How to Choose a Home Theater Receiver
If you are building a full home theater system whether for watching movies in high definition with the whole family or just listening to music by yourself, the home theater receiver is the single most important component. In this age of high definition video and audio codecs, it is the heart of your system.
The home theater receiver handles many complex tasks. It powers your speakers, tunes in FM and AM radio stations, provides convenient switching between audio/video components, decodes the video and codecs and lets you tune the sound of your system to suit your room and preferences.
Many of today’s receivers make it easy to add optional entertainment sources to your system, such as satellite radio, portable MP3 players, and music files stored on your computer. In other words, the receiver supplies both the brains and the muscle for your system. That’s why it’s important to choose a model that best caters to your needs and preferences.
If you’re new to home theater, it may be a daunting task to figure out all the connections and how the equipment all tie in. Not to worry – all of the current home theater receivers will let you enjoy your music, movies and TV programs in full surround sound. All new models also include built-in decoding for advanced surround formats including Dolby® TrueHD and DTS-HD® Master Audio — two new high-resolution surround options available on select Blu-ray high-def video discs and players. They all offer at a minimum the 5 channels of amplification necessary to reproduce 5.1 surround sound.
Most new home theater receivers are capable of delivering additional surround choices with up to seven channels of power or more and the processing needed for even more three-dimensional sound.
HomeTheaterGears.com will review the latest Home Theater receivers and provide detailed specifications and recommendations to help you choose the right receiver for your home theater system.