I've gone the other way to Peter on how visible my AV kit is; I prefer it to be invisible -or near as is practical :-)
Given how much time we were going to be spending in our home this year, the AV system's been upgraded (any excuse!)
The biggest single step towards low-visibility kit is to project TV instead of having a permanent screen. I upgraded a 5 year old 2.4k Sony projector for a 4k one: it's brighter, 4k content is definitely sharper, though there's not a lot of it about. We have 65mb broadband (& a Google mesh network) which streams at 4K just fine using an Apple 4K TV box.
Though a projector costs more up-front than a TV screen, I did easily eBay the old projector for 2/3ds of what I paid for it 5 years ago. Man-math says it's cost me less than £2 a week.
The one challenge I've had with a projector is to sync sound & picture, when they're on opposite sides of the room. The only answer *was* a very long optical cable. Now I use a Bluesound Node 2 (the same as Heinz) which handles airplay perfectly, along with a plethora of streaming options.
For five years I've used a Naim MuSo as a music streamer, speakers for turntable, & fancy TV soundbar. For a single box the MuSo's sound is amazing, but there's definite limits. So 2021's upgrade has the Bluesound is now hard-wired to a pair of
BeoLab 18s - tall, slim, & a design classic, which fits the room's mid-century modern aesthetic. And the footings are engineered not to pass sound through the floor - which matters when you're in a 2nd floor flat.
Each to their own!
Will
