February issue on sale now

Now on sale is our February issue, packed with ideas for upgrading your home entertainment while still keeping the wolf from the door.

And if you thought last month's bargain TVs were a snip, offering you the best you can buy for under £500, we can do even better this month – we go wild in the aisles and come back with a trolley filled with supermarket TV bargains.

We've TV's from 22in to 40in, and all for under £300: in fact, if you get down to Sainsbury's, we've even turned up a 40in set you can lay your hands on for just £250. Plus Nectar points, of course…

At the other end of the price spectrum we have the amazing LG 84LM960V 84in 4K Ultra HD TV, yours for £22,500.

We reckon it looks amazing, but the jury's out whether the world's quite ready for it just yet – or more to the point, whether there's anything to watch on it.

But the picture is only half of the home cinema experience, and this month we've built three killer home cinema surround systems for guaranteed surround-sound thrills: we can do you one for just over £1500, complete with a top-notch telly, or find you a painless way to pop a little under £6500, complete with a 65in plasma. The choice is yours, but each system is a cracker.

However, if times is tight, we've some great affordable amplifier buys for you, as Rotel's RA-10 stereo integrated takes on rivals from Denon, Edwards Audio, Marantz and Onkyo.

The perfect boost for your music for under £300? You bet…

Of course, it's sometimes good to dream a little, and amplifiers don't come much more fantastic than the ever-so-slightly over-the-top Burmester 808 Mk5 preamp, which has got to be some kind of tweaker's dream, with its huge choice of input modules, adjustments and more.

£22,242, since you ask, and apparently it came out of a desire to be able to test and compare components!

We also have some highly desirable speakers, in the form of the massive Dynaudio Confidence C2 Signatures (left), delivering a refined, oh-so-engaging sound to keep us listening long and hard.

Want to keep the music to yourself? Well, 12 pairs of headphones get the once-over this month, from Fanny Wang to Focal, as it says on the cover.

Actually, that's not the whole story: we did find some 'phones not beginning with 'F' – from AKG to Sound Magic, via Bowers & Wilkins, Harman Kardon and the House of Marley (among others).

First Tests

We kick off our look at the hottest new hi-fi and home cinema this month with the Arcam FMJ A19, the long awaited new integrated amplifier from the Cambridgeshire company.

Then it's straight on to another much-anticipated review: the second Bowers & Wilkins wireless speaker, the A5.

We take a long hard look at the Oppo BDP-103EU Blu-ray player and Samsung's smaller smartphone, the Galaxy S3 Mini and – while checking out streaming hardware from Linn and Sansui – get back to good old CD with Naim's new entry-level player, the CD5si.

Oh, and we get hands on – in a very real sense – with Microsoft's first tablet, the Surface RT. And almost find ourselves liking it. If only…

We've a preview of next month's Bristol Sound & Vision show – yes, just six weeks to go, so book now to avoid disappointment (and save some money) – and have advice on your system problems, suggestions of what to watch this month and much more.

Plus the chance to win yourself a set of fabulous Atlas Mavros high-end interconnects and speaker cables – see, now we've got your attention… Click here to enter

And don't forget you can download our digital edition to your laptop, PC or tablet on Zinio or iTunes. Happy reading.

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Andrew has written about audio and video products for the past 20+ years, and been a consumer journalist for more than 30 years, starting his career on camera magazines. Andrew has contributed to titles including What Hi-Fi?, GramophoneJazzwise and Hi-Fi CriticHi-Fi News & Record Review and Hi-Fi Choice. I’ve also written for a number of non-specialist and overseas magazines.