Sorry, I can't hear you....

Music. Movies. Games. All of these things make sound. All of this sound plays a vital role in me ingesting powerful images, stories, and embedding myself in escapism. The boxes above represent the first upgrade I've had to my speakers system in over a decade. It has been an extraordinarily long time between drinks. How big of an upgrade was this move? Well, I'll demonstrate.

You vs the guy she tells you not to worry about

The bookshelf speakers I've chosen for my wall mounted front and rear speakers (in a 5.1 configuration) are about four times larger by volume (and weight) than my old, weary Yamaha satellites that have lived in many different postcodes. I have a proper, grown up home theatre system now - and one that I likely won't need to replace for another twenty or so years.

These speakers are driven by a Yamaha HTR 5067, which, while getting a bit long in the tooth as far as new audio standards go, is more than capable of driving these speakers effortlessly, and with no discernible distortion at uncomfortable listening volumes. The amp has 4K pass through, and ARC (Audio Return Channel), which allows the native 4K devices plugged into my TV (PS4 Pro, and Xbox One S) to send the correct digital audio signal to the amp for crisp surround sound.

Disappointingly, I have a backlog of movies, TV shows, and console games almost as long as my PC gaming backlog is - and that's very, very long.

Hive account@ursa has been playing Dragon Age Inquisition on the big screen, from her laptop, and these speakers make the game audio sound... excellent. I can't wait to watch a movie on these things with properly mastered audio. I can't even begin to contemplate lying down in the dark with one of my favorite albums on and literally getting lost in the sounds. I had a quick listen to a few songs - and these speakers have so much nuance in them that I even picked up on instruments I hadn't heard through headphones!

It's going to be an excellent period of rediscovery.

Then, it's going to be even better, playing through a console backlog of games knowing that I've got excellent sound quality, and I didn't break the bank to do so.

I got the bookshelf speakers for $75 per set, and the matching centre channel was about $180. My old subwoofer pairs with these nicely, as it outdid my existing speaker set. I already had all the speaker wire routed through the ceiling and walls, so wall mounting the bookshelf speakers only involved removing a screw, and re-terminating the wiring. Piece of cake.

If you see me disappear and not make a post for a while... look for me, ruining my ears with these speakers.