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There is a very interesting musical development that coincided with the 1970’s receiver power war. That was the emergence of jazz-rock fusion music, often referred to by musical insiders as “high energy” jazz. In almost exact chronological lockstep with the advent of the high-powered receiver came the emergence of high-energy jazz-rock fusion music. For the market of high-fidelity electronics and speakers, that time was the 1970’s. Things came together in such a way that the market flourished and grew like never before. It was a singularly great time for the industry, with all the historic, demographic and technological conditions and advances coming together in a way that will never be repeated.
That said, if you’re willing to invest in the SR8015 as the cornerstone of your home theater, you will be met with an unmatched combination of features and capability. In other words, if you can afford it, the Marantz SR8015 is the absolute best AV receiver solution available today. So I surprised my dad with a Sanyo JCX-2900 receiver on his birthday. The Sanyo 2900 was pretty much a blatant copy of Pioneer’s SX-1050 (120 WPC, silver faceplate, amber back-lit dial, tone control turnovers, etc.), but it was a really good copy. It looked great, it had all the bells and whistles and it performed like a champ. He eventually upgraded several years later and gave the 2900 to a nephew of his, who used it for at least another five years.
A great future-proof receiver for all sources
For example, the Denon AVR-S960H and AVR-X2700H are priced between the company’s AVR-S750H and AVR-X3700H, and both feature one fully compliant HDMI 2.1 input. We’ve concluded that the AVR-S960H doesn’t offer enough advantages over the AVR-S750H to justify the increased price, though. And if you’re willing to step up to the AVR-X2700H in price, you’d be better off spending a couple hundred dollars more for the superior Audyssey MultEQ XT32 room correction of the AVR-X3700H, even if you don’t need its extra channels of amplification. But if you’ve recently purchased a new 4K HDR TV and 4K HDR source devices, an older AV receiver may lack the ability to pass through those higher-quality signals . All of our current recommendations support 4K HDR displays and sources.
Dennis Burger has been reviewing AV equipment for going on two decades now for publications ranging from Robb Report Home Entertainment to Home Theater magazine and HomeTheaterReview.com. Over the years, he has auditioned more receivers, preamps, and amplifiers than he cares to count, and in recent years he has devoted an inordinate amount of time to learning about and testing room-correction systems of all varieties. If you’re trying to get as close as possible to re-creating a genuine movie-theater experience at home, there's just no replacement for a good AV receiver. Think of it as the traffic cop of your audio-video system, routing video from your sources to your display and sending audio to your speakers. Which AV receiver is right for you depends on your needs, so we offer multiple recommendations for different situations.
NEW Sherwood RX-4105 200W AM/FM Stereo Receiver
You need not only to have a good product, but also be known and grow. The AVR-S540BT provides fewer inputs than our other picks and has no Wi-Fi or Ethernet support, but the essentials are here. Some of this guide is based on the work of Wirecutter senior staff writer Chris Heinonen, who has spent hundreds of hours over the past few years testing AV receivers for previous versions of this guide. The RX-V6A sounds great, features surprisingly good room correction, and checks all the right boxes in terms of features.
Rotel calls the RAP-1580MKII a surround amplified processor, which is basically a home-theater processor with onboard power amplifiers. If you are the type of person who wants to get into an excellent home theater system but also cares dearly about your 2-channel audio, the AVR11 is the perfect choice. You have future expansion options, one of the best room correction systems on the market, and world-famous Arcam two-channel sound. You can simply add a 4-channel power amp to the AVR11 and use its 12 channels of processing power to go to a full-blown 7.4.1 immersive Dolby Atmo system. It is also extremely easy to fine-tune all of your speakers to your listening room.
Music to go with High-Powered Receivers
We picked the Sony STR-DH190 as the best stereo receiver because it offers the best mix of features, sound quality, simplicity, and affordability. With Bluetooth and a phono preamp on board, plus a front-panel analog input for portable devices, the STR-DH190 is a good fit whether you’re embracing the future or reveling in retro. Its sound quality is equal to that of anything else we’ve tried under $200. Although our panelists were impressed with the STR-DH190’s sound overall, they thought it made voices sound slightly harsh and congested compared with what they heard from the more expensive Cambridge Audio and Yamaha models. However, they stressed that the differences were subtle.
Though it isn’t a fully HDMI 2.1–compliant receiver, it does support features such as automatic low-latency mode for video gaming and eARC for improved audio quality from TVs. You also get digital and analog audio inputs , plus a couple of composite video inputs to connect older sources. Your receiver needs to be able to connect all the HDMI source devices you have, which could include a cable box or DVR, a Blu-ray player, a gaming console, and a media streamer. Five HDMI ports is probably the right number for most people, as it gives you inputs for every source you’re likely to use in your home theater, with the option to add one or two more.
Setup is still fairly straightforward overall, and the RX-V6A’s menus are pretty easy to figure out. The RX-V6A’s original HDMI chipset has an incompatibility issue with the Xbox Series X and Nvidia RTX30 graphics card that prevents it from passing through 4K 120 Hz video signals correctly. This appears to be a problem with all of the early “8K-compatible” receivers, not just Yamaha’s. The fix requires registered owners of the RX-V6A to send in their receivers for a hardware update . If you’re a PlayStation 5 owner or a PC gamer, you should be able to route 4K 120 Hz signals without the upgrade.
You should also consider how many non-HDMI-equipped sources you want to connect and make sure the receiver has enough digital or analog inputs to accept them. If you have a turntable that lacks a phono preamp, you may want a receiver with a phono input. Many receivers include built-in music streaming services such as Pandora, Sirius XM, Spotify Connect, and Tidal, along with the ability to connect directly to internet radio stations and local DLNA media servers. And for those who prefer a more traditional approach, some receivers allow you to distribute audio sources to a second zone via wired connections.
Bluetooth receiver offers excellent signal range and surprisingly good audio performance for the price. To ensure fair, unbiased testing, we conducted brand-concealed listening tests and precisely matched the receivers’ volume levels. If sherwood audio receivers listed here is incorrect, outdated, irrelevant, or out of date, please provide your feedback or correction. Our list will be regularly revised on the basis of your reasonable recommendations based on your comments.
It's a bleeding edge piece of gear, with an expansive feature set, exemplary sound quality and a highly sophisticated room correction system. Put in a movie, set the Trinnov system to Cinema and hear the sound exactly as it was created in the post production facility? Unless you have a massive room and crave virtually unlimited power reserves, this receiver is worth a hard look. I transitioned to this receiver from high-end separates costing four times what the R-972 costs and save for a bit of a drop off in terms of neutrality and dynamic range, didn't mind the transition. It's nice to see a manufacturer attack a segment of the market this vociferously. The R-972 covers every base in terms of cutting edge features and functionality; the only piece of the puzzle that remains for Sherwood is to craft a marketing campaign of equal strength.
It has 9 powered channels included with preamp outputs for 11 plus 2 subs allowing you to add a power amp later to go with a full-blown 7.2.4 Dolby Atmos speaker configuration. I connected the included setup mic, which set atop my tripod looks like something out of The Empire Strikes Back, and started with room correction - Trinnov style. It must be noted that the R-972's setup menu is one of the cleanest and most user-friendly I've seen to date. Navigation is simple and straightforward, and the menu design is highly sophisticated. Once the measurements have been taken and the mathematical calculations applied, the Trinnov Optimizer allows the listener to get as close as possible to hearing the sound as it was heard in the studio during sound mixing.
We hope you enjoy going through these Home Theater receiver top picks. For the best experience on our site, be sure to turn on Javascript in your browser. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding. All these options are great, but now preference and your budget play an important role when deciding.
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