In the event you’re making an attempt to get as shut as attainable to re-creating a real movie-theater expertise at house, there’s no substitute for AV receiver. Soundbars are an excellent step up from built-in TV audio system, however an AV receiver offers you considerably extra management over the way you arrange, use, and improve your house theater system.
For most individuals, the Denon AVR-X1700H provides every thing essential—now and for the foreseeable future—to take pleasure in a premium film, online game, TV, or music expertise. All you must do is add some audio system.
Our choose
The Denon AVR-X1700H is our best choice as a result of it’s a great-sounding receiver that holds your hand by the setup course of and delivers wonderful worth. It options seven amplifier channels that may energy a surround-sound speaker system or a Dolby Atmos or DTS:X house theater setup with two overhead audio system.
It has six HDMI inputs, three of that are HDMI 2.1 suitable and help the superior gaming options discovered on the Microsoft Xbox Collection X and Sony PlayStation 5 consoles. You’ll be able to stream music to it wirelessly by way of Bluetooth and Apple AirPlay 2, in addition to the Heos wi-fi streaming platform (a competitor to the Sonos platform).
It additionally provides good room correction, which lets you fine-tune your speaker system’s efficiency to fit your room. Our exams constantly present that, on this worth vary, the effectiveness of the room-correction system is the differentiating think about sound high quality between AV receivers.
Our solely minor qualms with the AVR-X1700H are that the distant management’s infrared sign could be finicky and the receiver can run a bit heat whenever you’re pushing your speaker system to excessive volumes.
Improve choose
For the film lover prepared to spend extra for higher sound high quality, extra amp channels, and a few fairly tweaky customization capabilities, we suggest the Denon AVR-X3800H. This receiver sounds higher than the under-$1,000 fashions we examined, thanks largely to its extra superior Audyssey MultEQ XT32 room correction.
The 9.4-channel AVR-X3800H contains two further amp channels that you need to use to energy extra audio system, and it may well course of sound for as much as 4 subwoofers independently. All six of its HDMI inputs are HDMI 2.1 suitable and help 8K video and superior gaming options. It additionally provides higher multiroom audio and video help than the AVR-X1700H.
However all of its options and efficiency benefits come at a a lot larger worth.
Finances choose
If you wish to assemble a easy 5.1-channel surround-sound system—or you have already got a 5.1-channel system and have to improve to a receiver that helps 4K, 8K, or excessive dynamic vary video—the Denon AVR-S570BT is an efficient choice beneath $500.
It’s straightforward to arrange and use, and it performs fairly effectively for the value, although it may well energy solely 5 audio system and lacks the Audyssey room correction that you simply get on the dearer Denon fashions. It provides 4 HDMI inputs that each one have HDMI 2.1 compatibility, so it really works effectively for players. However it may well stream music solely over Bluetooth, not Wi-Fi–primarily based platforms like AirPlay 2.





