ELECTRONICS
There’s a good chance you’ve given up on discs entirely and now consume most of your video entertainment via streaming. If that’s the case, you definitely want to add a good media streamer to your system, since the apps built into smart TVs often leave something to be desired. The Roku Ultra, by contrast, can deliver an AV experience so comparable to UHD Blu-ray discs that you might not be able to tell the difference.

But even the best 4K streaming can’t provide the ultimate viewing experience. For that, you need something like a Kaleidescape movie player, which can deliver better picture and sound than UHD Blu-ray—but that’s actually not the most compelling thing about it. Its strongest asset is its super-intuitive user interface, which lets you easily find and download what you want to watch. And since films are stored locally, your collection will be available to watch even when your ‘net connection gets glitchy. It’s also a fully monitored, bulletproof piece of hardware that delivers a level of dependability something like Apple TV just can’t match.

What about the most boring part of any home entertainment system, though? Yup, you’re going to need a surround sound preamp—the anonymous black box that basically acts as the air traffic controller for your media room or home theater, routing audio and video signals where they need to go and also giving you volume control and so forth.

That’s not all preamps do, though. The biggest differentiator between them is their room-correction software, which, just a few years ago, tended to do more harm than good. But the latest correction systems—when set up by someone who understands room acoustics—mean you don’t need to have a perfectly symmetrical space filled with acoustical treatments to get reference-quality audio. Done right, correction can compensate for problems with room acoustics and make what once would have been considered just a passable space sound exceptional.