All-In-One Home Cinema Kit Reviews

TVs, as we know, are getting thinner all the time and, while this may make them sleeker and more attractive, it also affects audio quality: for nice, powerful audio, you need space and volume. The only way of getting round this is to pick up an external audio kit for your stylish new TV.

Tristan François / Guillaume Letoupin
Translator: Jack Sims
Published: February 2, 2012

Our tests: readings and the naked ear

Just as we wouldn’t test a TV without watching it, or a digital camera without taking a photo, a large part of our testing process is based on listening to audio kits and playing pieces of music, songs and extracts from films that we know off by heart.

The human ear isn‘t perfect or infallible, however, which is why we also run a whole load of lab tests. The tweeters, amplifiers and subwoofers are all scrutinised from every possible angle, at full power, normal volume and minimal distortion, so as to uncover the smallest fault.

Finally, when a Blu-ray player is included in the kit, this is tested in full just like any stand-alone Blu-ray player that passes through our hands.

That’s it, you’ve decided! You’ve had enough of those three millimetre high speakers squeezed in between two pieces of plastic on your TV and you've decided to install a real audio system! The most obvious choice for a newbie is an all-in-one kit that includes a subwoofer, an amp, tweeters and even sometimes a Blu-ray player or a media player.

The advantages of all-in-one kits: consistency and simplicity

Buying audio material as separates is all very well and good, but it can become a real nightmare when you know nothing about what equipment you need or how to choose things like the right amp, sufficient power, appropriate speakers, the number of channels (stereo, 5.1, 7.1, 9.2) and so on! All-in-one kits can help take the headache out of choosing by bringing everything together: the amp will be adapted to the speakers and vice versa, and this should stop you making any major mistakes.

Most of the time, kits also have a more coordinated, well-worked design (all the different components have been assembled by the same manufacturer) and have the advantage of being simple to install. Whether we're talking about the connectors, the base, wall fixtures or settings, if the product has been well designed it'll all be much simpler to set up and use. Manufacturers, however, don't always get things 100% right, which is where we come in!

The disadvantages of all-in-one kits: price, limited quality and limited scalability

All-in-one kits are attractive for their simplicity and design, but these advantages can become limitations in the medium to long term. Quality can sometimes be rather debatable too.

Many all-in-one kits are made with the priority on design and appearance rather than sound quality. Obviously a 5.1 kit costing under £50 isn’t going to give the same quality as a simple stereo kit with a real subwoofer costing a few hundred quid. Don’t expect miracles—components (amps, speakers and so on) come at a price, and this can’t be cut indefinitely. Often, more is invested in the design than how a product sounds.

All of this explains why certain high-end kits cost so much! As well as being nice to look at and giving decent performance, they come with a well-designed user interface that you won’t find on kits further down the range. Once again, you get what you pay for.

Lastly, if you’re going for an all-in-one, forget about future-proofing and scalability. With just a few exceptions (cables) and unlike home cinema kits made up of separates (with which you can replace the subwoofer, the Blu-ray player or add surround speakers), these kits aren’t scalable and you won’t be able to change the different components.

Final question: how many speakers should you go for?

You'll be able to choose from two to more than ten speakers. While the subwoofer is indispensable in a home cinema set-up, adding a multi-channel facility is more debatable. It’s always better to go for fewer speakers of better quality—always!

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