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Home cinema is one of my passions, with a DVD collection that barely fits in my living room. Just like any home cinema enthusiast, I have a surround sound system to complement the large widescreen TV and DVD player. I’m often accused of being a bit of a purist when it comes to surround sound, and although I’ve spent nowhere near the amount of money on my setup as some of my friends, I have a deep loathing for gimmicks like “pseudo surround” or worse still surround sound headphones.

It was therefore with some trepidation that I unboxed the HCT Portable Home Theater (that’s the name of the product, before anyone accuses me of not being able to spell theatre) – a product that promised to produce surround sound through a set of headphones.

HCT has definitely done a good job with the packaging – the lid of the box is magnetically secured and when this is lifted you find another layer with clear windows showing off the contents. Around one of the windows is a list of features, with lines pointing to the relevant hardware.

When you finally get through to the hardware itself, you realise that you’re getting a lot of kit with this bundle. The right side of the box is given over to the large set of stereo headphones, but it’s the left side that houses the interesting bits. Unlike the Zalman Surround Headphones which use multiple analogue outputs, the HCT solution accepts an optical digital stream. To make this possible, there’s a handy little surround sound processor included in the box.

The sound processor is well designed, and has pretty much everything you need crammed into a very small box. Power comes from two AAA batteries – two rechargeable Nickel-Metal Hydride batteries are supplied in the box, along with a charger. The charger plugs directly into the processor, so you can run it from the mains if you wish. The processor will decode both Dolby Digital and DTS, as well as Dolby Pro Logic II. Obviously the latter doesn’t need a digital input, and the audio input will accept both optical and standard 3.5mm analogue jacks.

The processor has a series of indicator lights that tell you whether you’re using analogue or digital input, as well as what kind of surround format is being decoded. There are buttons for Mute, Output and Test – Mute obviously cuts the sound, Output switches between stereo and Dolby Headphone output and Test sends the a signal around each of the surround speakers (well, the imaginary ones anyway) to make sure that the sound stage is working properly. There’s a power switch and a jog dial volume wheel, while headphones are plugged into the output cable – two sets of headphones can be attached to share the effect.

Also in the box are two optical digital cables – one short and one long – both cables are Tosslink to 3.5mm optical mini-jack, but there’s also a Tosslink to 3.5mm mini-jack converter. You'll also find a stereo phono to 3.5mm mini-jack analogue cable, as well as an analogue cable with 3.5mm mini-jacks at either end. Finally there’s a black carry bag that will accommodate the whole bundle of kit.

So now that I’ve covered everything that’s in the box, it’s time to talk about the really important part, how this system sounds. As I said at the beginning of the review, I’m not a big fan of surround sound headphones, but I was very impressed with the results from the HCT Portable Home Theater.

I kicked things off by running the test signal and I am pleased to say that I could hear the white noise moving around a convincing surround sound stage. At this point I should mention that the headphones supplied with this kit are superb – not only do they sound excellent, but they are also extremely comfortable, even when you wear them for extended periods. I tried plugging some bog standard headphones into the processor, and although the different channels could still be picked out, the overall effect was very disappointing – the moral here being that you need good quality headphones for this system to work properly.

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