Stuff’s ultimate Olympic viewing setup

iPad 64GB

Your barbecue guests will want a big screen to crowd around, and this 65in beauty fits the bill: it’s a plasma, which means wider viewing angles than on LCDs. The active-shutter 3D has excellent resolution and motion handling, so Usain Bolt won’t go too blurry if he breaks another record.

Virgin Media 
TiVo 1TB

Twitter addicts will 
appreciate the pundit-eclipsing commentary available via Zeebox (£free, iOS and Android), which looks brilliant on the iPad’s Retina Display. Of course, you can also use catch-up services such as iPlayer to stay in touch with the games while you’re out and about, either via a Wi-Fi hotspot or 3G.

Onkyo TX-NR5009

Virgin’s worked hard on its Olympics offering. You’ll be able to watch all 24 of the BBC’s live sports feeds in HD, and there’s plenty of 3D from the Beeb and Eurosport 3D. A roomy 1TB hard drive and three tuners mean you can watch one event, and record two more – 100 hours’ worth.

Monitor Audio Apex

Onkyo’s flagship is the 
gold medallist of the AV receiver world – it’s got THX certification, support for nine speakers and over 1300W of power. Run it with front-height and front-wide speakers for max stadium atmospherics, then watch its Imaging Science Foundation-approved video calibration fine-tune your picture. Lovely.

Ligne Roset Petite Sieste Indiana Leather

The gorgeous Apex range looks stunning, and its metal alloy drive units give it the accuracy and clarity you’d expect of the hefty price tag. The price covers the basic 5.1 system plus an extra four Apex A10 satellites for a 9.1 setup – if you’re going to fill your room with speakers, better make them pretty.