If you've persuaded the love of your life to accept a large-screen TV into your lounge, please accept our hearty congratulations. But have you managed to get the seal of approval for a surround-sound speaker system? We didn't think so. The reason for spousal speaker hatred is simple: speakers can be as ugly as a shaved cat.

Luckily, not everyone is out to ruin your design ethic. Jamo has thought long and hard about the problem and come up with a well-designed, compact set of speakers that are subtle and easy to install.

The A 402 HCS system is made up of speakers from the A 400 range. In the box you get four surround satellites -- the A 402 -- for the front, rear, left and right channels. There's also an A 400 CEN for the centre dialogue channel and an A 400 SUB, which is the hard-hitting subwoofer, for exploiting those epic movie explosions. Click here for more

We got a first look at Pioneer's LCD TVs on Friday, but that wasn't enough. While at the company's head office, we had a poke around to see what other technological goodies the manufacturer was producing, from high-end AV receivers with 'Air Studios' certification to new Blu-ray players. We could hardly keep our camera steady.

Pioneer once had a significant investment in Air and the two companies have worked closely together to produce audio equipment ever since. Not only is Air Studios set up for music, but it's also one of Europe's foremost movie soundtrack mixing facilities. When testing a film on the Pioneer SC-LX90 surround receiver with a Blu-ray disc, they can get the original sound engineer to come and listen, which means you know it'll do a good job at reproducing the original soundtrack.  Click here for more

It seems like every TV review we write, we end up saying the same thing: "The sound on flat-panel TVs just isn't good enough." People don't usually see the investment in sound as anywhere near as important as that of the picture. And that's troubling, because sound is 50 per cent of the experience -- and what's more, bad sound makes Nate Lanxon sadder than a walrus who's lost his bucket.

So how do you keep Nate, and more importantly your ears, happy? The best solution is to get yourself an AV receiver, and the good news is that there are plenty of fringe benefits to getting something like the Onkyo TX-SR576.  Click here for more

Let's not beat around the bush: TVs are great, but for the proper movie experience you need a projector, in a dark room, with an epic surround-sound system. Because that's the way to enjoy a really good film -- it's even the way to enjoy a bad film. The problem is that projectors are rarely cheap, so when we heard about the InFocus X10, which will set you back a very reasonable £1,099, we started to have dreams of a home cinema all of our own.

The X10 is a really smart-looking DLP projector that claims to be able to deliver a native contrast ratio of 2,500:1, or 7,500:1 with the iris turned on. The headline feature has to be that you'll be able to play games and watch movies in lovely 1080p quality. Click here for more

A while ago we found ourselves craving the Denon AVP/POA-A1HD AV receiver, which is extremely good but costs a merry old £10,000. If you need to eat, pay a mortgage and dress your children, however, the good news is Denon has a 'budget' version called the AVC-A1HD, and it will only cost you a piffling £3,800.

What does the AVC-A1HD offer that could possibly persuade anyone to part with an amount of money that could quite happily purchase a sturdy second-hand car? Well, it's a THX Ultra 2 certified decoder of all things HD soundtrack related. It can crank out 7.1 channels of high-end sound and can make sense of Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD MA and every other surround-sound format you could name. If you want a proper home cinema, you'll need a system like this.  Click here for more

Building your own home cinema is never going to be the cheapest decision you make. Once you factor in the cost of a Blu-ray player, an HD TV and a surround-sound system you're going to be getting some very cross phone calls from your bank manager. One way to reduce the cost is to buy an all-in-one Blu-ray and surround-sound system, such as the Samsung HT-BD2R.

What you get in the pack is a Blu-ray player, which also acts as the amplifier for the speaker system. There are four tall-boy speakers, a centre-channel speaker, a subwoofer and a pair of mini-satellite speakers -- for the extra channel that 7.1 provides over 5.1. The system claims an output of 1,100W, with each channel offering 135W -- the sub can crank out 155W.  Click here for more

If we hadn't just ruined it in the title, we could make a snappy joke out of the Denon AVP/POA-A1HD. "What has two boxes, takes two people to lift and costs as much as a car?" But the AVP/POA-A1HD is no joke -- it's Denon's outrageously high-end home cinema system and we really want one.

The A1HD comes in two exceptionally substantial components. The first is simply a pre-amp that costs £5,000 -- you'll actually get a penny change from your five gees, but we're confident if you can afford £5,000 for a pre-amp you won't be too fussed. The pre-amp takes care of all the inputs, of which there are a mind-boggling number. Deep breath: six HDMI, six component, eight S-video and eight composite. For audio alone, there are five optical and six coaxial digital inputs.  Click here for more

If you've long wanted to get into home cinema but haven't had the motivation, you might find the switch to high definition is a good time to get involved. At least, that's what Panasonic is hoping with its SC-BT100, a Blu-ray home cinema system with 5.1 surround and a bunch of wonderful trimmings.

We've always been a fan of simple home cinema systems. No one will pretend you're going to get the best quality high-end sound, but as far as simplicity and value for money goes, they can't be beaten. Especially if you lack the expertise and inclination to spend hours putting together a top-notch setup.

What makes the BT100 ideal is that it also offers a step up to Blu-ray while at the same time offering 5.1 sound. There's an added bonus too -- you can add an extra pair of optional speakers to turn the whole thing into a 7.1 surround sound system. Now that's the sort of flexibility we like.  Click here for more

One of the problems with flat-panel televisions is the sound. A huge amount of effort seems to go into making the case look nice, and producing an impressive picture, but this all seems to be to the detriment of the sound. Dolby's Volume technology is setting out to fix some of the problems. Firstly, it can adjust the sound levels so all your inputs match, but it can also improve dialogue audibility too, something important for TVs with small speakers.

Dolby Volume is designed to help reduce the difference in volume between different sound sources and make everything more audible. For example, Dolby told us that when you reduce the volume of a movie, you lose a lot of the low and high frequency sounds. What Dolby Volume does is balance all the sound, so you can hear the dialogue, but still benefit from the sound effects and enjoy a full movie experience.  Click here for more

No one could argue that when it comes to decoding surround sound Denon has an excellent track record. Its AV receivers are built like battleships and sound amazing. The latest effort from the company, the AVR-3808, includes support for every format known to man and every input ever invented.

The 3808 supports up to 7.1 channels, but you'd need a very understanding 'other half' to get away with putting seven speakers on the walls and tucking a sub away somewhere. That said, you can obviously just use it as a 5.1 system, which should be easier to explain when your wife/husband comes home to see all the walls in your lounge with holes in them.  Click here for more