Home theater receivers have built-in multi-channel amplifiers to power a full complement of surround sound speakers. How much power do you need? The ideal wattage for your receiver depends on the size of your room and the power requirements of your speakers. To get the clearest sound with minimal distortion, aim for the high end of this range. Most of your gear will connect to your receiver via HDMI cables , which carry both audio and video signals. To allow for system expansion, get a receiver that has more HDMI inputs than you need right now.
Want to connect two TVs? Look for a receiver that has more than one HDMI output. Check out our article on multi-zone video for more information. Got a turntable? For the easiest connection, look for a receiver with a dedicated phono input. For trickier scenarios, see our article on how to connect a turntable to a receiver. We usually recommend receivers with at least seven channels. They use in-ceiling speakers or special up-firing speakers to project sound from the ceiling. Want to listen to music out on the patio?
Get a seven-channel receiver and you can use five channels for surround sound and two channels to hook up a pair of stereo speakers outdoors or in another room. See our article on how to power a multi-room music system for details.
You may need to think about how your current living room setup will accommodate an AV receiver. See our receiver placement tips and our small home theater ideas article for some helpful suggestions. Not sure where your speakers will go? We've got speaker placement tips for all sorts of rooms. A slimline receiver like the Marantz NR left is about half the height of a typical home theater receiver right. It's perfect when space is at a premium. AV receivers are great for hooking up all kinds of audio components, but your music choices don't stop there.
Receivers that have built-in Bluetooth let you play anything you want from a Bluetooth-equipped phone, tablet, or computer. Home theater receivers can reproduce top-quality audio, so naturally most of them are compatible with popular high-resolution audio formats like FLAC and DSD.
Many receivers work with multi-room music platforms that let you stream music to compatible wireless speakers you have set up throughout your home. You can create different zones and control what's playing in each room with an app on your phone or by using voice commands.
If you want your receiver to be part of a wireless multi-room music system , you have quite a few options. The current list is as follows:. Customers have been asking us about wireless surround sound for years, so we're very excited that technology has finally advanced enough to make it a reality. We expect to see more and more wireless surround sound solutions in the coming years, but there are a couple of compelling options already. All Yamaha MusicCast receivers from on support wireless surround sound with the addition of MusicCast 20 or MusicCast 50 wireless speakers.
The remote controls included with most home theater receivers have extensive options for switching sources and dialing in settings. Many remotes have "scene" buttons, which are presets for specific activities like watching TV or listening to the FM radio. Press a scene button to select the source and all the settings you need to enjoy it. Scene-button shortcuts make life easy for guests, babysitters, or anyone else who doesn't want to learn how to operate your system. Receivers typically come with a few pre-programmed scenes.
You can easily edit them and add new ones. Convenient "Scene" buttons on a receiver's remote let you quickly fire up your favorite sources and settings. Just about every AV receiver with network capability offers a free app to use your phone or tablet as a remote. They make it easy to switch sources, adjust the volume, tweak settings, and stream music from online sources.
You can choose which rooms to play music in, and select the music for each room. Voice control integration adds a new level of convenience to today's home theater receivers. When you don't have your phone or remote handy, you can just speak.
Some receiver models support voice control with Amazon Alexa , and others support Google Home voice control. Whichever your preference, you can use verbal commands to:. Whether you use Alexa or Google Home, voice control functionality is constantly improving. Alexa is always acquiring new skills and the Google Assistant gets smarter all the time. Have questions about hooking up your new receiver?
Check out our setup guide. Need help choosing the right receiver? Get in touch with one of our Advisors. Our expert Advisors know the gear inside and out.
Your Advisor can send specific Crutchfield pages to your screen, saving you a lot of browsing time. You'll get a shopping cart loaded up with everything you need for your home theater. Free lifetime tech support is included with your Crutchfield purchase. Previous owner left 7 Onkyo speakers on the wall. The 3 largest of these are at the tv and the other 4 smaller are spread around the room.
What kind of receiver do I need? I just moved into a new home, the previous owner decided to install a 5 speaker surround sound for the main living area as well as add 8 speakers inside for the kitchen, office, the main walking area, bar area and 2 outside speakers.
I at first wanted to buy just one receiver am looking at a 7. I wanted to know he has a speaker selection device mixed in as well Thank you for your help in advance. I've been thinking of buying my first AV receiver in the next few months. The Pioneer VSX caught my eye until it recently got sold out during an online sale. Now I have my eye on the VSX I know VCRs are dead but I still have mine and I don't want to dismiss the possibility that one day I might use it again.
Should I just aim for newer models? You didn't really answer the power question. For example with two front tower and one center speakers each rated at w RMS, two rears at 50w RMS each, should not the receiver provide more than w per channel to prevent distortion?
My Denon AV receiver shows a variety of options for audio play back eg. Does the receiver automatically default to the "best" option?
For example if I am watching a Blu-ray movie, does it automatically select the preferred setting based on the audio signal from the Blu-ray? If not, how do I choose? At least with Blu-rays, the available audio coding is shown in very, very small print on the case, but with other sources I have no idea what compression technology is used.
I am using stage 2 for my patio. I have Klipsch speakers with a powered sub woofer. As long as your speakers have a sensitivity rating of at least 84 dB or so, a receiver with 80 to watts per channel into 8 ohms should be powerful enough.
The very latest Dolby Atmos-compatible receivers offer Although analog video sources such as VCRs are no longer common, most receivers will have a couple of composite and component video inputs for them or DVD players without an HDMI output, with accompanying analog and digital audio inputs. Make sure any receiver you consider has all the inputs you need. Price Points AV Receivers can be classified into entry-level, mid-level and high-end models, based on the minimum features you can expect of each category.
This information can change quickly as prices drop and new features are added. And if you got fancy, you also ran wires to a keypad on the wall so you could control everything.
Today, you can do the same thing, minus the drilling and the wires by going wireless. And there are two ways to do this. Keep an eye out for these callouts while shopping. In essence, you could have a 7-room house playing a different song in each room at the same time, with no wires anywhere.
We should note: there are still wall keypads out there, but many are now wireless, too. Though some receivers come with a wireless system already built-in, you can add wireless capability to almost any sound system.
Yamaha , Bose , and Sonos all make tiny boxes that connect to the receiver just like a CD player, and allow you to stream almost any music, wirelessly, through your sound system. Many of the newest home theater receivers are easily controlled through an app on your iPhone, tablet, or computer. At your fingertips: full operational control from any room in the house. Grandma could take over, no problem.
Receivers are often bigger than you think. An AV receiver with amps inside needs to dissipate heat, so I recommend leaving 6 inches inches above it for ventilation.
The cooler a piece of electronics stays, the longer it lasts. AV receivers are typically deeper than stereo receivers, so I usually recommend allowing 20 inches for depth.
If space is tight, there are fan kits that can keep the air circulating to prevent your receiver from overheating. Or the mayhem and destruction in a typical monster movie might spill out at home.
The most common questions we hear from customers. A multi-zone capable receiver gets it done by allowing you to hook up multiple video sources — your cable or satellite box, Apple TV, a Blu-ray player, and so on — and then sending that signal out to two different TVs in two different rooms.
You can even watch two live TV shows at the same time with one multi-zone receiver, though that requires an additional cable or satellite TV box. Yes, but all AV receivers nowadays have automatic speaker calibration. Most do a good job, but the best automatic speaker calibration we've seen is in NAD surround receivers.
They have Diarc Live Room Correction built-in, and the quality difference is like night and day — you can easily turn it on and off to test it out. In the PA area?
Stop by one of our showrooms for a demo. This way, you get the latest features like Dolby Atmos. Translated: goosebumps! Further, the number of new features in a typical new AV receiver is proportional to the number of new features in a typical new TV.
For specific models, our Top Receivers of guide slices, dices, and compares the best AV receivers of the year. When you buy from an authorized dealer , your new AV receiver will come with the full manufacturer's warranty. Not to mention other AC-powered digital devices, like your computer. Lightning strikes, power outages, or brownouts can destroy delicate electronics in a flash, which is why we always recommend buying a power conditioner to protect your valuable equipment in the event of sudden over or under voltage.
Audioquest , Furman , and Panamax make some of the best. Step 1: Go to an AV showroom near you and plan on spending some quality time listening and asking questions. Call us. Happens every day. Step 2: Go buy the model you like best right here from World Wide Stereo and get the best price, free shipping, expert advice, and award-winning customer support for as long as you own your new AV receiver. We give you a day audition to try the component out. Both are unique and feature real rooms — living room, den, kitchen, bathroom — just like home, so you get a real feel for how things will look and sound at your place.
How these particular speakers sound with that particular AV receiver, or how this particular AV receiver can stream multiple songs in multiple rooms, or how Dolby Atmos really does put you in the action. And please consider this a standing invitation. We would love to meet you! World Wide Stereo is a home entertainment technology store with a storied past and a loyal following.
You must be logged in to write a comment. Power ratings aren't standardized , so there's no guarantee that one company's watt-per-channel receiver will sound louder than another company's watt-per-channel receiver. More importantly, for typical home theater speakers and rooms, modern AV receivers offer plenty of power. CNET's listening room is medium-sized, but we never run into AV receivers that don't have the capability to get much louder than the average person would choose.
Automatic speaker calibration sounds like a great idea, letting you use an included microphone to adjust speaker levels and apply EQ to accommodate your listening room. In practice, it doesn't always work that well.
In fact, in our recent roundup of AV receiver reviews, automatic speaker calibration was consistently off-balance, almost always setting the subwoofer volume level incorrectly. If you really care about sound, you're better off learning how to manually set your speaker levels. Be respectful, keep it civil and stay on topic. We delete comments that violate our policy , which we encourage you to read. Discussion threads can be closed at any time at our discretion.
CNET editors pick the products and services we write about. When you buy through our links, we may get a commission. Sarah Tew. Ty Pendlebury. March 22, a. The best AV received is the one you already own Wrap-up and FAQs Deciding which AV receiver to buy can be overwhelming, with each model sporting tons of logos and proprietary technologies that aren't easy to understand if you're not familiar with home audio.
Delivered Wednesdays. Best AV receiver overall. Onkyo TX-NR Best receiver for future-proofing. Yamaha RX-V6A. Best speakers for the money. Elac Debut 2. Should you care?
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