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Home Cinema Separates Vs Home Cinema Packages

There’s no denying that one-stop home cinema solutions, or ‘home-cinema-in-a-box’ packages as they are also known, have improved in recent years. While they can be effective for general use or small areas, they still do not have the audio and visual quality, when compared with a home cinema separates system. The decision is ultimately yours we always recommend looking at purchasing separates rather than home cinema packages so you will get the best out of your expensive plasma television, lcd television or hi fi but please note there are some good packages on the market place today but it would be worthwhile to read independent reviews before purchasing, outlined below are some of the reasons we recommend buying separate components for your home cinema.

A Question of Quality

While it is hugely tempting and very convenient to buy an entire system in just one box from one manufacturer, you may not be getting the full potential of your plasma television, lcd television or you’re hi fi. Manufacturers have particular strengths and weaknesses. DVD players and amplifiers we rate often seem a bit disappointing when used with speakers from the same brand. For example, multi award-winning marque Toshiba has a hard-earned and well-deserved reputation for building great DVD players, but are not speaker specialists this is because they do not make the speakers themselves, we would recommend going to an established speaker brand such as Mission or Mordaunt-Short, who have specialised in such products for years.

It's for that reason that a careful combination of flavours, as in all the best recipes, can produce something truly special. If you mix and match correctly you know you will be getting the very best performance, and therefore value, in each particular department.

All-in-one home cinema systems are very attractive with their compact size, however this very size means all the electronics are crammed together, electronically interfering with each other. There’s no space for a suitably sized toroidal transformer, therefore the power needed for the real home cinema experience is much reduced

Home Cinema Separates Features

The feature count on home cinema separates far outweighs that on ‘all-in-one’ systems. For example, separates DVD players often come with stunning new technologies like progressive scan, vastly improved connectivity, such as component outputs, and sometimes, THX specification. The latter can also be found on home cinema separates receivers, which also take in a wider range of DSP modes, along with extended surround sound capabilities that move well beyond the usual Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1, to DTS-ES, Dolby Digital EX and, quite regularly now, seven channels of power. Meanwhile, with 24-bit/192kHz processing power you find yourself in the realms of next generation audio formats namely DVD-Audio and SACD.

Upgrading Separates systems

An obvious flaw with all-in-one home cinema systems concerns upgrades. What happens when you decide after several years listening that, although your DVD is fine for your purposes, your amp is not giving you what you need to get the best out of your home cinema? Unfortunately, as you can’t separate the two the only alternative is to replace both the DVD player and the amp to get a better power source. This is also true if something breaks down. With an all-in-one home cinema system it is possible you could lose the whole system, whereas with separates only one of your units has to be repaired or replaced.

Flexibility of a Separates Set-up

It can be very difficult to purchase an all-in-one home cinema system that gives you precisely what you want or need. For example you might want a system that not only gives you great performance with films, but also offers the very best in compact disc playback. Equally, you might want a DVD player that also records, or a speaker system that offers a ferocious amount of low frequencies. It is rare indeed to find an ‘all-in-one’ set up that gives you all the flexibility you may require. For this sort of balance you really need to carefully select a system for yourself.

(Please note there are some quality packages on the market that are worth considering we advise reading independent reviews before purchasing)

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