BEHIND THE SCENES IN OUR AV TESTING FACILITY HERE ARE THE REFERENCE HOME CINEMA PRODUCTS WE USE EVERY SINGLE DAY

AV nerds assemble, this is our set-up for 2025

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Our AV testing room is an integral component of most of the TV, projector, soundbar, AVR, streaming device and surround-sound speaker system reviews that we conduct. As you can imagine, we spend quite a lot of time in there evaluating the latest TVs and home cinema kit.

Prompted by our recent Home Cinema Week, we thought you, dear reader, might be interested to know a little bit more about our London-based AV testing facility. And, in particular, we wanted to let you know the components we have chosen for our 2025 reference home cinema setup - the one that we use for reviewing the newest AV products.

We always have our reference devices on hand; consider them an elite squad of five-star operatives that we use to benchmark the latest products.

This roster is constantly changing, as the bar is always rising with every new five-star review. However, some components of our reference kit have stood the test of time, occupying a multiyear residency in our facility.

Before we dig into the reference system itself, let’s look at some of the specifications of the room itself.

Our home cinema room measures 2.3 x 6.0 x 5.0m (hwd), meaning it is suitably sized to house a full 7.2.4 surround-sound speaker setup, leaving plenty of room for an AV rack to house our amplifiers and projectors. There is also room for two 65in TVs to sit side by side, as well as a 96in projector screen. Then, of course, we shouldn’t forget our trusty sofa - comfortable but not too comfortable; after all, there’s work to be done here.

We also have adjustable acoustic panels affixed to the walls, and bass traps in the corners of the room to ensure that interference from the room itself is minimised for our audio-focused reviews.

Last (but by no means least), we have Chord Company cables throughout the room to power our surround-sound speaker package.

Now, on to the fun part, our reference home cinema setup...