Thomas J. Norton

For those pining for Part 2 of my latest tome on projectors and screens, it will come soon enough. But posting it on Christmas Eve seemed like an invitation for me to plunge into the reindeer-and-chestnuts memory hole. With the biggest holiday of the year fast approaching as I write this (not counting Super Sunday), you'll likely be looking for relief from Uncle Harry's annual Christmas dinner ramblings: "when I was your age..." So fire up the old home theater and settle in for a movie or two — a movie about the holiday, on the holiday.

Ready to create a WOW! big-screen experience at home but not sure where to start? No worries, I’ll guide you through the process.

It's hard to say whether my interest in music and audio started with my first experiences with multichannel sound in the movie theater or whether my interest in movies in theaters, and later in home theater, started with my interest in music. But the fact remains that the film score, mainly of the orchestral variety but sometimes of other sorts (looking at you, Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol.1 and Vol.2), remains one of my favorite forms of music.

Film music doesn't have an enviable reputation among classical music connoisseurs. But I see no reason to disparage it because it was written for a more popular type of entertainment...

PRICE $3,100

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Open, detailed sound
Excellent dialogue intelligibility
Flex can be configured as wireless surround speaker
Minus
Some ergonomics issues
Inconsistent system stability

THE VERDICT
The B&W Formation system performs admirably in a number of respects. But unreliable stability, limited processing features, and no HDMI input make it a less-than-ideal option for 5.1 surround sound.

Blame it on Sonos. In the early 2000s, at what was then the Los Angeles headquarters of the Stereophile Guide to Home Theater, we were visited by a gentleman from that then largely unknown company who had a product he was eager to promote: a wireless speaker in a single, relatively compact box. I politely declined. It wasn't a good fit for our publication at the time, but I should have at least asked him about stock options!