How to Select a Home Theater Receiver

How to Select a Home Theater Receiver

Granville, I don’t worry too much about power numbers these days.  Most good home theater receivers have plenty of power and unless you know that you’re going to need more power because of some circumstance - like a huge room or large audiences - today’s receivers are all built with satisfaction in mind.  We all want things to work together and not throw curveballs at our customers. Anything on this page is fine by me.  Bigger power supplies and quality output transistors: Home Theater Receivers Brian
Dear Brian: One last question (hopefully). I am about to receive your HD 5.1 in wall system, and if I were tech literate I would read the specs of the speakers and decide how powerful my Home Theater Receiver should be. I am not remotely tech literate. The room it will be used in is 16’ to the front and 12’ to the sides. Since my goal is to not blow the speakers (or my ears), how many watts do you recommend?   100   200   500 ? And the same applies to the Subwoofer  100   200  etc.  ? Is there anything else besides watts to consider? Thanks for your help,  Granville

DISCUSSION

To expand a bit on some simple specs on receivers, there are two main things you should be looking for: power supplies and output transistors. The power supplies are kind of like a bucket brigade of electric current.  The bigger the bucket and the fast they refill on the supply side, the more quality output comes out of the sound side. The transistors are the things that change wall electricity into audible sound.  They switch on and off very fast, taking cues from a low level input (like an iPod, CD player, BluRay, etc.) and converting electrical power to align with the sound that the input is giving it to reproduce.  These are the ‘voices’ of the amplifier.  We’d like to see a Pavarotti over a teenager going through puberty.  The better transistors are large and robust. The cheaper receivers/amps employ integrated chips (IC) styles that are more suited to computing than audio but they do an adequate enough job to fool most who don’t know better. I like these companies for a consistent year to year commitment to the quality of the sound first and foremost: Harman/Kardon, Denon, Yamaha, and Onkyo. Take a look at the products that we have in stock from these brands: Home Theater Receivers

    • Related Articles

    • Home theater receiver and speaker recommended setup

      Chuck, Sure. The only thing is the basic wiring of the sub. That sub needs to be wired with the front speakers inline. So the wiring goes like this: receiver front speakers out to Bose sub to Inwall Speakers. Take a look at this package for theater ...

    • Home theater receiver and speaker recommended setup

      Chuck, Sure. The only thing is the basic wiring of the sub. That sub needs to be wired with the front speakers inline. So the wiring goes like this: receiver front speakers out to Bose sub to Inwall Speakers. Take a look at this package for theater ...

    • Home theater recommendations with receiver

      Bert, Take a look at our Home Theater Kits here. We suggest using the same speaker all the way around for the tightest sound in a theater. Name : Bert Harrop Message : I have purchased a surround sound 6.1 reciever with 8-ohm speaker outputs and ...

    • JA Audio speakers for home theater

      Tony, I wouldn't recommend those for theater use. Check this and this for my recommendations. There's nothing you need to really check for in your receiver, all our stuff is matched fine with "consumer electronics" type things. The "numbers" really ...

    • JA Audio speakers for home theater

      Tony, I wouldn't recommend those for theater use. Check this and this for my recommendations. There's nothing you need to really check for in your receiver, all our stuff is matched fine with "consumer electronics" type things. The "numbers" really ...