Build a bonkers home cinema

It's showtime

Product Round-up It’s a curious fact that when you ascend into the rarefied atmosphere of specialist hi-fi, products transform into creations of often astounding beauty. Do the same with home cinema, and they usually mutate into the unapologetically hideous. This is doubtless a consequence of hi-tech Darwinism. Top class AV gear sits unseen in darkened rooms, often swaddled in acoustically transparent cloth. So be warned: what follows isn’t necessarily pretty – but it is jaw-droppingly beautiful in flight. Time to build a totally bonkers AV system…

Datasat RS20i audio and Lumagen Radiance XE video processors

For the ultimate in home cinema sound, it makes sense to go to the source: Datasat Digital Entertainment. Formerly known as Digital Theatre Systems, these guys have a lineage in movie sound that can be traced back directly to the prehistoric footfalls that echoed around Jurassic Park. They know how to rock the stalls.

The good news is that after years of hauling cinema hardware, the company has turned its hand to the home market. The RS20i is a direct offshoot of the AP20 processor used in commercial cinemas, and it’s sensational.

Datasat's RS20i audio processor

Conforming to the Digital Cinema specification, the RS20i is a 16-channel processor with built-in Dirac Live room optimisation technology, a 31-band EQ and parametric EQ on all channels. It takes sound and moulds it to any room environment, large or small.

Connections include a quartet of HDMI inputs – video is passed through untouched – assorted digital and analogue options and blockbuster-grade op amps and capacitors; it’s able to cope with most anything Michael Bay can throw at it.

Acting as ying to the RS20i’s yang is a Lumagen Radiance XE video processor. This best-of-breed box can frame and sync images perfectly, and employs high-tech alchemy to upscaling SD and 1080i video deinterlacing, useful if, heaven forfend, you plan on routing Sky+HD, TiVo or other DTR through the system.

Lumagen Radiance XE video processor features 16 video inputs of all varieties
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Price £16,000 (Datasat RS20i), £3900 (Lumagen Radiance XE).
More info Datasat and Lumagen