With TVs bigger, brighter and blacker than ever, and format wars a thing of the past, there’s never been a better time to splash out on a home cinema system

Television: Philips 42PES001

Philips 42PES001

If this svelte, incredibly classy TV was a person, it would be Audrey Hepburn. But our Audrey didn’t have a removable, wall-mountable speaker and an external tuner box to make her ideal as part of a complete home-entertainment system, did she? No. Nor did she have a super-slim bezel to challenge many 40-inchers for lack of girth, yet with a 42-inch screen. And what a screen it is: pictures via either of the TV tuners are stable and detailed, while black levels and contrasts are superb (at least part of which is due to the screen’s beautifully even backlighting).

Philips 42PES001 External Tuner

Motion is dealt with confidently and skintones and textures are natural. Spin a DVD or Blu-ray and the picture’s  just as striking. Movement is smoothly rendered, high-contrast screens are utterly convincing and there are massive amounts of detail with almost no picture noise. It’s not the cheapest box, but if you want set-up flexibility and the best 42-inch pictures around, then here it is.

Stereo Speaker Package: Tannoy Revolution Signature TS12

Tannoy Revolution Signature TS 12

You’re not going to treat yourself to the good looks of that Philips TV and surround it with some ugly speakers, are you? Of course not. This Tannoy system is an outstanding speaker package. It serves up incredible punch, dynamic ability and musicality when driven by the Rotel receiver below – and those looks are to die for.

Blu-ray Player: Pioneer BDP-51FD

Pioneer BDP 51FD

It might be a “budget” machine by Pioneer’s standards, but this has immense talent. Pictures are detailed and sound is fothnight – it’s an easy fit into this system. It doesn’t have the BD-Live, Ethernet or on-board DTS-HD Master Audio decoding of its BDP-LX71 brother, but at this money, this is one helluva Blu-ray player.

Home Cinema Receiver: Rotel RSX-1550

Rotel RSX 1550

Rotel’s latest slab of home-cinema oomph only has a five-channel amplifier, but summons impressive drive where movie soundtracks are concerned. Music is good and hefty, too, and there’s also the luxury of “4 in, 1 out” HDMI switching, making it the perfect hub for hooking up to game consoles of your PC.

3 Steps To AV Nirvana:-

Invest In Decent Cables: Set aside ten percent of your total budget for decent cables. You might think one cable  is the same as the next, but they can make big difference.

Calibrate Your Telly: Run the THX Optimiser found on many discs to tweak your TV to suit your room. It’s quick and bins that showroom set-up.

Rack It Up: Invest in a good AV rack. Keeping your kit level and vibration free will lead to better pictures and sound