I was lucky enough to get hold of the Sony DAV-550 as an end of line bargain when the were shrinking the audio visual department of my local House of Fraser. I hadn't gone looking for a home cinema system but 10 minutes of killing time while my wife looked at clothing revealed this little beauty.

One of the things that had always annoyed me about the previous surround sound set up I had was the size of the speakers which looked a bit bulky and messy next to the TV. No such problems with the Sony as the speakers are nice and compact yet still capable of belting out a really high quality sound even when pushed up to an uncomfortably loud volume. Coupled with the extra punch from the subwoofer which is easily hidden behind my flat panel screen the clarity of the sound is very hard to beat for a unit of its size.

Full 5.1 surround sound really brings out the best in a basic home cinema set-up and once you've got the speakers positioned correctly and the levels adjusted (easily done through a few button presses on the remote) you can't fail to be impressed with the difference.

While the unit has produced crystal clear images with DVDs through component cables and been a great amplifier for handling the audio signal from my PS3 (best to us an optical audio cable for clarity) there are a couple of downsides to the system.

Firstly it is noisy when loading and ejecting discs to the point where the whirring sounds like something is about to fall apart inside. Several years on it has never once broken despite having 2 discs shoved into it at once by my daughter, so the build quality is rock solid despite the noise.

Secondly I have always found the remote to need accurate aiming even with new batteries so I cna only assume the IR receiver needs to be a bit more sensitive.

If you can still find these for sale or want to track down a used model then I'd recommend this very highly. Great quality sound, fantastic surround sound reproduction, neat speaker design and a even a glow in the dark remote.