Receivers....

[Penningtonsm]

Can someone please tell me the key differences between a two channel receiver and a home theater receiver. I never knew there were two kinds but reading on this board has me believing that there are two different kinds. I am in the market for a new receiver for me HT room and would like to make sure I am getting the right one. Thanks alot for any help you can give me.

[Nick M]

I'll give it a go... I can't seem to sleep tonight :tired:

Two channel receivers are designed for stereo playback. They usually have AM/FM tuners, the preamp section, and two channels of amplification (for a front left and right speaker).

Home theater receivers on the other hand tend to have everything stereo receivers have, but also decode multichannel audio (ie Dolby Digital/DTS) and provide between five and seven channels of amplification (some even more for multiroom setups). If you're looking for the home theater experience of multi channel audio and surround sound you'll need a home theater receiver.

If you have the cash, you could also invest in seperates. This route uses seperate components for each part of the process. It is of much higher quality, but costs more and takes up more room.

Hope that helps.

[Patt]

:agree:

Hi Pennington,

A "stereo" reciever is good for 2 speaker or 4 speaker "stereo".

A "home theatre" reciever is good for 2 speaker stereo or "multichannel" 3.1 - 7.1 speaker "home theatre" sound.

Well, there you go, simple as I could make it.

[Penningtonsm]

thanks alot guys. I have a receiver at the moment and I really cant tell which one it is. But I have noticed that when i try and play all five of my speakers at the same time they dont sound as good. So i have to "turn off" either the A side or the B side, which then has me playing only about three speakers. Kinda sux. Will this problem go away if I get a better receiver or is there another problem I am unaware of.

[Patt]

Nothing wrong with that, I just use two speakers and a sub for music and Home Theatre.

[whoaru99]

Kinda hard to say with the information given. Perhaps a make/model of the receiver and speakers might help with advice.

If I had to guess based on your information, I'd say its a 2-channel receiver with A/B speaker pair switching. Where you hook up the speakers are they labeled something like left and right A then left and right B? Or are they labeled something like front left, front right, center, rear right, and rear left?

[Penningtonsm]

its left right a and left right b

[David Meek]

Steve, you can easily tell if it's stereo or multi-channel. Just count the number of speaker binding posts/spring clips. If you've got 10 or more, it's multi-channel.

[whoaru99]

Left/Right A, Left/Right B makes it a stereo receiver without a doubt in my mind.

So, you have five speakers. How are they wired up to the receiver?

[Penningtonsm]

It says center speaker and surround rear and front on the speaker panels. So I just wired it like that. I do notice though that they dont sound as good when all five are playing so I need a new receiver. I was thinking about the yamaha HTR 5760. I can get that for about $300. Or maybe the Harmon Kardon avr 335. Anybody know anything abot these two and could maybe give me some input. Thanks guys.

[Chuck G]

The Harmon Kardon AVR would be the better choice I think. Maybe you have a pro logic only receiver now.

[whoaru99]

Perhaps, but I think it sounds like a HT speaker set-up connected to a stereo-only receiver.

[Penningtonsm]

Perhaps, but I think it sounds like a HT speaker set-up connected to a stereo-only receiver.

I am pretty sure that is what it is now. I am now looking for a new receiver.

[Clive]

Some older Dolby Surround units did come with a center channel hookup. However, as you are now realizing, is that Dolby digital is where it's at. You can also look for recievers that's enhanced with DTS and if it's important THX certification. The reason your unit sounds a bit crappy in Surround is that the other channels are using power from the the amplifier (which is really designed for only stereo playback) and also the surround processor IC built into these units are not really decoding the signals as they do today. So you're hearing some kind of "echo" from your speakers.

The recomendations from these members should be auditioned to gather a good sense of what true surround processing is all about :T