A well set-up home theatre system should only need a very small amount of continued care. The first and most obvious is to give the lot a big dust down. Make sure the power is switched off and unplugged and pay most attention to the top of your receiver. This is the spot that will gather the most dust and over time, cause your system to overheat.

The next thing is to check that all the leads are plugged in nice and tightly and any surplus leads are removed. I like to put cable flags at the end of each lead if you haven’t already. The pre-printed ones are the easiest to read but even some masking tape folded over the cord near the plug will work well. A little fiddly, but one of those things that’ll really help if you ever need to move anything around. While you’re checking the back of the leads, just check the speaker cables are still looking nice and haven’t corroded. If they look a little discoloured just trim off the odd looking part and reconnect.

Turning your attention to your speakers, remove the covers and either vacuum or use a clean dustpan broom, brush the dust off. Wipe down the speakers and you’re done here. Dust gently, as you don't want to damage your speakers.(As an aside, if some pesky bugger has pushed your tweeter cones in, just grab your vacuum and carefully suck them back out. It makes little difference to the sound but is one of those things that really bugs me!)

If you are using a big screen TV, don't forget to clean all the sticky fingerprints of it. Using a commercial screen cleaning kit can give excellent results.

If your system came with a setup microphone, run it again to make sure everything is still sounding good. Finally, put your favourite movie on and kick back to enjoy. If anyone hassles you about lazing around instead of mowing the lawn or the like, just point to all the cleaning supplies and politely point out that you are merely testing the system to make sure it’s still perfect.