Surround Sound Receivers

The function of a surround sound receiver is that is operates as the heart of a home theater or home audio stereo system. It provides the power and main drive behind a home theater system to drive a rich, full surround sound through its speaker system. The primary functions of a surround sound receiver are:

• Main switching and power for all of a home theater and audio and video related components
• Surround sound decoding for Dolby pro logic etc…
• Amplification for audio signals in order to drive the speakers as well as controlling the playback volume
• Signal processing for simulated bass management and sound fields
• Also functions as a Am/FM radio tuner

As the surround sound receiver is the power and drive behind a home surround theater system it takes its source from many audio and video devices such is ipod’s MP3 players, DVD’s players, CD players, VCR’s record and cassette decks, etc… and carries out the decoding and pre-amplification to drive the sound to the speaker system. Where a video signal is used, the receiver will carry out the relevant switching before outputting the signal to your TV. With this rich and powerful functionality, the surround sound receiver is probably the most expensive and complex of your home audio and theater components but provides extremely high quality audio for your listening pleasure.

Surround sound decoding is encoded at source so must be properly decoded into its respective separate channels in the receiver, thus to drive the speakers. A receiver should be equipped to decode Dolby Surround Pro-Logic, Dolby Digital and DTS Digital Surround (DTS).

Dolby Surround Pro-Logic has been the default surround sound format since the late 1980’s and s usd in VHS, Hi-Fi and analog broadcasts. It is bandwidth limited to frequencies between 100 Hz and 7,000 Hz. Dolby Digital is the standard format for all DVD soundtracks as well as digital TV. This surround sound encoding format will allow up to 5.1 channels of a surround sound track to be independently encoded. Finally, DTS Digital Surround is actually a rival sound format to Dolby Digital and can also support 5.1 channels. It uses much higher rates to encode the audio information. In fact, home theater buffs say that DTS decoding sounds better than Dolby decoding. However, DTS is not found on all DVD as it is an optional sound track.

For a fantastic surround sound receiver, Dolby Digital and DTS decoding are absolute must-haves so look for Dolby Pro Logic II and DTS Neo:6 surround sound decoding for that rich, full and highly impressive sound experience.