Golden Receivers
How to choose the right audio/video receiver.Contributing Editor Dan Tynan gets a new 'do every seven years.
Illustration by Harry Campbell
Today, for $300 to $400 you can buy a receiver that powers your speakers and controls your radio, TV, video players, digital recorders, and other components. Here are five things many buyers overlook.
Get the hookups: The biggest mistake is choosing a receiver with the incorrect connections, says Grant Garrett, an agent with Best Buy's Geek Squad high-tech troubleshooters. If you want to plug in a DVD player and a digital video recorder, buy a unit with multiple component (red-green-blue) inputs. HDTV lovers should look for higher-quality DVI or HDMI hookups. Have a separate DVD-Audio or Super Audio CD player? You may want a high-speed FireWire port. And if you want to blast MP3s on your stereo, look for ethernet jacks or Wi-Fi card slots for connecting to a home network, or a USB port for plugging in a portable player.
Try stereo àla mode: Surround-sound modes are like reality TV shows--every time you turn around, you see a new one. Here's some simple advice: If you have only two speakers, look for "virtualization" features that simulate surround sound using just two channels. Want to play your old CDs or VHS tapes on a surround-sound system? Look for a unit that features matrixing, which uses Dolby ProLogic II or DTS: Neo6 to convert two-channel recordings into multichannel sound. To learn more about surround sound, check out Crutchfield's excellent consumer guides.
Zone out: If you want music in more than one room, get a receiver that supports remote zones, advises Bob Hazelwood, product manager for Cambridge Soundworks. For example, some 7.1 systems let you set up a 5.1 home theater in the den and hang two speakers in another room, so the kids can watch Finding Nemo while you listen to the Flaming Lips. Look for a unit that uses existing amplifier channels for multiple zones, so you don't need another receiver to drive the second set of speakers.
Be acoustically correct: Most of us can't afford to hire a hi-fi geek to perfectly place all our speakers, says Mohsin Imtiaz, a marketing manager for Texas Instruments, which makes the digital signal processors in many receivers. But if you get a receiver with built-in "room correction," you can place a microphone where you'd usually sit; the unit then optimizes speaker settings to match the room's acoustics.
Take it easy: You shouldn't need a Ph.D. in stereotronics to operate your gear. An easy-to-use receiver usually has a well-designed remote, notes Lance DuChateau, consumer marketing manager for Best Buy. Look for one that groups similar functions (like play, pause, and rewind for DVD playback) by color, and that lets you program macros so you can press a single button to perform complex tasks (like turning on your TV and DVD player and switching inputs to watch a movie). The remote gets bonus points for an LCD, or if the buttons light up so you can see them in the dark.
Follow these tips, and you can walk into any stereo store with confidence. And while you're out, stop by the hair salon and update your style. You know you need to.
Next Up: Centralized Entertainment
Dedicated Devices (DDI) offers one solution to people who want to centralize all their digital media and serve it from one place: its $2250 Digital Distribution Center server, coupled with its $299 Digital Player. The server has a 120GB hard drive and acts as a residential gateway and router, connecting via ethernet to your network and the Digital Players. Players hook up to your TV and stereo to feed in the content stored on the server. The system is meant to go into prewired homes; you can get the devices only through professional installers, such as those in the Leviton network.