WE LIVE in a remarkable era where home entertainment delivers experiences with convenience and quality that was the stuff of science fiction not long ago. The past year yielded a lot of interesting new gear, including the first quantum dot OLED TVs from Samsung and Sony. It’s a year where Sony updated its 4K home theater projector lineup and went all-in with laser light sources. Meanwhile, Epson raised the bar on what to expect from an ultra-short-throw (UST) projector with the wall-hugging LS800, while LG made its popular OLEDs bigger and brighter than ever.
In 2022 we saw Apple update its best-selling AirPods Pro headphones with the addition of personalized spatial audio. It was a great year for bass-loving home theater enthusiasts; the new Cinema Series Marantz AV receivers introduced at CEDIA can concurrently apply discrete room correction to four independent subwoofers. There’s a lot of substance to the advancements that made the past year’s Top Picks so appealing.
One thing I want to mention about these selections: No single item in the list has a price exceeding four figures, a deliberate choice. The goal of our 2022 Top Picks of the Year is to highlight gear that works well and is a good value instead of including cost-no-object flagship models—many of which are priced well above the point where the law of diminishing returns kicks in. (Prices quoted are from manufacturer websites as of this writing and some may reflect current discounts.)
We live in an era where what you can achieve performance-wise in a living room with a large TV or UST projector, a good streaming source, and an Atmos soundbar or a modest AVR-based system is not something to scoff at; it’s something to celebrate.
Here is gear that gives you a high-fidelity home entertainment experience but does not necessarily demand a specialized environment like a dedicated theater—or that you take out a second mortgage to pay for it. Nor is it "cheap" gear because
