Your home theater receiver still matters if you care about audio quality

Since the 1980s, the home theater or AV receiver has been a mainstay of many homes. It's a driving factor in projector and TV sales, comfy chair sales, and a whole industry around recreating the movie theater experience for your home. And not for no good reason, as the speakers included with most TVs are atrocious, and projectors didn't come with them at all for many years.

But in recent years, soundbars, wireless speakers, and the ability to wirelessly connect headphones to your TV have threatened the dominance of the AV receiver. Not everyone has the space for a huge box under their TV, or for the speakers to go with it, and running wires is annoying. These alternatives haven't quite caught up, though, and the home theater receiver is still the best bang for the buck when you want the immersive movie theater experience.

Wired surround audio is still the king of home theater

Soundbars come with limitations

While soundbars have come a long way from the early days of sacrificing sound quality for convenience, wired speakers are still objectively better for sound quality and impact. There's only so much of a three-dimensional soundstage that can be created from the confines of a soundbar, as anyone who likes going to the movies can attest to.

I've got both at home, use both regularly, and the sound quality of a wired AV receiver is objectively better. Yes, it's down to the quality of the speakers you have attached, but wired speakers are generally a class above wireless variants, and larger speaker cones overpower the smaller ones used in soundbars.

Having separate speakers also means you can easily upgrade them. In my experience, the receiver plays a very small role in overall sound quality, though more expensive models offer features like room correction, a lower noise floor, and a better selection of inputs. I've had the same receiver for about a decade, and the only thing I have to work around is that it only supports 1080p passthrough on the HDMI inputs, so I connect my video sources to my TV directly and use eARC on the receiver, then adjust for any delay. Maybe I'll feel the need to upgrade at some point, but not yet.

Wireless speakers are improving

While receiver-based systems have fewer compromises on sound quality, it's also true that wireless speakers have gotten much better in recent years. They're easier to find a home for, as you only need to add a power cable and can tie into your overall smart home. Cheaper models usually use Bluetooth, more expensive ones use various protocols sent over Wi-Fi, but they're all limited in bitrate and can be subject to interference.

You can add audio streaming if you want

I can understand the desire to have audio streaming functionality, which is an integral part of any wireless speaker setup. Some receivers also have this, or have a port for an add-on card that adds streaming, but these are rare. But you can still add streaming functionality with an external streaming device like the Eve Play or the WiiM range, and use AirPlay, Google Cast, and Bluetooth to send audio to your wired speaker setup.

Not everyone has the space for a receiver and speakers

One reason wireless speakers or soundbars are so popular is that they take up very little space. Whether it's using HomePods paired with an Apple TV for stereo sound, a Sonos, Bose, or other popular soundbar, the sound they put out is often enough for apartment dwellers, shared accommodations, and even many houses. A receiver and speakers require a TV cabinet and speaker stands, and then there's the problem of routing cables to the speakers, which can be annoying for the surrounds. Wireless speakers need a place to be and a nearby power outlet, but are more flexible in where you can place them.

Room correction is the great equalizer

You don't need a treated room to get great sound

For many years, to get the best performance from your home theater setup, you had to spend thousands of dollars treating your room to improve its acoustics. Even the most expensive speakers in the world won't sound good in the wrong listening area, and physical modifications were the only solution.

Then, research into acoustics led to a new idea: using a microphone to listen to how the room reacts to the sound being produced. This input is analyzed, and compensation is fed into the output stage, correcting the sound without the need to refurnish the room. Many receivers have this built in, with DIRAC Live leading in terms of quality and impact.

With improvements to smartphone microphones over the years, many systems use a phone app to create room-correction filters, having you walk around the room's perimeter while it does so to account for multiple listening positions. And while some soundbars and wireless speakers have this functionality as well, their starting point in terms of audio quality is lower, so there's only so much the correction algorithms can do.

Receivers aren't always the best option

As with any all-in-one device, home theater receivers come with compromises. They're great for switching between multiple types of audio and video input, but then they're not designed to fill huge rooms with sound or drive power-hungry speakers. They don't need to, but those who have specific needs are better served with separate Hi-Fi components.

Home theater receivers aren't the best option for audiophile listening (as if I need to say that), but they're also not the best for anyone who listens to music more than they watch movies or TV. Dedicated audio equipment, from DACs to amps, will always deliver better audio quality for less money than a receiver designed to switch between AV inputs and output surround-sound. And the same goes for AV equipment: separates will give you better overall sound quality and richness. But it is much more expensive and takes up more space.

Home theater receivers are still the best bang for buck way to enjoy your media collection

Even as wireless home theater systems improve, they still lag behind AV receivers in terms of quality and amplification. Plus, you can expand your system with more speakers or higher-quality ones, as long as you stay within the receiver's power budget. It's also easier to take advantage of Dolby Atmos, where only a few wireless speaker sets are compatible. AV receivers are the best value, but they're not always the best fit, and your TV viewing environment will factor more into the decision than a pure cost comparison.