Rob Sabin

It’s easy in this brave new world of Ultra-Uber-HDR-4K HDTV to forget that the sound is still half—yes, half—of the home theater experience. Even if you’re actually smart enough to know that, and you wander into your local big-box electronics store in an effort to improve upon the tiny rear-facing drivers that pass for flat-panel TV speakers, you’re probably in for a knee-deep wade through soundbars and Bluetooth speakers before you stumble onto the audio/video receivers. You remember receivers: Those boxy things? Bunch of buttons and knobs and lights on the front? At one time, people used to called them stereos? “Oh yeah...those,” says the young skeptic festooned with the store logo on his shirt. “I think we still carry a couple of them in that back room over there.”

Nestled among the rolling estates of northcentral New Jersey is a recently completed 22,000-square-foot mansion on 11 acres that represents the height of luxury. Among the usual features associated with such homes—the large and well-appointed kitchen with industrial-grade appliances, the sprawling master suite with grand bath and giant hisand-hers walk-in closets, the fully equipped gym area, the climate-controlled wine cellar, the multi-bay garage complex stocked with one or more exotic cars, the attached pool and cabana, and, of course, the dedicated home theater—is the extraordinary media/entertainment space you see here. Dubbed the Sports Room by the homeowner, it’s one of the still rare examples of a commercial video wall used in a residential application, and it is indeed the ultimate game day oasis.

Following the successful launch this year of its flagship STR-ZA5000ES A/V receiver (review in the October 2016 issue of Sound & Vision), Sony plans to roll out four new ES models next year for the custom-install channel.

There aren’t too many to choose from, but bipole and dipole speakers are a special breed that I've long admired. Here's why.