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OK so there's no real panache to the sound, which will seem a bit crude and coloured to anyone who's used to more expensive separates, but once again Mark Levinson (who tunes LG's one-box systems) should take credit for making the HT33S sound as good as possible for the money.

However, music playback isn't quite as impressive. With the retro-soul pop of Daniel Merriweather's Love and War on CD, the LG delivers an overbearing, cluttered sound that lets the sub get far too involved - the various EQ modes either exacerbate the problem or go to the other extreme and strip the bass out completely. Also, it has the annoying tendency of starting each track a second or so into the song.

But we have no major complaints with the system's 1080p pictures, which generally look vibrant and solid with low noise levels - although we did detect some block noise and crawling on some of The Bourne Identity's interior settings. Otherwise, edge definition, fine detail handling and colour fidelity are all up to scratch.

Verdict

Those looking to upgrade their sound system in a space-strapped living room or bedroom will find a lot to like in the HT33S. It looks delightful, offers very enjoyable movie performance and comes equipped with a few nifty features like an integrated iPod dock and digital media support via USB. It's just a shame that it doesn't play DivX HD and its music playback isn't quite up to scratch, as they stop the HT33S being the unmitigated bargain it was shaping up to be.

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