Unless you are prepared to pay the price premium and sacrifice more space for the increased performance you can get from separates such as pairing the Marantz AV7005 preamp/processor with a multi-channel home theater power amplifier, your home theater system will require a component surround sound A/V receiver. A home theater receiver integrates the brains (preamplifier and digital audio and video processing) and the brawn (amplification to drive five to seven or more individual speakers) into a single beautiful component.

Because each of your source components such as a Blu-ray Disc player or HDTV receiver connect to one of its HDMI inputs, and your high definition television and/or video projector to its HDMI output(s), a receiver needs to be able to quickly and easily switch (perhaps using remote control) among source inputs before it can be to perform digital surround sound and video processing. Receivers also provide amplifier power via speaker wire running to each of the surround speakers, plus an LFE output jack to run a subwoofer cable to the self-powered sub.

To access the streaming media capabilities of any of the network home theater receivers featured in the slideshow, you will need to run an Ethernet cable from your home network hub to the back the receiver.