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- Fantastic picture quality and colour performance
- Rich and powerful audio
- Strong gaming features
- Noise can be distracting
- No working BBC iPlayer app
Since arriving on the scene in 2024, Valerion has shown a different focus to most of the new breed of projector manufacturers. Where others have concentrated on the budget market or on revolutionising projector design, Valerion has focused on quality.
Its projectors are aimed less at casual living room users and more at those wanting cinema-standard, big-screen pictures at home, with as little compromise as possible. Based on my experience with the Valerion StreamMaster Plus 2, there’s more to this than the usual marketing hype. This may be Valerion’s most accessible projector, but its performance is superb.
What do you get for the money?
The Valerion StreamMaster Plus 2 is currently priced at £1,199 on the Valerion website, and is also available from Amazon, where it costs £1,399.
Wherever you choose to pick it up, you’re getting a 4K DLP projector with a triple-laser RGB light source, capable of 2,000 ISO lumens of brightness. Like its rivals in the budget-to-mid-range market, it uses pixel-shifting technology to simulate native 4K resolution, but is virtually indistinguishable from the real deal. It supports Dolby Vision, HDR10, and HLG HDR formats, with IMAX Enhanced certification covering the 1.9:1 and 1.43:1 aspect ratios, plus Filmmaker mode.
It has a fixed 1.2:1 throw ratio, filling a 100in screen from a distance of 2.65m. Valerion doesn’t specify a maximum screen size, but the StreamMaster Plus 2 is bright enough to project a 150in or even 200in picture. The manufacturer also makes a big deal of the processing power, with a high-performance MediaTek MT9618 SoC for image processing and streaming duties, alongside 4GB of RAM. To this end, the StreamMaster Plus 2 runs on Google TV with full access to the Google Play Store, while dual 12W speakers power the audio system, with DTS Virtual:X and Dolby Audio support.
Even the connectivity, concealed behind a flip-down panel at the back, is comfortably better than the norm. You get three HDMI ports, with two HDMI 2.1 and one HDMI 2.0, plus eARC. You also get one USB 3.0 port and one USB 2.0, plus an S/PDIF optical output and a 3.5mm headphone socket/line-out. For your network connection, you can choose between Gigabit Ethernet and Wi-Fi 6E.
What does it do well?
First of all, there’s much to like about the design. The StreamMaster Plus 2 is no shrinking violet. At 260 x 185 x 233mm (WDH), it’s a big unit – bigger than XGIMI’s comparable Horizon series projectors – and Valerion has opted for a spiny, metallic design with white plates back and front that’s the opposite of unobtrusive.
The StreamMaster Plus 2 looks like no other projector that I’ve seen. It might have been useful to have some screw-out feet to adjust the angle or stabilise it on uneven surfaces, but Valerion sells a separate gimbal stand (£119) for those who need one, along with a ceiling mount (£129).
It’s also an easy projector to set up and configure. I’ve got my Google TV setup down to a fine art over the last two years, and could have a Google TV projector set up in under 20 minutes if it weren’t for the slow update and app installation process halfway through. The StreamMaster Plus 2 makes things even easier with robust auto-keystone and auto-focus features that engage quickly when you power on or move the projector. They’re not quite perfect – occasionally the picture looked more skewed after alignment, and Epson and XGIMI’s systems are a little more responsive and refined – but they work brilliantly nearly all the time.
With the Google Play Store in action, the app selection is pretty hard to fault with one major exception (more on that later). The UI feels snappy, apps and content load quickly, and there’s no painful wait for a high-bitrate stream to come through, as happens on some Google TV projectors. I’m also a big fan of Valerion’s quick bar enhancement, which takes you directly to crucial picture and audio settings, plus picture modes at the press of a button. It’s great for making quick adjustments without switching away from your current show or movie, and more detailed adjustments are only another selection away.
All of this is good, but the StreamMaster Plus 2 excels in picture quality. You get that almost holographic clarity we’ve come to expect from 4K laser projectors, alongside spectacularly vibrant colours. Watching Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse or Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited, I was constantly impressed at how vivid and saturated colours were, with only the occasional red or green looking over-egged.
Brightness levels are very impressive, and there’s no hint of murky-looking dark scenes or greyish blacks. And where there’s Dolby Vision content – or even HDR material – it looks great. There’s no shortage of intensity in the bright neon highlights of John Wick 4 or the searing desert landscapes of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. While it’s visibly not quite as bright, the Valerion comes awfully close to the performance of the XGIMI Horizon 20 Max, which costs significantly more.
My colorimeter test results confirm these subjective impressions. The SteamMaster Plus 2 covers 99.5% of the sRGB gamut with a gamut volume of 210.9%, and an impressive 94.3% of DCI-P3 with a volume of 149.4%. That’s slightly better than the Horizon 20 Max, and leagues ahead of anything else we’ve reviewed below £2,000. The XGIMI can go much brighter and beats the Valerion on colour accuracy, but this is still a phenomenally capable projector.
It’s also a great option for gamers, with a dedicated games mode that includes five picture presets to cover different genres and has no seriously noticeable lag. I played Doom: The Dark Ages, Death Stranding and Planet of Lana at 4K/60fps, then Doom at 1080p/120fps, and the images looked fantastic. Let me warn you: once you’ve played this big with an image this beautiful, it’s hard to go back to a smaller screen.
My final surprise was the audio. Even with the better compact projectors on the market, sound is usually good with a few caveats about dialogue clarity, power or the width of the soundstage. With the StreamMaster Plus 2, the output’s a lot harder to fault. Is it as powerful or as immersive as what you’d get from a decent soundbar? No, and that goes double for a full surround sound system. But is it absorbing enough to enjoy a big blockbuster movie with the volume whacked up? Yes, it is. Even watching music videos or old live concert footage, I was impressed by how clear and full-bodied the audio could be.
What could it do better?
Three quibbles stand out. Firstly, it can be quite noisy, especially if you’re watching with the volume fairly low. There’s nearly always a high-pitched hum, and this is sporadically joined by a lower-pitch fan noise, which runs for a few seconds or a few minutes before halting for a period. It’s not particularly loud – I recorded the maximum output 39dBA – but the way the noise stops and starts can be distracting.
I also experienced a few software glitches. These included the YouTube app repeatedly shutting down just before opening a video, and the Disney+ app throwing up an error message but refusing to close. Nothing you can’t fix with a quick restart, but it’s annoying. There’s also no functional BBC iPlayer app. You can install it, but it won’t run, probably due to a licensing issue. The Channel 4, ITVX and Channel 5 apps run perfectly well.
Finally, the remote control isn’t the best I’ve come across. The layout is unintuitive – I was still pressing the wrong keys after a week of use – and only a few are illuminated, making it tricky to wield in the dark. It’s the only part of the hardware package that doesn’t measure up.
Should you buy the Valerion StreamMaster Plus 2?
At the time of writing, you can pick up the StreamMaster Plus 2 for £1,299, or £1,199 with a £100 off voucher. At this price, it’s a steal, matching or outperforming rivals like the XGIMI Horizon S Pro or the Hisense C2 Pro on both picture quality and audio. It would be great value even at its full £1,899 asking price, though I suspect you’d never have to pay that much.
What’s more, you’d need to step the price up even further to find something of noticeably better quality or brightness, such as the XGIMI Titan, the Samsung Premiere 9 or the XGIMI Horizon 20 Max. It’s hard to imagine anyone but the most discerning and well-heeled home cinema buff not being impressed, or feeling the need to spend anything more.
