WATCHING

Feel like you’ve escaped into another world for the evening

1 PHILIPS OLED754

Solid from top to toe, including its basically bezel-free 4K HDR panel, its P5 processor and its superb audio package, the OLED754 is Philips’ entry-level OLED but you’d be forgiven for being fooled otherwise. $tbc, philips.com

2 FIRE TV STICK 4K

Now that Amazon and Google have made up and are playing nice, the YouTube-capable Fire TV Stick 4K has cemented itself as the premier plug-and-play media streamer. It’s app-rich, handles 4K like it’s nothing, and is fully compatible with HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. $69, amazon.com.au

3 BENQ HT3550

Massively contrasty and highly detailed, with a powerful 4K HDR engine backing it up, BenQ’s projector is what all projectors should be. It’s best in low light, but it’s fully capable wherever you choose to put it – and with a vertical lens shift, you can get minutely detailed with your picture tweaks. $3,789, benq.com

4 SONY HT-X8500

Sony’s sound virtualisation tech is such that this 2.1 Atmos/DTS:X soundbar throws 7.1.2 sound all over the room even without a laundry list of cones. It’s got an integrated sub, too, so it’s compact enough to bring cinematic sound to even the most bijou of living rooms. $595, sony.com.au

5 SENNHEISER AMBEO

Five high-quality tweeters, six long-throw woofers throwing out bass as low as 30Hz, two top-firers, and Fraunhofer’s latest 3D sound protocols tying it all together makes for one remarkable soundbar, whether you’re driving DTS:X, MPEG-H, Dolby Atmos, or anything else. $3,999, sennheiser.com

6 PHILIPS HUE PLAY HDMI

Hue has long worked with Philips’ own Ambilight, which projects coloured light at the edge of a TV to expand its picture. But why stop there? The Hue Play sniffs HDMI signals to turn your whole Hue-infused front room into a massive glow-up of screen-linked colour, making for a glorious, immersive spectacle. $345, meethue.com

7 FOCAL CHORA 826-D

Home cinema is made so much better by Atmos – and Atmos through Focal’s highly tuned and frankly gorgeous floorstanders has never sounded better. Super-light but ultrarigid Slatefiber cones mean power and delicacy in equal measure, and the build quality is superb. $4,000 (pair), focal.com

8 WD MY CLOUD HOME DUO

All that media has to live somewhere, and WD’s hefty 8TB NAS turns storage into an absolute breeze. Whether it’s a gargantuan 4K movie collection or a host of hi-res music, you’ll be able to access it anywhere on the network, with enough space to last you years. $349, westerndigital.com

9 DENON AVR-X3600H

Driving an immersive home cinema experience demands an amp with skill. Denon doesn’t disappoint with the AVR-X3600H, a major upgrade to its previous generation receiver that offers 11 180W channels, Atmos Height Virtualisation and tight, snappy audio response.

$2,399, denon.com