It’s easy, when looking for a bargain set-up, whether it be home cinema or hi-fi, to get a little too distracted with driving the price down, rather than looking at the quality you might be getting. If it’s cheap, after all, there must be some leeway for a few performance foibles, surely?
Often, of course, that simply has to be the case. But not always.
Fifty-inch televisions may be par for the course nowadays, but for most living rooms it’s a size that is plenty big enough to bring a cinematic sense of scale to proceedings.
The system
- TV: TCL 50C6KS (£419 / AU$590)
- Soundbar: Hisense AX5125H (£249 / $350)
- Total system price: £668
The TV
And the 50in TV we have for you here is, quite simply, a revelation. For years, the premium panel technologies – Mini LED and OLED – remained firmly in the territory of flagship pricing. TCL has shattered that barrier with the 50C6KS. It’s a 50-inch slice of visual excellence that makes you question how much money you need to spend to get a truly bright, punchy, and detailed picture.
The core strength of the TCL 50C6KS lies in its Mini LED backlight. The set’s ability to control local dimming zones is far more sophisticated than anything else we’ve seen anywhere near this price. And it translates immediately into the real-world performance: excellent brightness and contrast that fundamentally elevate all content you throw at it.
Watching high dynamic range (HDR) content, especially from Dolby Vision or HDR10+ sources, is where the magic truly happens. Sunsets blaze with intensity, streetlights pierce the inky blackness of a night scene, and explosions have a genuinely searing quality.
The black levels, while not reaching the absolute, pixel-off-perfection of a true OLED panel – this is a £350 50in TV remember – are deep and satisfyingly dark, particularly when viewed in a moderately lit room. Critically, we found very little evidence of a common pitfall for lesser LED TVs – blooming or light haloing around bright objects against a dark background.
The picture has depth and dimension, and avoids the flat, washed-out look that plagues so many budget rivals. Its colour palette is rich and vibrant, offering nuanced shades of green and red that bring nature documentaries to life.
There are, inevitably, some minor foibles. The most noticeable compromise is in motion handling. It’s generally perfectly competent, particularly for standard TV viewing; but watching fast-paced cinematic action can occasionally reveal an over-smoothing effect.
While this can be mitigated somewhat by tweaking the motion settings, out of the box it can lead to a slight soap-opera effect on fast pans and camera moves.
The other key limitation to be aware of, particularly for the enthusiastic gamer, is connectivity. The 50C6KS lacks the full suite of HDMI 2.1 features. This means the latest generation of consoles – the PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X – will be limited to 4K resolution at 60 frames per second. For the casual gamer or those who prioritize cinematic picture quality over extreme frame rates, this is a perfectly acceptable trade-off.
For most of the people, most of the time, the TCL 50C6KS offers a picture that is, in its own way, “even better than its specs suggest”. This is a television that simply loves light and is desperate to share it with you.
The soundbar
To pair with the television, we have a rare product indeed. A sub-£500 Dolby Atmos soundbar system that actually performs brilliantly for its price – indeed, it’s the first of its type to merit the full five stars (and a Best Buy Award) from What Hi-Fi?’s necessarily strict reviewing team.
Two top-value products, then, that bring so much more than you should expect for the less than £550 you will have to pay for them.
If the TCL is the visual bargain of the year, the Hisense AX5125H is without doubt its audio equivalent. This system is a certified winner, and it represents a genuine landmark: it’s the first truly good and incredibly affordable Dolby Atmos system What Hi-Fi? has reviewed.
What’s more, the Hisense is not simply a soundbar: this is a complete 5.1.2-channel system in a box. That means you get the main soundbar unit, a dedicated wireless subwoofer, and, crucially, two dedicated wireless surround speakers.
The system supports both Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, and the soundbar incorporates upward-firing drivers (the ".2" in that 5.1.2) to bounce audio off your ceiling, creating the true height and immersion that defines the Atmos experience.
And, when we had the system in our test room, we were stunned by the sheer scale and spaciousness of the sound it produces. Explosions don't just happen in front of you; they feel as though they are detonating across the entire room.
Aircraft fly overhead, and rain seems to fall from above. The soundbar itself handles dialogue and the front soundstage with a cohesive and detailed grip, ensuring that even in the most chaotic action sequence, you can still clearly hear the actors' voices.
The star of the show, though, is the wireless subwoofer. It delivers a room-filling, sofa-shaking exuberance that is addictive, providing a proper foundation for the sound, lending weight and dramatic scale to action movies and giving music a satisfyingly deep beat. This is bass that you don't just hear; you feel it in your chest, instantly transforming the sense of immersion.
The fact that you can get this sonic quality for 200 quid (at the time of writing) is, quite frankly, absurd.
The verdict
The beauty of pairing the TCL 50C6KS and the Hisense AX5125H lies in their complementary strengths.
The TCL is focused almost entirely on delivering a stellar image, one that is bright, contrast-rich, and detailed. Its internal audio, while more powerful than many rival TVs, is still, ultimately, TV audio. Which is to say, not ideal in a home cinema context.
The Hisense AX5125H steps in not just as an upgrade, but, as it turns out, as the ideal partner to the TCL's visual prowess. It solves the TV's one key limitation – the need for serious audio – and does so with an authority and completeness that is rare.
Where the TV draws you in with its stunning use of light and colour, the sound system holds you captive with its enveloping sonic landscape.
MORE:
Our pick of the best TVs we tested in 2025
Are 4K Blu-ray discs better quality than streaming?
Subwoofers have been the MVPs of 2025; here are three examples of subs that wowed us this year
2025 set the foundation for a Dolby Atmos revolution – here's hoping it ignites in 2026
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