 You must remember that your receiver is the heart of your home theater system. The receiver is probably the one that deserves the most attention of all the components of your home theater setup. Why is the receiver so essential? Because much like your heart pumps blood to the various parts of your body, a receiver pumps juice to the various components of your system. You may ask what kind of juice.
It often powers your speakers, and can power other objects as well...It will also send the sound to your speakers and a picture to your screen. It also connects all of your components to each other and lets them smoothly communicate. For instance take a DVD player with digital sound. That sound goes from the DVD player to the receiver where it is decoded. What this means is that the sound, (when received), is broken down and processed and sent to the appropriate speakers. That is very simplified version of how surround sound basically works and that is how you can hear an airplane in a movie pass from your left to the right as it flies overhead.
 If you have a good receiver, it should be able to be directly connected to a CD player, a DVD player, a couple videogame systems and your TV signal at the same time! Once that's done, you can easily switch between source to source by pushing a button or turning a corresponding knob on your receiver. Often you can even program your receiver remote control to manipulate all the different sources in your home theater system!
Since your receiver is so essential, you want for certain to obtain one that lasts and one that can grow with your home theater system. What does that mean and how do you assure that?
When you purchase your receiver, keep in mind :
• Price
• Expandability and ability to grow
• Variety of input types
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