Surround yourself with a home cinema system

The television has long been the focal point of the living room. But it's only recently that many of us have been buying up widescreen, mega-sized sets, ever-expanding DVD collections and digital subscriptions.

With razor-sharp pictures readily available, the demand for quality sound has grown too. Home cinema systems help envelop you in the on-screen action through a variety of speakers, each engineered to accentuate a particular aspect of the programme's soundtrack.

You could spend ages fretting over what system to buy and where to put it for the best experience, but there are plenty of excellent, reasonably priced home cinema systems available that provide high quality sound without the need to be baffled by tweeters and woofers.

Most kits are 5.1 systems. This means they have five surround sound speakers, plus a subwoofer – a speaker that adds powerful bass to the system. One of the speakers is placed near the television, along with the subwoofer, while the others, known as satellite speakers, ideally take a corner of the room each. If you want an even more enhanced sound experience, 7.1 systems offer an additional two rear speakers.

For those who want fewer speakers and cables to deal with, there are 2.1 systems available – two speakers and a subwoofer. However, as the consumer group Which? recently found in its examination of some of the leading kits on the market, these might be an improvement on small, internal television speakers, but they cannot match the sound quality of the larger systems. Rather than compromising on this, the clutter-conscious might consider a larger, but wireless system instead.