6 Instant Upgrades: Live Sport
Bring football stadiums and velodromes into your lounge with this world-class team of performance-enhancing telly boosters
Hands-up who’s heading to Rio for the Olympics! None of you? Well it is rather a long way to go, isn’t it? How about one of the opening games of the Premier League season? £70 a ticket, you say? Ouch.
Watching sports in the flesh is great and all that, but it’s pretty flaming expensive and time consuming, especially when you can have an experience that’s in some ways even better at home.
You can supply your own beer and pies at a fraction of the cost, you don’t have to have your ears bashed in by that gobby know-it-all in row D, and you can laugh in the face of any inclement weather.
What’s more, with the right kit you can get an audio-visual experience that really takes some beating. Here are the six bits of kit we recommend for making your sport viewing experience one worth staying home for.
1) Dali Kubik One
The Kubik One has the classic ‘good touch for a big man’. By soundbar standards it’s a bit of a biffer, but that doesn’t matter for three reasons.
Firstly, these things never are very stylish. Secondly, it’s available in nine different finishes, so you should have no trouble matching it to your favourite team. Thirdly, and most importantly, the sound it produces has no trouble capturing the size and fervour of a packed stadium, yet is detailed enough to pick out the yelp as a cheating striker hurls himself theatrically to the turf.
Buy the Dali Kubik One from Richer Sounds (£800)
The budget option: Q Acoustics Media 4
It’s not a soundbar, it’s a sound-trapezoid. Not a snappy description, we know, but the QM4’s rather odd shape allows for a hefty elliptical subwoofer to work in tandem with a pair of 6.5 balanced mode radiators. Put simply, the QM4 delivers a bigger, beefier and altogether more potent sound than any other soundbar at anything like this price, and it makes your TV on its own sound like it’s trapped in a jam-jar.
Big-match atmosphere even if you’re watching the third-place play-off in the Greaco-Roman wrestling.
2) Bose QuietComfort 35
When you make the best noise-cancelling headphones around, as Bose did with the QuietComfort 25s, the temptation must be to leave well alone. But Bose is nothing if not intrepid – and so, to its winning formula of epic comfort, sound and build quality plus matchless noise-cancelling, it’s added wireless Bluetooth functionality.
Throw in excellent battery life, and the QC35s will be the only headphones you ever need to shut out that room of rival supporters.
Buy the Bose QuietComfort 35s from Bose (£290)
The budget option: Parrot Zik 3.0
Ok, so we know these aren’t really a ‘budget’ alternative, but if you’re looking for something a bit different, the Ziks are it. In the same way some sportspersons are artists, gliding around making everything look effortlessly easy, Parrot’s Philippe Starck-designed Zik wireless headphones somehow make the act of wearing headphones into a bravura performance.
This third iteration of the Ziks are as good-looking as ever, halfway between a shiny executive toy and some specialised medical equipment, and continue the range’s virtues of unshakeable wireless connectivity and exquisite sound quality. No one ever became more handsome or attractive by putting on a pair of headphones – until now.
Buy the Parrot Zik 3.0 headphones from Hifiheadphones (£250)
Read more › Bose QuietComfort 35 review
3) Sky Q Silver
Forget the gloopy multiroom experience shown in the adverts – the main reason to get Sky Q is for sport. With the standard Sky Q box (from £44/month) unable to receive 4K broadcasts and Sky planning to flick on the Ultra HD switch for the new Premier League season, Sky Q Silver is the bundle to shell out for.
For the non-sporty members of your household, this also means 4K movies and entertainment, plus the ability to record four other shows while you watch the game.
Buy Sky Q Silver from Sky (£56/month)
The budget option: BT Ultra HD
Got a 4K TV? You need to see BT. First out of the blocks with 4K broadcasting, BT gets the basics absolutly right with a) a decent amount of 4K sport and b) 4K picture quality that’s worth selling on your season ticket for.
The view of the UEFA Champions League is what an amazingly fit pitch-invader might get: all the action, from the beads of sweat on a labouring midfielder to the manufacturer’s logo on the massed replica shirts in the Away end. Not everything BT Sport has is in 4K, but what there is looks better than any sport you’ve ever watched on TV before.
Read more › Sky Q review
4) Whirlpool Vessi Beer Fermenter
The Vessi is a craft beer factory in a box. From steeping the barley with water to boiling the hops to create wort and mixing in the yeast, the Beer Fermenter is a fully hands-on experience. It also lets you finesse things such as secondary fermentation and regulating alcohol content.
Just make sure you have your gathering planned in advance – like a Rory McIlroy putt, fermenting can’t be rushed, although the Vessi does claim a tidy seven-day turnaround for a light blonde ale.
Buy the Whirlpool Vessi Beer Fermenter from Indiegogo (US$1900)
The budget option: Fizzics Portable
"If only I could have draft beer in my TV den," thought everyone, all the time. "My life would be complete". Well, the Fizzics system is here to complete your life and make your bottle or can of beer smoother, creamier and tastier than it was before. No, really, it is. And it does this (in part) by shouting at your brew.
Towards the end of the Fizzics process, your drink is subjected to sonic ‘agitation’ and when it emerges it’s a more flavoursome and altogether more draft-like experience. Tasting (and hearing) is believing.
5) Sony VPL-HW65ES
Sometimes it’s about more than the stats, as any Arsenal supporter will tell you – they may not win anything but they’re good to watch. So while the VPL-HW65ES looks pricey for ‘just’ a Full HD projector (none of your 4K resolution here) when you get in front of its lush, detailed, high-contrast, colourful pictures you realise it’s worth every penny.
It’s got the skill with motion to track a 60-yard Hollywood pass just as faithfully as the 3-yards sideways, and the subtlety to make a pink-n-purple away kit not seem an automatically dreadful idea. If you want a super-sized image, you need to see one of these.
Buy the Sony VPL-HW65ES from Amazon (£2300)
The budget option: Epson EH-TW5300
Sometimes, just sometimes, size really does matter. Like when you want to turn your at-home sports viewing into a genuine spectacle. So while this Epson projector might not offer the sharpness of picture or range of features of a similarly priced telly, it does offer a picture that’s around 10x the size.
We’re talking up to 300in of sporting excitement for a price of around £500 – now that’s the sort of maths we can get behind. And it does a great job with even the most energetic events thanks to good motion control and accurate colours. Honestly, in bang for you buck terms, there’s very little to better this super-affordable Epson.
6) Concentre de Vie Sofa
A comfortable sofa’s all well and good, but it’s just a sofa. An emergency bed at a push. What you want in furniture is flexibility. You want modular. So what you want is Campeggi’s Concentre de Vie by Matali Crasset.
Yes, it’s a sofa – but thanks to its uber-technical configuration it’s also a couple of guest chairs. Or footstoolls, armrests, or, yes, a single bed… all while closely resembling Stanley Kubrick’s dream of the distant future. Just don’t let anyone holding a drink go anywhere near it.
Simon Lucas
Contributor 
