter how hard that might be.

It’s just a shame that the UHZ68LV’s push for HDR glory hasn’t been joined by more of the picture balance that really brings cinema home.

SCORES

• Picture 3
• Sound 2
• Features 5

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The Samsung HW-Q990D might not be the brand's newest soundbar package since the Q990F hit the shelves, but it's still one of the best soundbars we've tested. And, it's a heck of a lot cheaper, which is a win-win.

For just £749 at Amazon, as opposed to the £1599 you'd part with for the Q990F, it's not the lowest price we've ever seen with a brief jaunt at £699 at Crampton and Moore, but it's still very tempting.

What you get for your money is a five-star package and What Hi-Fi? Award winner, which combines a Dolby Atmos soundbar, dual wireless surround speakers and a wireless subwoofer.

The offering is huge. We're talking an 11.1.4-channel system, with 22 drivers in total. The bar itself features six elliptical midrange drivers, three tweeters that fire forwards, four side-firing drivers and two up-firers.

And that's before we even discuss the surround speakers with one forward-, one side- and one up-firing driver, and the subwoofer with its 20cm driver. Phew.

If that wasn't enough, you have two 2.1 HDMI inputs, which fully support advanced gaming features such as 4K/120Hz, VRR and ALLM.

There are also streaming smarts built-in, including Bluetooth 5.0, AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect, Amazon Music and Deezer.

In our Samsung Q990D review, we said, "If you want something approaching ‘proper’ Atmos sound without buying an AV amplifier and twelve individual speakers, it has to be on your shortlist."

It delivers a dynamic, weighty and detailed sound and fills your room with entertaining and immersive 3D audio.

For £749 at Amazon, you're guaranteed to get plenty of bangs and crashes for your buck...

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Dolby Atmos: what is it? How can you get it?

With Disney Plus and Netflix rapidly becoming the norm for more and more households, it can seem like discs are being left in the dust as our primary means to watch films at home.

This battle between physical and digital media has been weighing on our minds this Home Cinema Week, so we wanted to hear from our lovely readers to settle the score.

Earlier this week, we asked how you watch your favourite movies and TV shows at home. After three days of reading through and compiling your thoughts, here are the results.

You still collect plenty of discs for their better overall quality

As the responses rolled in, it quickly became apparent that your DVD and Blu-ray collections are not going anywhere.

We put out an Instagram poll to see whether streaming or discs would come out on top, and the results were pretty clear.

Out of 60 responses, 43 of you said that discs were your preferred way to watch. There were 12 readers who preferred streaming, though, and the remaining five were on the fence.

A lot of you seem to want to own your most precious movies in a physical form, too. Gregory Pempleton commented via our website:

“When I buy a disc, I know that it is mine, unlike streaming, where the item can disappear at the whim of the provider.”

This sentiment was echoed by many other responders. Eugène de Goeij commented on our original article:

“I watched Dune on Apple TV (bought it), but I liked it so much I bought the 4K disc. The image is a bit more crisp and there are more subtle details in the sound [...] For me, a good movie will always make me buy the 4K disc.”

But streaming is becoming an easier option

Despite this chorus of support for discs, there were still plenty of fans of streaming.

Mark Greenley said that while he buys 4K Blu-ray discs for those "special" films, streaming services have become more common in his household for daily viewing.

“I like streaming and I am signed up to several platforms. As a family, we watch shows and films,” he said.

Some of you also stream movies due to the better availability. For example, Micky Alexandru pointed out via our website that, “there are movies that can't be found [anywhere] but on streaming services.”

What we think

Even though there is quite the range of opinions when it comes to this head-to-head, we agree with our readers that discs tend to outperform streaming when it comes to sound and picture quality.

Because of this, it makes sense to collect firm favourites in the best quality possible. Plus, holding a disc in your hands and knowing you can watch it whenever you want, without worrying if it will be taken off a service, certainly feels like money well spent.

It would be silly to pretend that streaming hasn't simply become easier to access, though.

With most home cinema kit offering built-in streaming services, the option of clicking a few buttons and having instant access to a library of content is very appealing. Also, streaming gives you the opportunity to cancel your subscription anytime if you feel you don’t use it enough.

Still, it is reassuring to see that buying top-quality discs is important for home cinema fans.

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For more than a decade, video streamers have done the AV gods’ work, giving TV watchers and movie fans an easy and affordable way to bless their TV with access to the latest video streaming services and technologies.

In doing so, they’ve made ‘dumb’ TVs (those without network connectivity) smart, and filled the gaps in the streaming service app offerings of smart TVs.

But in 2025, are even the best streaming devices still relevant?

After all, almost all of the TVs launched in recent years are powered by a smart streaming platform – Samsung uses Tizen, LG developed its own webOS, and Google TV is found in Sony, Philips and TCL sets.

And nowadays these platforms tend to be increasingly sophisticated with few (if any!) gaps. So why would you want to buy a separate, dedicated streamer?

Well, they still do have their uses, hence why Amazon, Apple, Google and Roku – the major players in the game – are still pumping out new models.

Indeed, Google went as far as rebranding its device, moving away from the iconic Chromecast label, when it released the Google TV Streamer earlier this year; Apple is expected to launch a new TV 4K streamer by the end of the year; and Amazon and Roku have as many as four streaming players in each of their current lineups.

Streaming devices > smart TVs

Firstly, while holes in TV offerings are generally closing, app and technology support isn’t consistent across them all, and some do remain.

Not every platform has the Apple TV+ app and AirPlay functionality, for one – a bit of a bummer for users of iOS devices and Apple’s video service, perhaps. And while the premium models from the bigger TV manufacturers nowadays pretty much tick every expected box, it isn’t unusual to come across a TV elsewhere that misses something.

For example, we noted in our 2025 TCL C855K review that “UK catch-up services are limited and the TV doesn’t have Freely or dedicated apps for BBC iPlayer and the like,” while, more bizarrely, the Netflix app on the ​​Sony Bravia 8 II we reviewed last month appeared to top out at 5.1 audio rather than Dolby Atmos.

Secondly, older smart TVs that still have many years of servicing their owners left may not support the latest technologies – the version of the Netlflix app supporting Dolby Atmos, say – or could have even lost app support due to a manufacturer simply ending support or losing a partnership with a service provider. A new streamer with all the modern-day bells and whistles could plug that gap.

Thirdly and finally, you have the boost in picture and sound performance that a video streamer generally brings over a TV’s built-in apps, although differences naturally depend on the quality of the streaming device as well as the TV you own.

That makes sense when you consider that the processing is done in a dedicated device that, unlike a TV, doesn’t have to juggle a multitude of other tasks.

It also tends to be the case that video streamer manufacturers will put more effort into ensuring the audio and video quality is sound.

The premium Apple TV 4K, for example, delivers a clear improvement, with Apple having tuned the sound to be notably rich and detailed. The Apple box can also detect the frame rate and dynamic range of the content you’re watching on it – HDR10 in 60Hz, say – and force your TV into the best mode to deliver that.

Is it enough to secure their future?

OK, so you have generally better picture and sound than you would get via a TV’s app integration – marginal in some cases, more significant in others. And then a hole-plugging role for certain TVs. Is that it?

In a word, yes. Today, streamers are clearly still relevant for the right – arguably niche – consumer and set-up. But for how long?

TV manufacturers are increasingly partnering with specialist streaming platforms to power their smart user experience for comprehensive and consistent offerings. Amazon’s Fire OS, for example, is now baked into the company’s Omni-series QLED and Mini LED TVs, as well as (from 2024) Panasonic’s OLED TVs.

And, in line with the natural evolution of progress, you would hope that any remaining gaps on such platforms, and those in other smart TV operating systems, will close in the near future, shunting streaming devices even closer to the sidelines.

The Apple TV 4K box is a bit of an outlier with its unique performance gains, access to iTunes Movies and support of spatial audio – all things you pay a premium for, of course, with the box costing £149 / $130 / AU$219.

But the sell for Roku, Amazon and Google may become tougher, despite their kinder price tags. Google perhaps recognises this, hence why it has positioned its latest streamer as a more premium proposition.

Indeed, it has hiked up the price to £99 / $100 / AU$160 and attempted to justify that by transitioning it from a dongle to a box and expanding its traditional streaming duties with ever-advancing AI functionality, plus a whole lot of smart home features thanks to the inclusion of both Matter and Thread – which, as we note in our review, is “a boon for those who have invested in smart plugs, lightbulbs and doorbells”.

Again, handy for the right customer – but for the mainstream market, who probably has all or most of what they need in their TV, or can get it more affordably elsewhere?

As the popularity of single-bar soundbars and one-box speakers shows, the consumer electronics world is riding the ‘less (fewer) is more’ approach when it comes to device count, and the expected continued evolution of smart TV integration could seriously threaten their future relevancy and, consequently, existence.

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Welcome to What Hi-Fi?’s Home Cinema Week! Read our AV-tastic news, features and reviews

After hours of measuring, I have come to the conclusion that full-fat Dolby Atmos doesn't work in normal homes

Anyone who has even passed through London’s Brick Lane knows just how hectic and overstimulating it can be. With vendors standing outside restaurants tempting you to enter with juicy deals, and Lime bikes requiring you to dodge around like a game of Subway Surfers, it can sometimes feel like too much.

But I have recently discovered a tucked-away gem that I am more than happy to brave the bustling journey for.

Enter Close-Up Film Centre, home to a small but cosy cinema screen and a relaxed bar space. Oh, and it also has the biggest collection of DVDs I have seen in a cinema.

It claims to house over 26,000 films, books and digital media entries. These span across various generations, genres and regions to provide a feast of entertainment. You can also rent out the discs for a couple of quid to enjoy at home.

I recently had half an hour to kill in the area, so I decided to pop in for the first time to have a proper peruse of what discs are on offer. Let’s just say I was engrossed to the point of being late to meet my friend.

There’s just so much to enjoy here as a film fan and general cinema nerd. I found a copy of one of Taika Waititi’s early movies that I hadn't seen before, Eagle vs Shark, which features a fresh-faced Jemaine Clement.

Shuffling along to the excellently curated animation category, I also came across a collection of Lotte Reiniger’s short films. Although not a household name, she is quite the celebrity for animation fanatics as she created the first feature-length animated film more than ten years before Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was released.

It felt pretty neat to see her work up on the shelves, and it really felt like there was something for everyone in the Close-Up collection, from new mainstream releases to arthouse films from the forties.

Where I, like most people, find myself looking for what to watch on a screen rather than physically looking through discs, this detox felt oddly therapeutic.

No ads were pushing me to go for a certain film, and I wasn’t influenced by an algorithm feeding me suggestions based on what I usually watch.

While the cinema itself is relatively small, the 40-seater also offers a variety of different movies to enjoy. Rather than focusing on new releases, Close-Up often looks back at older releases that have helped to shape the cinematic landscape today.

The filmography of Austrian director Michael Haneke, for example, was recently put in the spotlight with screenings of some of his most well-known films, such as The White Ribbon and Caché.

This combination of an excellent archive and niche movies being unearthed on the big screen makes for such a special experience, especially considering the difficulties independent cinemas are facing at the moment.

So, if you find yourself wandering the length of Brick Lane and aren't sure where to begin, Close-Up could well provide a much-needed refuge.

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Having the right theme song is crucial for any TV show. It's the thing that you instantly recognise and associate with the series forever. Take The Addams Family's double snap, The X Files' spooky synth-whistle, and the deep cello of the Game of Thrones orchestral theme.

While there are plenty of catchy theme tunes that are written specifically for the show, there are certain series that use an already existing song to set the tone and mood for the forthcoming content.

Below are the best TV opening-credit songs that are great songs in their own right – and firm fixtures in our test track playlists. Crucially, each is also intrinsically linked with the TV show it is soundtracking. These are songs that grab your attention and put you in the perfect mood from the second the opening titles kick off.

So whether your TV audio set-up uses a 2.1 stereo system, a soundbar package or a fully Dolby Atmos surround sound system, these are the greatest TV title songs that you'll never want to skip.

Peaky Blinders: Red Right Hand by Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds

Never has a title song set the tone for a TV show more perfectly than the sublime combination of Red Right Hand and Peaky Blinders.

The BBC crime drama was already highly anticipated because of its topic (a period crime drama set in Birmingham in the post-WWI era) and with the incomparable Cillian Murphy as the lead in a terrific ensemble cast.

But all it took was the familiar sound of that initial tubular bell, the deep bass riff and Nick Cave's majestic, brooding vocals in the first few seconds, and I was, like countless others, immediately hooked – and I knew we were on to something great.

The song is about a mysterious, shadowy figure who strikes "a combination of fear and awe everywhere he goes" – an apt juxtaposition when it plays over our first glimpses of Thomas Shelby, following him as he rides on a horse across the city like he owns it in the first minutes of the very first episode. Watch the scene in the video above – it will still give you chills.

The song and visuals tell you everything you need to know about the man before we even know his name or who he is, as we see people react to him with respect, both as a figure of (violent) power and someone who will genuinely help those in need.

Peaky Blinders' soundtrack is littered with anachronistic songs that continue to strike a tone of sheer coolness (there's a lot of Cave, PJ Harvey, Arctic Monkeys and The White Stripes in the first three seasons alone), but Red Right Hand as the title track was a stroke of pure genius.

The Wire: Way Down In The Hole by The Blind Boys of Alabama

From one crime drama to another, The Wire's title track across its five seasons is unusual in that it's the same song but covered by various artists.

The title song is 1987's Way Down In The Hole by Tom Waits (another one of those great songwriters and voices that we love alongside Cave). In the first season of The Wire, though, it is a cover by The Blind Boys of Alabama that starts the now-iconic show off.

Tom Waits' version is used for the second season, and we are treated to his customary gruffer, more gravelly and wailing vocals. But the smoother gospel tone of The Blind Boys of Alabama's cover is just that bit more textured and nuanced – and more soulful.

We also have a soft spot for the season four version sung by DoMaJe, a group made of five Baltimore teenagers, which offers a more R'n'B flavour.

It's rare to outshine Waits on any of his songs, but The Blind Boys do a terrific job in setting the tone for the institutions and incredible characters we meet across Baltimore in one of the greatest TV shows of all time.

House, M.D.: Teardrop by Massive Attack

Massive Attack is a staple in our test track repertoire – we use Paradise Circus, Angel and Teardrop regularly when we test hi-fi and home cinema kit. Not only that, the Bristol-based band is one of the most experimental and collaborative musical acts, and it continues to be revered today.

So medical drama House having Teardrop as its theme song is quite the coup.

That steady beat (which we can pretend mimics a heartbeat), the use of a harpsichord, the ethereal vocals of Elizabeth Fraser (of the Cocteau Twins) – it all works elegantly with House's clinical, cerebral, Sherlockian character and overall theme.

Those crisply textured crunches and the open, airy soundstage sound a treat in any system (whether two-channel, or five, or seven), while that repeating beat needs a system that has an iron-clad and precise hold of its rhythmic prowess.

It's a shame that the song's rights haven't been cleared for streaming, as you usually hear the music used in the closing credits instead of Teardrop when watching the show on Amazon Prime Video, for instance. (We recommend you get the Blu-ray boxset instead for the full experience, obviously).

True Blood: Bad Things by Jace Everett

Here's another example of great visuals and a great song choice for a TV title track that really leans into the show's setting and enhances it.

A vampire show set in Louisiana, True Blood offers a different texture and flavour to the horror fantasy genre just by being set in the South, not to mention taking full advantage of being able to tackle (and show) adult themes thanks to being on HBO.

Bad Things by American country singer Jace Everett even feels humid and sticky. There's a gorgeous fullness to the guitar riffs that evoke rockabilly and Americana, Everett's vocals are all southern charm, while the overall tone is just a little sleazy, a little sexy, and very louche.

Veronica Mars: We Used To Be Friends by The Dandy Warhols

There are plenty of teen dramas and comedies from the 1990s and 2000s that use existing songs, usually from some alt-rock band or pop artist, as their theme song. There's Scrubs, Smallville, Dawson's Creek, The O.C., Roswell and more – you can probably sing out the key bit of their theme songs easily. But none of them had anyone as cool as The Dandy Warhols.

Veronica Mars stood out from the teen-drama crowd with its neo-noir style and case-of-the-week and series-spanning murder mysteries. The dialogue is whip-smart, with Kristen Bell as the title character reeling off hard-boiled narration and arch sarcasm with so much ease.

The tone is slightly darker than your average California teen show, so to go with that, it made complete sense to pick a left-field theme song that fits it just as well.

We Used To Be Friends has the big riffs and melodic chorus sitting alongside moodier, grungier garage-rock tones and contrasting wild psychedelic beats that are distinctly Warhols. A great song in its own right, too.

BBC Formula 1 coverage: The Chain by Fleetwood Mac

Fleetwood Mac's The Chain is one of the all-time greats. Released on the band's 1977 Rumours album (one of the best records of all time, a staple in any music and hi-fi fan's collection), it's a classic track that will stand the test of time, referencing the turbulent breakup between band members Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham.

In the UK, The Chain is synonymous with the BBC's Formula 1 racing coverage. The instrumental outro of the song – kicked off by that now-iconic solo bassline – was used throughout the Beeb's Grand Prix coverage from 1978 to 1997, always ending with the cheery tones of the late, great commentator Murray Walker getting us revved up for the race ahead.

The song was revived when BBC regained the rights to broadcast F1 in 2009 – with that bassline once more signifying the start of the racing weekend, both for old-timers and a whole new generation of F1 fans. Channel 4 briefly adopted the theme in 2016, when once again broadcast rights changed hands. Sadly, today's dominant Sky's F1 coverage in the UK doesn't use the track.

Still, The Chain's power hasn't diminished, and it remains part of F1's legacy worldwide. The Hollywood blockbuster F1: The Movie, currently showing in cinemas, used the song in the trailer. The track itself remains part of our test tracks library – with powerful vocals and furious whining guitars, it perfectly encapsulates the magic of Fleetwood Mac.

When learning that the BBC would be bringing back Fleetwood Mac's The Chain as part of the 2009 coverage, Murray Walker said to The Telegraph he was delighted, because: "Every time I hear that music, I get butterflies. Because I know that when it stops, I start."

The Sopranos: Woke Up This Morning by Alabama 3

It's not only one of the most acclaimed and groundbreaking TV shows of all time, The Sopranos is also credited for kicking off the current era of "prestige TV", or the "golden age" of TV.

Often tangling with The Wire as the top choice in everyone's greatest TV show lists, it paved the way for shows such as The Shield, Six Feet Under, Breaking Bad, Ray Donovan, and Peaky Blinders, delving deeper into flawed characters like never before, portraying the realities of society, relationships, mental health and life in general – with, of course, bouts of unflinching violence.

Instead of the glitz and glamour of mob films such as Goodfellas, Casino or The Godfather, the show dealt with the more day-to-day life of Tony Soprano and his family. The opening sequence to every episode of The Sopranos is pretty mundane: James Gandolfini's Tony driving through the New Jersey turnpike, with glimpses of the city and neighbourhood around him as he drives home.

Soundtracking that drive is Woke Up This Morning by Alabama 3 – blending squelchy acid house electronic noises with moodier, deeper tones of trip-hop, blues and a gospel choir. (Sound familiar? It could easily form a trio of the greatest TV title songs of all time with The Wire's Down In The Hole and Peaky Blinders' Red Right Hand.)

Alabama 3 (who are from Brixton and not remotely American) laid down the blueprint for just how important it was for a title song to establish the tone of a prestige TV drama.

MobLand: Starburster by Fontaines D.C.

What is it with mob dramas and great title songs? 2025's MobLand keeps things current and fresh by taking a different approach with its title song compared with the others on this list.

Irish post-punk/indie-rock band Fontaines D.C. are enjoying huge success and acclaim thanks to their fantastic fourth album, 2024's Romance, with Starburster a standout track.

It's an explosive mix of trip/hip-hop, synth and art-rock, with a brash attitude. That deep intake of breath that punctuates the chorus, signifies a panic attack that frontman Grian Chatten suffered, and that forms the basis of the song.

This song's vibe and structure tie in brilliantly with the chaotic and stressful nature of dealing with the Harrigan crime family in the show, who are also Irish (another nice tie-in with Fontaines D.C.) – and it's an instant earworm.

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6 ways to get near-perfect Dolby Atmos sound in an imperfect room

Check out all our Home Cinema Week 2025 coverage

The Canvas HiFi is a home cinema anomaly. Is it a soundbar? Sort of. Is it a two-channel hi-fi system? Yes, but also no. It’s actually easier to affirm what the Canvas isn’t.

It’s not a Dolby Atmos soundbar, which might surprise you, considering it's designed to attach to your TV to produce cinematic sound.

It’s also not really a soundbar at all if we’re speaking in the traditional sense, as it’s designed for your TV to be mounted directly onto it.

While that might be a dealbreaker for some, especially the mainstream crowd, we find that this oddity in the world of home cinema audio is rather charming.

It also teaches us an important lesson: you don’t need a shedload of processing to create a cinematic sound experience.

Price

We have Canvas HiFi's Canvas 65 model, which is officially priced at a rather ambitious £2899 / $4999 / AU$5999. This is, unquestionably, a premium product, and the price tag should confirm that.

If you’re after a Canvas to fit your 55-inch TV, then you can expect to pay the same price, though owners of a 77-inch TV should expect to cough up £2999. Those lucky enough to have an 83-inch TV, meanwhile, will need to fork out a whopping £3299.

It’s worth noting that the speaker system itself is the same size regardless; however, the grilles are different sizes to match your TV.

That means if you upgrade from a 55-inch TV to a 65- or 77-inch TV, you won't need to replace your whole system. Instead, just grab a new grille and everything will match up smoothly.

If you’re looking for competition in this price range, you’ll need to skip the usual soundbar suspects – such as Sonos, Sony and Samsung – and set your sights a little higher towards the likes of Bang & Olufsen’s £2300 Beosound Stage. We haven’t reviewed it, but its design-centric, premium standing aligns with the Canvas in some ways.

For a more conventional soundbar solution, the Sennheiser Ambeo Max is your best bet. That beast of a bar generally retails for £2199, however, it’s been on the market for a handful of years, so you’ll find it for closer to £1999.

Loose comparisons aside, it’s hard to directly relate the Canvas to anything in the soundbar category. In truth, it feels more closely related to a set of stereo speakers, though that involves pricing up an amplifier, plus having trailing cables and dealing with a lengthy set-up process.

Build

While the design of any soundbar is an important factor, arguably it’s a bigger deal when it comes to the Canvas Hifi, as it serves as a stylish companion to your TV while also upgrading the sound.

We have the Canvas set up in the floorstanding orientation, with a Sony Bravia 8 OLED TV affixed to the top, and can confirm that this duo looks rather suave. It creates a monolithic, freestanding look, with the included black fabric grille creating a seamless all-in-one aesthetic.

There are a couple of things to note, however. Set-up is quite involved, with multiple boxes and an Ikea-style guide that gets the job done, but could be more descriptive.

The guides to get your TV into position without leaving a gap are more like suggestions, but we managed to get the Canvas set up properly after a small amount of trial and error.

Note, you will certainly need at least two people to set the Canvas up, and we can’t comment on the wall-mounting process, though the parts required for that are included in the box.

Also included with the Canvas HiFi is a basic black fabric cover, which can be affixed easily thanks to magnets. Other fascias are available, and we gravitate towards a stunning light oak panel, which features a slatted wooden design.

Be warned, though, that these additional covers are extraordinarily pricey, with that aforementioned wooden option costing a cool £1199. Fabric grilles, on the other hand, will run you £499, though these prices increase in relation to the size of your TV.

There are a couple of other niggles we have with the Canvas’ design.

First and foremost, the cubbyhole for the power and HDMI sockets is a bit too small, meaning plugging the system in can be a bit awkward, especially if you have a rigid HDMI cable.

Furthermore, the free-standing set-up does mean that the TV leans backwards slightly, as the feet on the bottom of the system are designed to angle the sound upwards.

We get that this has been done for the sake of sound performance, but be wary of placing your Canvas HiFi and TV in a place with either lots of ambient light or right under an indoor light, as the angle can result in noticeable reflections on your screen.

Features

Here is where we’d usually list an exhaustive reel of features, including sound formats, calibration settings and the like. However, the Canvas HiFi is a surprising subversion of the premium soundbar market, as it doesn’t have quite so many gimmicks attached.

Let's start with the most important feature: the drivers. They’re hard to miss with the front cover detached, as they dwarf anything seen in the likes of the Sonos Arc Ultra or even the behemoth that is the Sennheiser Ambeo Max.

Within the MDF cabinet, which is supported by Canvas’s patented BridgeBrace technology for extra rigidity, you’ll find three pairs of drivers, all provided by high-end driver manufacturer SB Acoustics.

There is a pair of 16.5cm paper cone mid/bass drivers housed in die-cast aluminium chassis, dual 29mm silk dome tweeters with aluminium front plate waveguides, and, last but not least, a pair of low-loss, high precision passive radiators.

Powering these beefy speaker units are quad Class D amplifiers pumping out 250W of power each; that’s a total of 1000W of amplification. These are paired with Burr-Brown DACs, which support up to 24-Bit/192kHz digital signals.

The Canvas HiFi, therefore, rightfully takes the title of “most hi-fi soundbar to enter our testing room”; the clue is in the title, we suppose.

While the sheer magnitude of the drivers and amplification is undoubtedly rather impressive, the software is where the Canvas is let down slightly.

Frustratingly, there is no remote in the box; not the end of the world, as HDMI CEC handles volume adjustment, but to access the other inputs and calibration settings, you’ll need to use the Canvas app on a smartphone.

Specifically, an iPhone, if we’re being honest, as, while an Android app does exist, it’s borderline unusable. Room correction only works with an iPhone’s built-in microphone, and the wi-fi set-up crashed repeatedly on our Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra.

Switching to an iPhone 16, we had less trouble setting the system up, but we wouldn’t call the app smooth.

Canvas does have an app update launching in the near future, which hopefully will clear some things up. Saying that, the current state of the app, which is required for a lot of the Canvas HiFi’s functions, is in a bit of a sorry state.

It does allow for a handful of basic functions, including a basic room correction feature (more on that in the sound section), as well as a way to turn the Bacch 3D sound processing – the only audio processing option on offer – on and off. You can still calibrate the system with an optional Zen microphone, although it's a substantial accessory, cost-wise.

Thankfully, for playing music, you can bypass the Canvas app and cast directly to the bar with Google Cast, Apple AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect and Roon. Canvas also says it can be integrated into a range of multi-room set-ups from companies such as Sonos, Bose, HEOS and more via the optical Toslink connection.

Sound

The Canvas’ proposition, if it wasn’t clear by now, is all about offering a hi-fi-level cinematic sound. So does it deliver on this promise? We certainly think so.

We’ve paired the Canvas HiFi with our Sony Bravia 8 reference TV, our Oppo UDP-203 4K Blu-ray player, as well as a range of reference discs including Dune: Part Two, Civil War and Blade Runner 2049.

Before we get stuck into sound performance, we should discuss our preferred settings, as although there aren’t many to choose from, we do make an immediate discovery.

To our ears, the Canvas sounds best with room correction and Bacch 3D processing switched off; this sort of makes sense when we remember that it's a stereo product.

One setting we do switch on, however, is the HDMI volume boost feature. Without it, the Canvas sounds quiet, and needs to be turned up to quite a high volume in order to reach its full potential.

When turned up too high, it can sound strained, so this feature helps to level things out by introducing a 10dB volume boost, allowing the Canvas to deliver punchy, cinematic audio without losing nuance or focus.

It’s designed to compensate for lower volume outputs from built-in streaming apps. However, we find it improves the experience across the board.

Leaving the Canvas HiFi in its natural state, we’re immediately floored by how crisp and natural it sounds. Detail levels are exceptional, with the clattering of helicopter blades in Civil War sounding textured and precise.

Voices are another highlight, as the conversation between Officer K and Joi in the bleak sci-fi apartment in Blade Runner 2049 sounds wonderfully authentic and emotive, and they’re underpinned with a richness that makes them sound genuinely lifelike.

Where the Canvas HiFi truly excels, however, is with low-end punch.

Bass is presented with a level of weight that you could liken to an external subwoofer; it’s deep, rich and nicely controlled. This is evidenced in the bass-heavy Harkonnen arena fight in Dune: Part Two, which is presented with plenty of low-frequency heft, meaning the scene is conveyed with ample drama.

We appreciate how direct and clear the Canvas sounds, as it doesn’t try to add anything with processing. Dolby Atmos is great when implemented correctly, but the simplicity and focus on pure audio quality are where the Canvas shines.

It’s also skilled with music, as evidenced with a handful of tracks that we play through the Canvas, including Churchyard by Aurora and Bloom, Baby Bloom by Wolf Alice. Timing is handled very well, and the naturalness of voices and instruments does an excellent job of replicating the music with texture and detail.

There is, however, one sticking point that just holds the Canvas HiFi back from true greatness. Its handling of dynamics is, unfortunately, not quite good enough. Scenes and tracks with big moments of impact or dynamic shifts lack the crescendos that we look for in products such as this.

The Canvas has no trouble building up a moment of suspense or a verse that is about to enter a bombastic chorus, but it never quite hits the peak, resulting in a slightly weak pay-off.

It’s a shame, as the clarity, detail levels and the sheer weight of the sound make for an otherwise thoroughly engaging sound.

We also find that the included black fabric grille can rattle in scenes with heavy bass. This might be due to the lightweight acoustic cloth used in conjunction with the lightweight design and magnetic connection. It introduces what sounds like distortion, but removing the standard grille negates this issue.

Trying the heavier wooden fascia fixes this issue, though spending £1299 to fix an issue isn’t exactly an ideal scenario.

Verdict

The Canvas is a prime example of niche, audiophile gear straying away from the exclusive world of hi-fi and into the realm of home cinema.

We’ll admit, we had some prejudices when we found that this pricey sound system didn’t support some of the most commonplace cinematic audio features, but those notions were quickly dispelled.

Its clear, detailed and weighty sound is supremely cinematic, and even though it doesn’t quite deliver the goods where dynamics are concerned, we find that there’s lots to like here.

Sometimes, simplicity is a pro in itself, so if you want a straightforward and effective stereo upgrade for your TV, all in a stylish package, then this quirky speaker system is certainly worth a look.

SCORES

• Sound 4
• Build 4
• Features 3

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Amazon Prime Day is next week, which means deals on purchases big and small. A TV is usually one of the former, but if you don't have a lot to spend, fear not, you do have options.

Now obviously these models aren't among the best TVs you can buy. They're small, with high definition resolutions rather than 4K, and they lack the more sophisticated features of their pricier alternatives.

But do their job very well indeed, and deliver an immense amount of bang for buck while doing so. That's £100 well spent.

TCL 32SF540K best Prime Day deal

This TCL is the pricier of the two, coming in at £119. But that is still £60 cheaper than its usual price.

At 32 inches, it is also the larger of our two choices. It runs Amazon's Fire TV platform, yet comfortably outperforms – and undercuts – Amazon's own 2-Series 32-inch Fire TV.

Alexa is onboard for voice controls, which is pretty amazing at this price. And, unusually for a 32-inch model, it uses a Full HD panel (with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels). It even has Bluetooth and AirPlay 2 wireless technologies.

The picture is solid – a little unremarkable, sure, but not seriously flawed in any area. And that counts for a lot.

As we wrote in our review: "TCL's shadow detailing is well judged and, crucially, consistent, helping dark scenes look as full of depth as bright ones and contributing to a more immersive viewing experience."

It does sacrifice a little brightness compared with some rivals. But the upside is more consistently authentic colours, especially when it comes to skin tones. It's a trade off we're happy to make.

If you're looking for a smaller TV, the RCA set below is for you. At just a shade over £100, it's phenomenal value.

Best RCA Roku RK24HF1 TV Prime Day deal

The discount might be smaller, but so is the overall price. At 24 inches, it's a good size for a bedroom or kitchen, and it comes with Roku's smart TV platform, which is well organised if a little basic.

It does bring all the expected streaming apps though, as well as neat features like the ability to customise the order of your sources.

Its 1280 x 720-pixel count is lower than the TCL's above, but then the screen is smaller, so requires fewer pixels. It doesn't have as many features as the TCL, but its picture quality is surprisingly enjoyable.

It's nice and bright, which is what you need from a TV likely to be placed in a bright environment such as a kitchen. It is also impressively clear and sharp.

"The RK24HF1’s sharpness helps pictures enjoy a good sense of depth and three-dimensionality too – a talent that proves particularly useful when using RCA’s screen as a gaming display," we wrote in our review.

There you have it. It is possible to buy a decent TV for around £100. Thanks, Prime Day.

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Read the full TCL 32SF540K review

And our RCA Roku TV review

Amazon Prime Day 2025: all the deals currently live

Premium German AV brand Loewe has announced the latest addition to its luxury OLED TV lineup, and it's a spin on a TV trend we are seeing more and more these days.

Introducing the 97-inch Stellar, a new screen size for the company's existing flagship TV range. It joins the already available 42-, 48-, 55-, 65-, 77- and 83-inch versions of the Stellar, which we called "one of the most unusual TVs we've seen" when it was unveiled last year, on account of its unique concrete rear panel.

Loewe's new flagship TV is engineered and assembled at its manufacturing plant in its home town of Kronach. It has a premium aluminium chassis and brushed aluminium bezel for a stylish look and solid build.

It also features the magic.light system that launched with the Stellar. This light bar runs along the bottom edge of the TV for an ambient glow, and it can be customised with a range of different colours. Unlike Philips' Ambilight system, it does not react to what's happening on screen, but it does offer a pleasing welcome and goodbye animation.

Other design-led features include a concealed connection panel with cable management built in, and a hidden wall-mounting bracket which allows users to mount their TV flush against a wall for a sleek and modern look.

Unlike the core sizes in this range, the 97-inch Stellar does not sport a Micro Lens Array panel. Instead, it uses a 4K WOLED display – to be expected at this size. Loewe boasts of a strong relationship with LG Display, as it purchases the open-cell OLED panels in order to adjust the manufacturing process to suit its high standards.

The 97-inch Stellar is set to deliver "an exceptional visual performance with peak brightness, extraordinary contrast, and astonishing detail" with support for Dolby Vision IQ also on board.

It appears to be powered by Hisense's Vidaa smart platform, with Loewe's os9 platform running on top. It supports a wide range of streaming services, including Netflix, Disney Plus and Apple TV+, as well as cloud gaming applications such as Blacknut and Boosteroid. There is also an art mode for displaying artwork, and Loewe is proud of the customisability of this operating system.

AI is even mentioned, with AI-backed content recommendations and AI comfort features also referenced, though we're not entirely sure what they do quite yet.

As this is a premium OLED TV from Loewe, we expect a substantial price tag to match. While we don't have UK pricing quite yet, the 97-inch Stellar will be officially priced at a whopping €29,999 when it launches later this month.

Using the power of currency conversion, we make that out to be approximately £26,000 / $35,000 / AU$54,000. Better get saving.

MORE:

Read our Loewe Stellar hands-on review

As well as our picks for the best OLED TVs

And the best TVs overall

The third-generation Apple TV 4K is one of the best streaming devices around.

Yes, it has a fluid UI that makes it a doddle to use, but it's the picture and sound quality that really impress, and that earned it a What Hi-Fi? Award for three years on the trot.

But Apple isn't one to rest on its laurels. It's rumoured to have a new model in the works – and about time, considering that the current one is nearly three years old now.

So what can we expect from a fourth-gen Apple TV 4K? Let's have a look...

Release date

According to Apple, the fourth-generation Apple TV doesn't officially exist, which is no surprise. The company plays its cards very close to its chest, after all. But that's not to say there aren't some educated guesses/predictions that can be made surrounding its launch date.

Having perused the rather chaotic Apple rumour mill, all sources seem to agree that late 2025 is a likely launch window, with a release expected sometime between September and December.

With Apple's "Awe dropping" iPhone 17 launch event officially confirmed for 9 September (invites were sent out and everything), there's a strong chance we could see the new Apple TV grace the stage then – assuming it doesn't mind sharing the limelight with its iPhone 17 (and potentially AirPods Pro 3) siblings.

Priced under $100

The current Apple TV 4K costs £149 / $130 / AU$219, but could we see that price come down for the next model? One Apple analyst seems to think so...

Ming-Chi Kuo has previously predicted the device will cost under $100 as that would be the "sweet spot" for a streamer. If true, that's a rather welcome $30 drop compared to the current 64GB Apple TV 4K.

If that sounds too good to be true, there's some hope. A price drop isn't that far-fetched – while new devices often cost more than those they replace, sometimes the opposite can be true. The current Apple TV 4K actually launched at a lower price than its predecessor (which started at £169 / $179 / AU$249).

Even if Apple can't launch the new model at a lower price, it could always keep the current model on sale and discount it as a lower-specced version. It's taken the same tack with its AirPods wireless headphones and iPhone, so why not with its streamer too?

A built-in camera

Possibly the biggest change could be the addition of a built-in camera for FaceTime calls. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reckons this could also be used for gesture controls, a bit like the Xbox's doomed Kinect sensor.

Apple has flagged that FaceTime is getting some big improvements with the next version of the Apple TV operating system (tvOS 26). Improvements such as customised contact posters, live translations in more languages and notifications appearing on screen.

Currently, FaceTime on Apple TV is of niche interest. That's hardly surprising, considering that you have to use your iPhone camera and mount your phone near the TV in order to use it.

But these improvements suggest a simpler way to use FaceTime could be on the way, most probably via a built-in camera.

Same design

If you were hoping for a radical redesign, you might be disappointed. Apple is thought to be keeping the same plain black plastic body as the current model, rather than overhauling how it looks.

Some may have hoped for a streaming stick design similar to the Amazon Fire TV Stick, but the rumours say no.

Google recently abandoned its dongle approach (seen in its previous Chromecast products) with the higher-end Google TV Streamer, which suggests it thinks Apple was right all along.

Apple wants its premium Apple TV 4K to be on show, not hidden around the back of your TV, so expect the current box design to stay.

New chip

With the current Apple TV 4K being three years old, its chip is starting to feel a little dated. In fact, it features the same A15 Bionic as the iPhone 13, which was already a year old when the Apple TV 4K launched.

That makes the current Apple TV 4K's chip four years old. That's ancient, given the rate of progress.

Apple doesn't make chips specifically for the Apple TV, so it's most likely to use another iPhone processor for the next model. Again, it's unlikely to be the latest chip, but more likely the A17 Pro as seen in the iPhone 15 family.

As it's able to support hardware-accelerated ray tracing, this would enable the Apple TV 4K to run console-quality games.

But it all comes down to cost. Apple could use the newer A18 chip (from the iPhone 16), but that could push up the price of the device too much.

Even the A17 Pro could prove too costly, especially if – as rumoured – Apple is targeting a lower price for its next streamer.

Better wi-fi

A new, custom chip with support for Wi-Fi 6E is said to feature in the next Apple TV 4K. Apple has previously introduced Wi-Fi 6E support with the iPhone 15 Pro models (and entire iPhone 16 family bar the iPhone 16e), and its recent iPads and Mac computers. So it makes sense that the Apple TV is next.

This would open up the Apple TV 4K to 6GHz networks, meaning quicker downloads and smoother streaming. But you will need a router that's compatible with Wi-Fi 6E – don't expect to notice a difference otherwise.

Newer Bluetooth version

This is pretty much a given. The current model has Bluetooth 5.0, but the next model is thought to feature 5.3. That is a big improvement – bringing a more secure wireless connection and greater efficiency, among other benefits – but still not the latest version.

Some recent devices – such as the Sonos Ace – feature Bluetooth 5.4, and some really niche ones even have Bluetooth 6.0 (though none are available on these shores yet). But as we say, version 5.3 will still be an improvement on the current model.

In fact, as with the updated Wi-Fi, the Bluetooth chip in the upcoming Apple TV is rumoured to be part of Apple's first proprietary chip design.

We expect to see some potential improvements when it comes to integration and syncing across Apple's smart home ecosystem. And yes, that could potentially include the rumoured new Apple HomePod Mini 2.

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