THE SUCCESS OF LG’s stylish Chocolate mobile did wonders for a brand formerly thought of as more workman-like than a grubby white van full of workmen.

Learning from this, the cunning Koreans are now flaunting a home cinema system from their Design Art range, which is said to have ‘emotional appeal’. It’ll certainly have that to high-class dipsomaniacs: the surround speakers look like shoulder-high Champagne flutes.

Sadly, the center speaker and passive subwoofer do not resemble beer glasses, nor does the center unit look like a yard of ale, but it does house a DVD player, AM/FM tuner and six-channel amplifier. Its sculpted front panel compliments LG’s TVs, and – continuing the heavy boozing theme – hides two karaoke mic inputs, as well as a USB slot. Simply buy a mic then get your sneeriest friend to come round and give his verdict on your singing, and you basically have The X Factor in your front room.

Sound to impress
Movie sound is uniformly excellent, with the five speakers working in perfect harmony to steer sound effects all around the room, creating a subtle, brooding ambience during thrillers. Music sounds clear and punchy enough too, although if you push the volume up, the treble starts to splash, and the bass begins to sound like Brian Blessed with laryngitis.
With an HDMI output and the ability to upscale your DVD collection to 1080p resolution, picture quality is also excellent. It’s a pity there are no HDMI or AV inputs, but that’s really all that’s missing from this extremely stylish set-up.

LOVE Impressive 5.1 cinema sound. Cool design. 1080p HDMI output.

HATE Bass can be overly boomy, especially with music at higher volume. Lack of inputs.

4 stars
WE SAY Balls-out surround-sound cinema from speakers that look a bit like Champagne glasses. What’s not to like?

CHANNELS 5.1
POWER 700 Watts
CONNECTIONS HDMI, Scart, component, composite, analog audio, SPDIF audio
FILES SUPPORTED DVD, CD, MP3,WMA, JPEG, DivX