The heart of every home theater is the Home Theater Receivers. A Home Theater Receiver interprets audio and video information. Home Theater Receivers send them respectively to your screen and speakers. An actual theater experience, without it, you would never come close to emulating.

Sound is affected by a Home Theater Receiver more so than video. It amplifies properly the audio signals for each different channel and distributes the audio signals to the proper speakers, for example on a DVD that’s been optimized for Dolby 5.1 surround sound.

While background noises go to the rear speakers, the low, booming sounds get sent to the subwoofer, and from the front speakers, the actors’ dialogue is heard. That is the only way to achieve the best home theater experience with having high quality Home Theater Receivers and matching speakers and then the sensation of being in the middle of the action will be created by those.

From about $ 275 on the low and $3000 for the really high quality varieties, a Home Theater Receiver has range in price. The actual sound quality difference is barely perceptible for budget minded people, it may please you to know that between a $450 Home Theater Receiver and a $800 one. Without distorting the sound, the louder you’ll be able to turn the volume up if you truly have the need for your room to shake when there’s an explosion on screen, on the other hand, the more money you shell out.

A good indication of how loud you’ll be able to get the sound is reserved by how many watts a Home Theater Receiver has. 500 watt is adequate for any home theater as it is many times the power of the small speaker found in an ordinary Television. Than what most factory installed car audio systems have, 500 watts is much more, in fact. There are Home Theater Receivers that boast 1000 or more watts if you have a large room and then you just love to make your ears ring after watching a movie.

Keep in mind, most Home Theater Receivers are packaged with speakers that match the receiver. It’s of the utmost importance to make certain that the wattage can be handled by the speakers that the Home Theater Receivers will put out, if you wish to buy a receiver and speakers separately.

There are popular kinds of Home Theater Receivers:

Yamaha RX V Series has features:
-    6.1 channel network HTR compatible with an IPOD or PC
-    High current
-    Video conversion of S-video
-    95 wpc x 6
-    Low distortion, etc

Pioneer Elite VSX TX HTR Series as features:

-    7.1 channel
-    110 wpc x 7 at .09% THD)
-    Dolby Digital
-    AV switching and remote with LCD display
-    DTS and Prologic II x processors

Denon AVR HTR Series has features:
-    7.1 channel has DTS-ES
-    Dolby Pro DTS Neo:6
-    DTS and Logic II x processors
-    Dolby Digital EX
-    Multi xone expandability
-    HDMI and HD component switching
-    Lip sync adjustment
-    Works with XM Radio

You might be interested in reading my other guide on What To Consider When Buying A Digital Home Theater Receiver and What To Look For When Purchasing Home Theater Speaker Systems

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