It’s a fact of modern life: after a hard day at the office, most of us want nothing more than to distance ourselves from that environment. Enjoying dinner with the family and taking the kids to the park or going for a long walk in the neighborhood can certainly fill the bill. But what if the weather isn’t suitable for that, or everyone is simply in the mood to chill out and watch a good movie?

An essential part of any home theater is a surround sound system that successfully immerses you in “sound all around.” For example, when enjoying your favorite Star Wars movie, you want to feel as if you are right there on the bridge of the Millennium Falcon with Han, Chewy, Luke, and Leia, or riding piggyback with an Ewok on the forest moon of Endor. True surround sound does that for you, due to the strategic placement of various types of speakers in the room. All of the various sounds from the movie soundtrack are fed into different channels of your system, making it possible to direct those sounds to your ears in realistic progression from any location in the room. Just think about all the sounds entailed in such a movie – from the roar of a speeder to the hum of a Light Sabre, to the chatter of Ewoks and the howl of a Wookie, it’s all distinct - yet blended - by a state-of-the-art surround system.

Your home theater system consists of numerous components that must work together flawlessly to create the WOW effect that you crave.

If you’re building a home theater system in your Huntsville, AL home, the first thing you’ll need isn’t necessarily the big screen or speakers—it’s the receiver. The receiver is the centerpiece of your home theater system. Also known as an AV receiver or surround sound receiver, it provides the outputs and inputs for each device and instructs your speakers what surround sound to play.

The core features of a receiver are the power output, surround sound formats, and connectivity. An excellent receiver will also offer high-resolution audio, automatic speaker set-up, iPod/iPhone compatibility with Bluetooth, and Internet streaming. Technology moves fast, so you’ll want a receiver that offers expandability and new features, just in case.

To help you decide what home theater receiver is right for you, continue reading our review of three top receiver brands.