Tag: sound

Price Points: Home cinema sound systems

Home cinema sound systems | H is for Home

We always begin our annual hibernation right about now – around the time Strictly Come Dancing hits its stride! When given the choice between going out to socialise on a cold, dark wet evening or staying in with a bottle of wine, chuffing wood-burner and a Scandi drama we almost always choose the latter… you’d almost have to physically drag us out of the house kicking and screaming!

We always read user/buyer/expert reviews and recommendations to get a handle on electronic and tech products. These are the three home cinema sound systems we’ve short-listed…

We start with the Canton DM55. It has had the highest review on the Which? website to date (84% – 1 percent higher than the Sonos Playbar). According to their expert:

The DM55 is easy to use, and sounds great, with a strong dynamic range and convincing surround-sound effect… While it’s pricey, it’s also the best sound base we’ve tested, and gives Canton another Best Buy to add to its collection.

Coming in at a hefty thousand pounds (down from £1,400), the BOSE SoundTouch 130 is a system that not only includes a soundbar but also an Acoustimass module and control console.

We’ll be saving up to get ourselves the Sonos Playbar. Not only can we enjoy using it to watch live and recorded TV, we can also listen to music and digital radio through it via Spotify. We already have a couple of Sonos Play:1s and a Play:3 – the sound they emit is amazing, and connecting Sonos speakers to the wi-fi network and Spotify is a complete doddle.

  1. Canton DM55 2.1 virtual surround system – black glass: £329.00, Amazon (4.2 out of 5 – 35 reviews)
  2. Sonos Playbar: £599.00, Sonos (4.5 out of 5 – 710 reviews)
  3. BOSE SoundTouch 130 wireless home cinema system: £999.95, Currys (9.7 out of 10 – 18 reviews)

Gimme Five! Wireless speakers

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Selection of five wireless speakers

Christmas must be approaching – some definite present hints have been heard recently! Justin’s mentioned wireless speakers 3 times in the last week. Not exactly shoe-horning it into any random subject, but the moment music or bands are mentioned, up the subject pops.

It would be great actually, to have a premium music streaming service like Spotify working in conjunction with wireless speakers dotted around the house. No more wires or CD cases cluttering up rooms. We’ll keep hold of our vinyl collection, but we’d love to move into the 21st century with a wireless system too. Perhaps his dreams will come true – here are some favourite wireless speakers for various budgets that we’ve identified as possible buys.

  1. Minx Air 200 wireless music system with Airplay, Bluetooth & internet radio (black): £299.95, Amazon
  2. Bose SoundTouch 10 wireless multi-room speaker: £169.95, PC World
  3. Sonos PLAY:1: £169, Sonos
  4. LG Music Flow P7 portable Bluetooth speaker with leather carrying case, oak: £149.95, John Lewis
  5. Spotify multiroom speaker: £129.99, Philips

Towneley Park birdsong

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Justin was off to an auction view this morning so I decided to go along for the drive and take Fudge somewhere different for his walk – Towneley Park.

It’s a beautiful, well maintained park in Burnley – the former grounds of Towneley Hall, where the BBC film Antiques Master with Sandi Toksvig.

Anyway, it made a lovely change – lots of different sights & sounds to our normal stomping ground. So much so that I stopped and recorded a 30-second clip of the beautiful birdsong. The volume’s a bit low, but get your twitcher hats on, click the red button and tell me how many different calls can you recognise?