You might think your TV is the most important part of your home theater system. But the real heart of any home-entertainment setup is the A/V or digital surround receiver — the one element that ties all the others together and lets you select and adjust what you watch or listen to.
If you've never set up a receiver before, the cornucopia of connections and bounty of buttons can be intimidating. But fear not — unlike your monthly phone bill, receiver setup isn't as complicated as it seems.
Before you start hooking up your new receiver, spend a few minutes browsing through the owner's manual to get a feel for what it has to offer. Don't worry if your eyes glaze over — manuals tend to walk you through every aspect of operation in obsessive detail and can make everything look more complicated than it really is. Still, it's a starting point.
Putting It in Its Place The first step in setting up an A/V receiver is to find a good location for it. Look for a place where it'll get plenty of ventilation. Its amplifiers can generate a lot of heat when you're playing CDs or DVDs at high volume for long periods, and excessive heat can shorten the receiver's lifespan or even cause its protection circuitry to shut it down. Also, put it where you can get to the back panel easily. You don't want to have to pull it out of a cabinet or break down your entire setup every time you add or change a connection.
Come Around Back The back panel is the main interface between the receiver and the rest of your components . Understanding it is the key to knowing how to wire your system. All those connections might seem confusing, but the layout is actually very logical, with audio and video inputs and outputs grouped by function.
While even the most basic receiver has at least a couple of dozen jacks, you'll see only a handful of different types of connector. That's because most components use the same few kinds, and they're repeated many times to accommodate all the gear you might want to connect.
From Source to Receiver Most source components have the same basic types of analog connections: the familiar left- and right-channel stereo audio outputs plus a composite-video output on gear like a DVD player, a video hard-disk recorder (such as a TiVo), or a VCR. Both use the most common type of A/V jack — the coaxial RCA connector — and are coded white or black for the left audio channel, red for the right channel (just remember, “red means right”), and yellow for video.
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Video Most DVD players, satellite receivers, hard-disk recorders, cable boxes, and outboard HDTV tuners also have S-video outputs, which use a circular four-pin connector, and most also have component-video outputs — a set of three RCA jacks, usually color-coded red, green, and blue. Both provide better-quality images than composite-video connections, with component video being even better than S-video.
High-def video More and more receivers are designed to route high-definition video signals. The most common type of connection is the wide-bandwidth component-video input, which can handle HDTV signals without losing picture detail. These analog inputs use the same trio of RCA jacks as standard component video. They're also called HDTV-compatible or simply wideband component-video inputs.
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Some receivers have at least one DVI or DVI with HDCP input (see “Shorthand” to the left). Some also feature an HDMI input, which combines high-definition digital video and multichannel digital audio in a single connection. You can use any of these connectors for high-def sources, depending on which ones your gear has, and you can connect a DVI output to an HDMI input (but not the reverse!) using a special adapter cable. But you won't be able to use DVI or HDMI connectors unless your TV has a corresponding input.
Digital audio All DVD players and recorders, HDTV tuners, and CD recorders or players, many satellite receivers, and some hard-disk recorders have both analog and digital audio connections. Receivers have corresponding digital inputs, with most models offering at least five.
Digital audio connections deliver Dolby Digital, DTS, and other surround sound formats from DVD players and digital stereo from components like CD recorders. With certain exceptions, you must use a digital connection to get discrete-channel surround sound from DVD players, satellite receivers, hard-disk recorders, and HDTV tuners. The exceptions are players (with built-in decoders) that can handle DVD-Audio and Super Audio CD, which need to be connected to the receiver via its six-channel (sometimes seven- or eight-channel) analog input.
You make digital audio connections using either coaxial (RCA) or optical (usually Toslink) jacks. Coaxial connections are usually color-coded orange or dark yellow.
Other inputs Receivers also have connectors for FM and AM antennas, and some have a phono input. Note that you can't plug anything into the phono input except a turntable. If you want to listen to LPs (I know I do!) and your receiver lacks a phono input, your turntable will need a built-in or outboard phono preamp that will let you plug it into a standard ( line-level ) audio jack, such as an Aux(iliary) input.
And It Comes Out Here Dealing with a receiver's outputs is much easier than dealing with its inputs because there are a lot fewer of them.
Video outputs Every receiver has composite- and S-video outputs that go to your TV, and all but a few entry-level models have a component-video output, too. Some receivers even convert all of their composite- and S-video input signals to component video so you can use the same output for all those A/V sources. And some receivers have a DVI or HDMI video output. If your TV can accept a DVI or HDMI output from your DVD player or other source but your receiver can't, connect the component directly to the TV. (The same goes if your receiver lacks component-video jacks.)
Recording loops Every receiver has at least one set of analog RCA-jack inputs and outputs that you can use for a hard-disk recorder, a CD recorder, a VCR, or even a cassette deck. And almost all receivers these days also have a digital audio output for a CD recorder or other digital component.
Multiroom facilities Many receivers can send audio and video to a second room or “zone” with independent source selection and volume control. The outputs, which you connect to the components in the second room, are usually analog audio with composite- or S-video. Some receivers also offer a multiroom A-Bus connection, which uses a Category-5 (Ethernet-type) cable to connect to an A-Bus remote component like a wall-mounted keypad controller/amplifier. Your receiver might also have connections for a multiroom remote-control system or an RS-232 port for an external system controller, but these connections are often made by a professional installer.
Wired for Sound Naturally, you need to hook up the receiver to your speakers and subwoofer. Run speaker cable from the terminals for the main channels — left, center, and right front and left and right surround — to the corresponding speakers. If you have a 6.1- or 7.1-channel receiver and speaker system, connect the back surround speaker(s) that go behind your listening spot the same way. Most speaker terminals use a screw-on connector that can accept bare wire and usually some combination of spade lugs, banana plugs, pin plugs, or all three. You'll also need to run a cable with RCA plugs at both ends from the receiver's subwoofer output to the sub's line-level or LFE input — unless you're using speaker-level connections for the sub, in which case you run the cables for the front left/right speakers to the subwoofer and then to those speakers.
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Make sure the speaker connections are in phase — that is, connect each speaker's red (+) terminal to the corresponding red terminal on the receiver, and do the same for the black (–) connections. Speaker cable is usually color-coded, and the plastic shielding on ordinary 14-gauge zip cord (which also works fine and is a lot cheaper) will be ridged on one side to help you keep the connections sorted out. If you don't match phase in your speaker connections, bass will sound thin and overall the sound won't be as good as it could be.
Some receivers, speakers, and cables follow the Consumer Electronics Association's color coding for connections, which assigns a different color to each channel's “+” terminal (see “Connector Color Coding”). Tip : If your cables don't have this color coding, create a tag out of masking tape at the receiver end of each cable and then write on the tag which speaker the cable goes to. This will save you a lot of headaches if you ever have to move your gear around.
Now, double check your connections. Even the most experienced installation pros can goof, which is why they always double-check their work. In particular, make sure there are no stray strands of speaker wire that might short circuit to another speaker terminal.
System Setup Are we having fun yet? Well, almost. You have to get the receiver's first-time setup out of the way first. (Don't worry. You won't have to do it again unless you decide to make changes.)
Grab the remote control and turn the receiver on with the volume all the way down. Then turn on the TV. Press the button labeled System Setup, Main Menu, or something similar (check the manual to see what it's called), which will bring up some onscreen menus. (A bare-bones receiver may not have onscreen menus, relying on the front-panel display instead.)
Input assignment For each source you connected to a digital audio input, you may have to assign the same digital input in the setup menu. The receiver doesn't “know,” for example, that you plugged the digital audio output from your DVD player into the Digital 1 input. You usually don't have to assign analog inputs — just connect each output to the corresponding input.
Speaker setup This menu lets you select “large,” “small,” or “none” for each of the main channels in your system — that is, all but the “.1” subwoofer channel. You'd select “none” for some channels if you're not using a full complement of speakers and “off” or “none” for the subwoofer if you're not using one. The “size” settings indicate the speaker's ability to handle bass, not its actual dimensions. “Large” speakers can handle a full frequency range, while “small” speakers can't, so their bass is redirected to the subwoofer instead. In most cases, you'd select “small” for the main speakers and “on” for the subwoofer. Many receivers have additional bass-management capabilities so you can fine-tune bass performance.
To recreate a recording's placement of voices, instruments, and sound effects accurately, the sounds from all the speakers in your system need to arrive at your listening position at the same time. Since speakers tend to be at different distances, receivers delay signals to the nearer speakers to give the farthest ones time to catch up. But you have to enter the various distances so the receiver can calculate the proper delays, unless it has an auto setup routine for this.
Speaker balancing All of your main speakers must be operating at the same volume so that if one sounds louder than another when you're watching a movie or listening to music, it will be because it's supposed to and not because your setup is out of balance. Most receivers have test-tone generators to balance the speakers. We don't recommend doing this by ear. If the remote control doesn't have a sound-level meter built in, you can buy one from RadioShack for about $40 .
To check speaker levels in decibels (dB), stand behind the listening position and hold the meter where the listener's head would be, with the microphone pointed toward the ceiling, while the test tones move around the room. Adjust the volume of each speaker with the remote until they're all the same. Some receivers can do this automatically.
Finishing Touches There are a few more things you should know to get the most out of your receiver.
• Surround modes Many DVDs have both Dolby Digital and DTS surround sound, and all newer receivers let you pick which format you want as the default. You should also check out processing modes like Dolby Pro Logic II or IIx and DTS Neo:6 that let you listen to stereo sources and older surround sound formats like Dolby Surround in 5.1 to 7.1 channels. Some receivers even let you assign a different surround mode for each program source.
• Recording options Most receivers let you select any input as the source for recording on a hard-disk (like TiVo), DVD, CD, or VCR. They also let you watch or listen to one source while recording another.
• Radio options All receivers will let you choose FM and AM station presets, and some let you assign names to them.
• Other features Your receiver might also have such features as Night mode, which compresses the dynamics to avoid loud jumps in volume during nighttime listening; alternate subwoofer crossover settings; and processing that upconverts composite- and S-video from sources like a VCR to higher-quality, progressive-scan video output.
Now you're ready to let her rip! Whether it's for that new home theater in the family room, a bedroom system to drift away from the day's trials and tribulations, or the ultimate “man cave” system you've been promising yourself, a digital surround receiver is the cornerstone of a thrilling home-entertainment experience.
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