Opinion

The additional power amp. The Darbee Darblet. The trio of media players, all necessary to cover esoteric file formats. Over the years you’ve assembled a home cinema of such fearsome complexity that successful operation is beyond the talents of mere mortals (or other family members, basically). Of course, it doesn’t help that you insist on still using seven individual remotes, and haven’t bothered to relabel the HDMI inputs on your AVR – but that’s only an issue when you’re not around to cue up a Blu-ray. Which hardly ever happens, as you’re in your cinema room every day…

Earlier this year, the topic of dialogue intelligibility raised its head once again, this time around the blockbuster Warner Bros flick Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Some people were complaining that they couldn't hear the dialogue, yet Hans Zimmer, the soundtrack composer, blamed cinema loudspeakers, affronted by the suggestion that his pounding score made the chatter in the latest superhero match-up inaudible. 

I'm a big believer in giving your AV setup a Spring clean. Untangling cables, repositioning speakers that have been shunted about and putting Blu-ray discs back in their correct cases can help bring a sense of calm to a fraught AV mind. 

Generally speaking, our modern connected world is a good thing, particularly when it comes to electronic doodads. Back in the day, before the 'net, we would buy a gadget, happy to know that what it did when first unboxed would be what it would do forever (wear and tear not withstanding) – play DVDs, amplify music, time an egg.

What do zero-budget fright flicks, British gangster films and Nic Cage all have in common? Give up? Well, at the time of writing they can all be found clogging up the DVD/Blu-ray charts of your local supermarket. And they aren’t just filling the lower rungs of the charts either, they’re occupying prime positions between mountaineering dramas and Tom Cruise’s latest action epic.

These days you can’t move for pundits proclaiming the death of physical media. Whatever your passion, be it DVDs and Blu-rays, CD and vinyl, or coffee table tomes, the connected mantra is largely the same: bin what you own and don’t buy anything that requires a bag to carry it in. This is shockingly bad advice. But I nearly fell for it.