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An AV receiver is the hub of a home theater system. It is a main control point for audio and visual inputs and outputs, letting you switch between sources while driving your main images and sound systems. The best home theater receivers add power to speakers, can boost video dynamics via internal processors, and aggregate multiple sources to one central unit. Put simply: if you want to have a faster, cleaner, more powerful home theater system, you’ll want to pick up one of these popular home theater receivers.
Though many high-performance smart TVs and smart audio systems can operate without a receiver, there are many benefits to having one as part of your setup: convenience of grouping multiple sources, the ability to easily control multiple rooms, increased audio and video capabilities, and the opportunity to add auxiliary components such as turntables and other smart incapable devices to your system.
Picking a receiver is highly dependent on the system you want to build, or have built. A good place to start is to look at how many speakers are in, or will be in, the system. This will narrow the field of choice down slightly.
Maybe you’ve seen “5.1 surround sound” or another two-digit, decimal-pointed number. The number refers to the amount of speakers that can be connected to the system. The first number refers to speakers; the number after the decimal refers to subwoofers.
Our list focuses on home theater receivers that support three surround sound levels; 5.1, 7.2, and 9.2. A quick look at those numbers may spark the question, “Why would I need two subwoofers?” Don’t always think of a home theater receiver as only controlling one room; many premier audio companies have developed receivers capable of multi-room control via a single unit. With this in mind; an X.2 system could be a mixture of speakers and subwoofers for another room – for example, a 7.2 system could be five speakers and a subwoofer in the living room and two speakers and a subwoofer in the bedroom.
Ready to upgrade your home entertainment system? Here are some of the best home theater receivers to get.
