Choosing A Home Cinema System

Choosing a Home Cinema, or AV, system is not a straightforward proposition. There is a bewildering choice of components on the market today, there are also different ways in which components can be installed and connected together.

Which sort of visual system do you go for? Projector and screen, plasma, LCD or LED, 3D or back-projection TV? And on the audio side do you plump for a 5.1 or 7.1 speaker system, passive or active sub, and where do you site them for the best results? The choice of home cinema amp raises even more questions. Will you be listening to music through the same system? If so, you need an amp that approaches the performance of a decent 2-channel hi-fi amp, which is not that easy to find. Do you need SACD, DVD-Audio, or Blu-ray capability? How many inputs do you need for video, s-video, component, coaxial digital, optical digital, HDMI? The above are just a small percentage of the decisions that must be made. In short, it's complicated and very fertile ground for getting it wrong.