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The AV receiv­er is the heart of the home media sys­tem, the equip­ment that can link togeth­er all the devices of a mod­ern home: a sound ampli­fi­er, TV, media play­er, game con­sole, com­put­er, smart­phone, and even a vinyl play­er. Mod­ern receivers are equipped with the fea­tures nec­es­sary for high-qual­i­ty lis­ten­ing to music.

So if you think that this device for receiv­ing and trans­mit­ting sound is pure­ly for pro­fes­sion­al “sound play­ers”, then you are mis­tak­en. Although techies will def­i­nite­ly appre­ci­ate it, but not only they. Audio-video receivers con­di­tion­al­ly refer to Hi-Fi tech­nol­o­gy and are designed to decode a mul­ti-chan­nel dig­i­tal sig­nal. In fact, this is a mul­ti-chan­nel ampli­fi­er that has an extend­ed set of func­tion­al­i­ty.

A sim­ple exam­ple: you have cable TV, but there is no sound or very bad sound, because your TV or home the­ater “does not see” the scale for­mat or does not play it as it should. The AV receiv­er eas­i­ly solves this prob­lem — it copes with any for­mats. Most AV receivers have Dol­by Dig­i­tal decoders and at least one S/PDIF dig­i­tal input for con­nect­ing dig­i­tal out­put sources, as well as the lat­est DTS decoders.

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At the same time, the track is “read” with unsur­passed sound qual­i­ty. Some receiv­er mod­els, like an equal­iz­er, can imi­tate a con­cert hall or sta­di­um. As well as cre­at­ing cin­e­mat­ic-qual­i­ty sur­round sound, it all depends on the mod­el — bud­get or pre­mi­um. More­over, the pre­mi­um-class receiv­er is able to adapt to the sur­round­ing real­i­ty and make the per­fect sound for a par­tic­u­lar room.

Final­ly, the AV receiv­er can be used as an audio stream ampli­fi­er. Audio and video are trans­mit­ted via dig­i­tal inter­faces (for exam­ple, HDMI).

AV receivers are also usu­al­ly equipped with sup­port for HDR video, which gives the pic­ture rich col­ors, high con­trast while main­tain­ing real­is­tic and nat­ur­al image qual­i­ty.

Expert’s Choice

For help in choos­ing AV receivers, Kom­so­mol­skaya Prav­da turned to Niko­lai Fedenev, a con­cert and stu­dio sound engi­neer, pro­duc­tion man­ag­er at Asia Music. The expert chose the fol­low­ing mod­el as the best one:

Pioneer VSX-LX304

This receiv­er is said to be an IMAX home cin­e­ma. Works great in home the­ater. The device has most of the fea­tures that a mod­ern user needs: a 9.2‑channel receiv­er with decent pow­er, 6 HDMI inputs and 2 out­puts, which pro­vides excel­lent phys­i­cal switch­ing. Plays movies with cin­e­mat­ic qual­i­ty great. For exam­ple, the IMAX Enhanced for­mat deliv­ers pow­er­ful, immer­sive home the­ater sound. Or Dol­by Atmos — vir­tu­al sur­round sound and high-fre­quen­cy effects.

The receiv­er sup­ports the Apple Air­Play 2 sys­tem, which allows it to play music or pod­casts through­out the house. The vast major­i­ty of cur­rent­ly known mod­ern audio file for­mats are sup­port­ed, while the audio qual­i­ty is not lost, but, on the con­trary, is only sig­nif­i­cant­ly improved. The fact is that the tech­nol­o­gy ana­lyzes the acoustic prop­er­ties of the room using a ded­i­cat­ed micro­phone and adjusts play­back para­me­ters by itself, reduc­ing back­ground noise.

It has the func­tion of lis­ten­ing through wire­less head­phones. There is a built-in Chrome­cast tech­nol­o­gy that allows you to con­trol the receiv­er from any mobile device. Sup­ports major stream­ing ser­vices such as Deez­er, TIDAL, Ama­zon Music, Spo­ti­fy.

Main characteristics

Pow­er con­sump­tion:	760 W
Num­ber of chan­nels:	9.2
Inter­faces:	Air­Play 2, Chrome­cast, Wi-Fi, Blue­tooth /v4.2/, LAN, RS-232, Google Assis­tant
Sound modes:	IMAX Enhanced, Dol­by Atmos, Dol­by True­HD, and oth­er audio for­mats
Tuner:	FM/AM bands

Pros and cons

Detail qual­i­ty, advanced func­tion­al­i­ty and pow­er­ful sound, sup­port for audio file play­back

Out­dat­ed con­sole, no ana­log mul­ti-chan­nel out­put from pre­am­pli­fi­er

Top 10 Best AV Receivers of 2022 According to KP

1. Sony STR-DH790

This receiv­er mod­el is often cho­sen in order to syn­chro­nize the device with a TV and make the sound of ordi­nary pro­grams or TV shows bet­ter. And in fact, although it is infe­ri­or to pre­mi­um mod­els, it is not by much. Inex­pe­ri­enced ama­teurs, as a rule, after buy­ing a Sony STR-DH790 AV receiv­er, stop going to cin­e­mas. So the sound is real­ly good.

Main characteristics

Num­ber of chan­nels:	7.2
Pow­er:	145W (per chan­nel)
Pecu­liar­i­ties:	HDMI inter­faces, 4K sig­nal sup­port, FM radio tuner
Sig­nal to noise ratio:	105 dB

Pros and cons

Blue­tooth 4.0, two Sub­woofer outs, com­pact design, HDR+ and Dol­by Vision sup­port, Dol­by Atmos, all for less than pre­mi­um devices

Heats up quick­ly, poor cool­ing sys­tem

The best turnta­bles

We will help you choose the best option for price and qual­i­ty

2. Pioneer SC-LX901

Pre­mi­um AV receiv­er. This is the only receiv­er that has 11.2 chan­nels. Sounds home the­aters at the high­est lev­el. The size of the device is impres­sive — more than 18 kg, and all because its ele­ments cre­ate sound even bet­ter than in the cin­e­ma. The device real­izes the max­i­mum con­fig­u­ra­tion of a mul­ti-chan­nel sys­tem with­out the help of exter­nal pow­er ampli­fiers. And, of course, a big plus is the Dol­by Atmos sys­tem, which auto­mat­i­cal­ly dis­trib­utes sound sources accord­ing to their posi­tion spec­i­fied by the sound engi­neer.

Main characteristics

Pros and cons

3. Denon AVR-X2600H

The receiv­er has good out­put pow­er and advanced con­nec­tiv­i­ty. The main advan­tage of the mod­el is high-qual­i­ty sound and a full range of mod­ern fea­tures for a more than rea­son­able price. It has a 7.2 con­fig­u­ra­tion, eight HDMI inputs and two out­puts. It is pos­si­ble to trans­mit a 4K sig­nal with HDR10 and Dol­by Vision. Anoth­er fea­ture of HDMI is eARC tech­nol­o­gy, which pro­vides an audio return chan­nel with HD and 3D sound. Con­nec­tion is pos­si­ble both via Eth­er­net and Wi-Fi. And also to the “mul­ti-room” sys­tem, which allows you to trans­mit sound from TV to any room in the house. You can use the mobile app to con­trol the AV receiv­er. Anoth­er fea­ture is sup­port for Google Assis­tant and Apple Siri voice sys­tems.

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Main characteristics

Pros and cons

four. Onkyo TX-RZ820

This is a 7.2 chan­nel flag­ship that deliv­ers amaz­ing sound qual­i­ty. Own­er of dynam­ic audio ampli­fi­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy (Dynam­ic Audio Ampli­fi­ca­tion). Net­work and ana­log audio that can be played from many devices, includ­ing stream­ing via built-in Chrome­cast and DTS Play-Fi. The receiv­er also dec­o­rates Dol­by Atmos and DTS:X, sup­ports Dol­by Vision, HDR10, HLG (Hybrid Log-Gam­ma). Its main advan­tages include excel­lent sound qual­i­ty, a dynam­ic audio ampli­fi­ca­tion sys­tem, sup­port for play­ing many for­mats and chan­nels, and a suf­fi­cient num­ber of inputs. The com­mu­ni­ca­tion pro­to­col is dual-band Wi-Fi.

Main characteristics

Pros and cons

5. YAMAHA RX-A2A

This AV receiv­er will also trans­form your home the­ater expe­ri­ence with pro­fes­sion­al sound and video. The ampli­fi­er has acoustic char­ac­ter­is­tics that make the sound clear, but spa­cious. Anti Res­o­nance (ART) tech­nol­o­gy pro­tects against exter­nal vibra­tions.

Most impor­tant­ly, the 7.2‑channel receiv­er sup­ports Dol­by Atmos and DTS:X sur­round sound for­mats, the lat­est HDMI 2.1 and 8K and 4K/120 res­o­lu­tions. It also comes with a micro­phone that cor­rects the sound depend­ing on the room. Equipped with the Mus­ic­Cast Sur­round wire­less plat­form, which allows you to con­nect addi­tion­al com­po­nents.

Main characteristics

Pros and cons

See also: the best Hi-Fi acoustics

6. Onkyo TX-NR696

A good receiv­er guar­an­tees in your home the vol­ume of sound and the “pic­ture” that you are used to hear­ing and see­ing in movie the­aters. You can play sounds through any of the speak­ers in your home sys­tem. Effects move in 3D like real life thanks to 5.2.2‑channel Dol­by Atmos or DTS:X sound­tracks.

Main characteristics

Pros and cons

7. YAMAHA HTR-3072

A rather out­dat­ed mod­el, but it pro­vides its main func­tion — good sound. Per­fect­ly fit into the sim­plest home the­ater. And, what­ev­er one may say, it will still cre­ate the sur­round sound of a movie with very real­is­tic effects. Equipped with 4 inputs for con­nect­ing var­i­ous devices, such as a lap­top to watch movies on it. But the receiv­er has three ana­log inputs and this is quite enough. It is con­ve­nient that there is Blue­tooth, with which you can lis­ten to music from your smart­phone. In terms of dimen­sions, the device is quite impres­sive.

Main characteristics

Pros and cons

8 Marantz NR1711

This mod­el of AV receiv­er is called grace­ful for its real­ly sophis­ti­cat­ed body. Marantz deliv­ers immer­sive mul­ti-chan­nel audio from Dol­by Atmos, Dol­by Atmos Height Vir­tu­al­iza­tion Tech­nol­o­gy, DTS:X, and DTS Virtual:X. It has advanced fea­tures for gamers. These are 4K/120Hz video res­o­lu­tion, Vari­able Refresh Rate (VRR), Auto Low Laten­cy Mode (ALLM), Fast Frame Trans­fer (QFT) and oth­ers.

Main characteristics

Pros and cons

The best home the­aters

What you need to know when choos­ing a mod­ern home the­ater

9 Denon AVR-X550BT

5.2 chan­nel AV receiv­er with 130 watts per chan­nel. The device is from the “bud­get” options, but at an afford­able price it has a full range of func­tions for home the­ater. High qual­i­ty images are achieved in 4K for­mat, and you can lis­ten to music from your smart­phone or tablet via Blue­tooth or the USB port on the front pan­el.

Main characteristics

Pros and cons

10. YAMAHA RX-V385

This mod­el is wide­ly repli­cat­ed, it can be pur­chased even in chain stores of house­hold appli­ances. The cost is the most bud­getary of the pre­sent­ed top of the best AV receivers of 2022. At the same time, the receiv­er cre­ates sur­round sound of the high­est qual­i­ty. CINEMA DSP sup­ports HD audio play­back and can even sim­u­late the acoustics of famous venues such as Euro­pean cathe­drals, the Bot­tom Line and the Roxy The­atre.

Main characteristics

Pros and cons

How to choose an AV receiver

There are sev­er­al main char­ac­ter­is­tics that you should pay spe­cial atten­tion to when choos­ing an AV receiv­er:

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• Pow­er. The high­er the bet­ter. How­ev­er, for a room of 18 squares, 80 watts and an acoustic sen­si­tiv­i­ty of about 90 dB are suit­able. For 30 m², there are already oth­er fig­ures — 120 W and 95 dB, respec­tive­ly.
• Dig­i­tal-to-ana­log con­vert­er. Look at the fre­quen­cy in kilo­hertz, the high­er it is, the bet­ter too. On aver­age, this fig­ure is 96 kHz, the most expen­sive mod­els have a fre­quen­cy of 192 kHz.
• Con­ve­nience. Pay atten­tion to the menu so that it is easy to man­age. Oth­er­wise, the AV receiv­er will turn into a puz­zle.

Mod­ern devices. The lat­est mid-range and pre­mi­um AV receivers are equipped with Blue­tooth con­nec­tiv­i­ty. The receiv­er is easy to syn­chro­nize with any device — smart­phone, home the­ater, TV, lap­top, etc. And enjoy the sound of your favorite songs in the high­est qual­i­ty. It also often comes with a remote con­trol.

Popular questions and answers

Niko­lai Fedenev, sound engi­neer, pro­duc­tion man­ag­er of Asia Music, answered ques­tions from Kom­so­mol­skaya Prav­da.

Related articles:

• The best media play­ers for TV
• The best smart speak­ers
• The best sound­bars
• The best acoustics for home
• The Best TVs for Dig­i­tal TV

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