For many of us, times are tough right now. For a multitude of reasons, which I’ll leave to the more informed national, political and financial press to cover, the price of everything is generally going up.
Forget affording a top end projector, OLED TV or surround-sound system, many of us are having to carefully budget just to cover our heating bill or weekly grocery shop.
To counter this, my wife and I have developed a game. We call it our Euromillions list. As the name suggests, it’s a long shopping list of things we’ll buy if we ever win the lottery. There’s actually a physical copy of it held up with a magnet on our fridge.
Most of it’s the standard millennial mid-life crisis fodder you’d expect: a trip to Japan and Korea, a vintage Fender Starcaster, a UK version of the Home Alone house etc.
But this week I found myself having to cross one of the more realistic items off our list – a Sony projector.
Sony confirmed it is pulling it and pretty much all its premium projectors out of the UK and Europe on Tuesday.
This is due to one of the key suppliers for parts falling afoul of recent EU tariffs.
As a consequence, the five-star Sony Bravia Projector 8, Sony Bravia Projector 9 and more will no longer be available in the region after current stocks run out.
I know it’s a first-world problem, but the news instilled a minor, but genuine sense of sadness in me as I’ve hankered for one of Sony’s top end projectors for a while now.
Why Sony specifically? It’s a fair question. If you look at our best projectors buying guide you won’t find the Sony Bravia Projector 8, that I specifically want, in it.
The reason has nothing to do with the usual metrics we gauge projectors by. It’s personal.
Like any enthusiast, be it on the hi-fi or home cinema side of the fence, I feel connected to a lot of the hardware I use.
Whether it’s the ageing Pioneer SA-608 I inherited (but am yet to refurbish / repair) or the rough-around-the-edges AKG K275 headphones our technical editor gave me when I first started at What Hi-Fi?, there is a story behind a lot of my hardware.
That’s why there are some items I either want, or will never sell, even if I use more accomplished performers day-to-day.
Sony projectors fall into that camp as they were a key part of my training when I joined What Hi-Fi?.
Everyone, from staff writers to new editor-in-chiefs, goes through an onboarding process joining the team, especially when it comes to reviews.
This involves senior staff running new members through a series of demos (tests) and discussing the performance of various items to gauge of the “quality” of our eyes and ears and knowledge of the market.
When I first joined What Hi-Fi? the Sony VPL-XW7000ES was one of the reference units we used for our home cinema reviews.
It was present when I was onboarded by our TV and AV editor, Tom Parsons and senior staff writer, Lewis Empson, while we were doing our 2023 Awards testing.
I connect the experience with the Sony VPL-XW7000ES in particular as it was the item I flagged as the thing I would take home if I could.
I think that answer was a big part of the reason I got a nod of approval and they conceded I wasn’t a complete nincompoop that could be trusted with “some” home cinema testing.
This was a big deal for me at the time.
Since then, the unit on my Euromillions list got upgraded to the Bravia Projector 8 as, when I saw it doing its thing in our viewing rooms, I was legitimately blown away – I also generally like expensive things, don’t judge me.
I can’t help but personally bemoan the loss of such an accomplished list of projectors as a purchase option for home cinema fans as a result,
Here's hoping a solution is found sooner rather than later. If not, I imagine I will be one of many European home cinema fans bemoaning the absence of a key player in the top end projector market on shops' shelves this side of the Atlantic.
MORE:
These are the best surround sound systems we’ve tested
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Our picks of the best AV receivers
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