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What is a Receiver? A receiver is that big, heavy thing that you plug your speakers and other constituents into (like a DVD player, TV, CD player, Xbox, PlayStation, iPod, and etc.). Its the “brain” of the show, really. The idea of connecting all your constituents to a receiver is the conception of audio/video switching, permitting you to switch to dissimilar video roots (like TV, DVD, camcorder) on your TV Of course, the main aim behind audio/video switching with a receiver is to drive audio to external speakers, like surround sound or stereo speakers. Most receivers have a plethora of inputs; up to 8 speakers and a subwoofer (more commonly, 5.1, or five speakers and a subwoofer), assorted video inputs, and even HDMI inputs. You could plug your Xbox, Plasma, and DVD player into the receiver and use one remote to switch amidst all the dissimilar video roots (games, TV, DVD video) and have your speakers pump out surround-sound. Let’s begin with inputs and outputs. If you don’t grasp something, read through the entire How-To as most of it will be explained in detail. Keep in mind that a receiver is the hub of your entire home theatre, so this How-To will in truth guide you through the fundamentals of connecting your finish home theater. So what the heck is all this ‘stuff’ on the back of your receiver? I’m going to go over just in regards to anything that you would find on the back of your receiver. The one I’m basing this guide off of is a Harman Kardon AVR-247 I’m going to get started from the top left of the unit and work my way to the right, then I’ll start out at the left of the next row and so on. The original three inputs are for antennas. An FM antenna cable would slide on to the firstborn jack while two speaker wires would plug into the remaining slots for AM. Of course, you don’t have to plug your antennas in, but if you’d like AM/FM reception through your speakers, you’ll want to go in front and do that. These are usual connections, so if you lose one of your antennas, just go buy another for a few bucks. You’ve probably heard of composite video. Its a very basic video connection applied by most any factor (TV, DVD, VCR especially). Its mutual and it is cheap. As such, it is very low quality. S-Video is next in line after composite. It uses a dissimilar type of connector (five pins in a circle) and gives you marginally better video quality. It is also a video-only cable, so you’ll need to plug in audio separately. In this case, you’ll probably use a pair of red and white RCA cables for your audio inputs. Next up: a ton of composite audio inputs. These inputs use left channel and right channel RCA cables, quintessentially red and white. They look just like the yellow composite video cable, and you could even use them for video and the yellow for audio, but let’s keep the color scheme how it is The same goes to VCRs, CD players, and anything that only has a composite audio output. Plus, if you don’t have surround sound, or your receiver is only two channels (2.1, stereo sound), you won’t be capable to use anything but composite audio. Note that there is a composite audio input underneath each composite video input so that it is easy to match them up. Plug them in the defective inputs and you won’t get sound when you’re on that queer video input. Here we have one of the least-used features of a modern receiver: 6 (or DVD Audio discs are particular DVDs that are recorded in 5.1 surround sound and may only be played by gimmicks with support for them. These CDs go all the way up to 7.1 surround sound, meaning you would need to have two front, two rear, two side speakers and a subwoofer to take pleasure in full 7.1 surround sound. Most receivers help up to 7.1 now but you won’t find DVDs with that kind of capability for movies. 5.1 surround is still the defacto standard, so don’t run out and buy more speakers any time soon. You could skip this next little item because it is distinctive to this brand of receiver (Harman Kardon). The Bridge” is a proprietary connection they devised for you to connect Of course, the music on your iPod is stereo sound, so the best you may get is simulated surround sound or stereo surround; the same music playing in the front two channels Here we have our high-end sound inputs/outputs. Basically the same performance wise, you have fiber optic connections (with the square shape) and digital coaxial (just like an RCA cable). Almost all DVD players these days have either optical or digital coaxial outputs (sometimes, both). Many high definition cable and satellite boxes also come with these I don’t think I need an effigy for the next plug. Its a pair of power inputs. One is for powering the receiver, the other for whatsoever you’d like. This way, when you turn Something else you’ll never use: D-bus RC-5 input/output. This is applied for infrared remote controls to take over your home theater system. Honestly, it is not something any of us will ever use. Some of the real high-end junkies might be using something for it, but I’ve never even come all over a device that uses this technology. Stick to the remote that came with your unit, or buy a quality universal remote control. There’s no need for this option. An substitute use for this may be a bit more common: if your receiver’s front panel is blocked (like inside a cabinet), you could get an infrared transmitter to latch on to the front of it. This transmitter would hook up to another device someplace in your room that will receive signals from your remote control. The receiving device then transmits the remote’s commands to your receiver (via the transmitter you’ve attached to the front over the regular infrared transmitter). Pre-outs , located right underneath the Remote in/out. Pre-outs are used when you’d like to add an amplifier to your system to boost the power (and hence volume/audio quality). Average Here we ultimately get to the meat of the system: the speaker inputs! Harman Kardon receivers use bind posts for connecting speakers, as seen in the picture. They You’ve got room for 2 front left and right speakers, 2 rear left and right speakers, Our final set of connectors for this receiver: element video . The best video you may get next to composite or s-video. You’ll detect it is a set of three cables (all for video), HDMI is the newest, fastest, sharpest video and audio connection available today. Its the only cable that may carry audio and video in one – not to mention, in high definition. The last connection for this article is DVI. DVI is also all digital like HDMI, but it can not procedure audio signals. HDMI may provide a technically superior image, Now that you’ve familiarized yourself with mutual connections, let’s plug it all together. This portion of the receiver How-To is going to guide you through hooking a 5.1 surround sound system(5 speakers and a subwoofer) with a high-definition TV, a high-definition cable or satellite box, a DVD player, and a 5.1 receiver. Your TV & Components Where you put your TV is dependent on how big it is, how big your room is, and where you will be sitting. If it is 50 inches, don’t sit more than 10-15 feet away; but no less, either. Lay Out of Speakers The firstborn step is to lay out your setup. Different rooms call for dissimilar locatings for your speakers and subwoofer. If your room is a typical rectangle, go in front and place your two front left and right speakers someplace flush with the television on that side of the room. Your left speaker goes toward the left corner, right speaker toward the right corner. Don’t bother with speaker wire yet (unless your speakers come with speaker wire attached already; in that case, just let them dangle for now). Note that which speaker is left or right is solely dependent on how you connect them to your receiver. Your speakers aren’t genuinely indicated “left” or “right”. Depending on how you acquired your speakers, your front speakers could be more prominent than your rear speakers. That’s how you know they’re for the front. Otherwise, all your speakers are the same shape and size, and you may use each for any purpose. One exception: the center channel. Usually, a center channel is much shorter and wider than your other speakers. It will have to only be applied for the center channel. Sometimes, all 5 of your speakers could be the same, ordinarily on a very inexpensive setup. You may use any of these speakers for any purpose. Your center channel ought to always go either directly on top or beneath your television set. However you have to do this, get it done! It’s not called the center channel for nothing, you know. Any movie will pump out closely 90% of the voices you listen and a majority of the rest of the sounds through the center channel. It is a vitally primary element to your surround sound setup. Your subwoofer will have to always be on the floor. If it is out of the question to place it on the floor, get it as close to the floor as possible. Placing it behind objections or in closets will diminish it is effects. In a perfective setup, the subwoofer would be on the floor close to the TV (perhaps off to the left or right) in your line of sight. Nothing ought to block the side of the subwoofer that air will come out of (usually covered by a grill protecting the subwoofer speaker itself). When it comes to finding a good spot for your speakers, you might want to mount them. You may commonly buy compatible speaker mounts online or in stores. You may also The last thing to keep in mind with regards to layout is speaker wire. You’ll in all likelihood need at least 100ft of speaker wire, but you’ll often times find yourself using much more if you Cabling You need to recognise the dissimilar kind of speaker wire available to you before setting up your home theatre. If you purchased an HTIB (home theater in a box), it in all probability came with 100ft of horribly cheap speaker wire. You don’t want that! Do yourself a favor: buy a lot of high-quality, 14-guage speaker wire. Anything higher than 14-guage is just to thin and will be susceptible to interence, quality loss, and poor quality over longer distances. Fourteen guage is a good thickness and suitable for most home theatres. Make sure it is also not too thick – a lot of speaker wire plainly will not fit in to the speaker wire jacks on galore receivers. Some receivers use proprietary speaker inputs. Sony is one example. Many Sony receivers have special connectors for speaker wire and will not receive a popular speaker wire. You’ll need to use either the Sony-provided speaker wire, take the ends off of Sony speaker wire and put it on your own, or buy galore of these special connectors from Sony directly to place on your speaker wire. My recommendation? Avoid any receivers with non-standard speaker wire posts/jacks/connectors. Look for bind posts or other jacks that grant you to slide in and clamp down on a typical speaker wire. Once you’ve got your speaker wire sorted out, you’ll have to do numerous cutting and stripping if you opted to buy your own. This is way posing no difficulty than it sounds, so don’t worry! Measure out each length one at a time, cutting the speaker wire with either in truth great scissors or a sharp blade. Now you need to strip the ends of the wire. Use either a stripping tool or plain old scissors. You may place the scissors on the cable and gently implement a great deal of pressure as you twist the scissors around the cable, cautiously slicing into the plastic coating. Eventually, it’ll get weak sufficient that you may just slide it off by tugging on it with your fingers. You need at least 1/4″ of exposed wire. Now you may connect your speakers. Note on your speaker wire the divergence amid the two ends. You’ll need to use one as your positive and one as your negative. Sometimes the coating is a dissimilar color amid the two or there is text on one and not on the other. Keep track of this – whichever side you use for positive on your speaker, use it for positive on your receiver. Crossing the two may cause damage, either without delay or sometime in the future. It might work this way but you don’t want it to! Connecting the speakers is easy enough. Front left to front left on your receiver, center speaker to center on your receiver, etc… Your rear speakers may be referred to as “Surround” or “Rear Surround” rather of just “Rear”, but keep in mind, if you have a 7.1 or 8.1 channel receiver, “Surround” may indicate side surround speakers, not rear speakers. Subwoofers Your subwoofer is going to be a little more complicated. There are a few dissimilar ways to do it and a great deal of variations of inputs/ouputs on the back side of subwoofers. I’m going to go with the most usual and effective method first. You will need a subwoofer cable for connecting your sub. If you don’t have one or don’t want to buy one, you may alternate it for a general red or white RCA cable (or a pair, since they are commonly connected; just let the other cable dangle). It will work, but it is actually not the best way to do it. You’ll also need what is called a Y adapter. On the back of your sub, there ought to be a left/right input (red and white). You plug the Y adapter in to these connections and then your subwoofer cable (or RCA cable) in the other end of the Y (note: if you don’t have a Y adapter, just choose the left or right input to plug into). Now, take the other end of your cable and plug it into your receiver’s If you don’t have RCA jacks on your subwoofer, or it only has speaker wire jacks (and it is most likely not powered), you’ll need to connect it the old fashioned way. Your front left and right speakers will plug into your subwoofer’s ouput jacks rather of your receiver. You’ll then run speaker wire from the left and right inputs on the subwoofer to your left and right speaker outputs on your receiver. This way, the subwoofer is powered by the receiver and will not work as well as a powered sub. You likewise take some power away from your front speakers with this method. A good idea is to buy a new, powered subwoofer with line in RCA jacks. Connecting the Dots You’ve got the hard stuff out of the way. Now finish it up by connecting your TV, DVD, and cable/satellite box. Always undertake using the best choices first. If your DVD Note: Look closely at the connections on your receiver. Everything is labeled, like the initial set of red, green, and blue element video inputs might be labeled “Comp 1″. If you’re using composite audio cablesfor your sound, you’ll need to plug them into the jacks that coordinate with “Comp 1″. This might not be clear by looking at the receiver, so refer to your receiver’s manual to figure out which video inputs use which audio inputs. Most often, you’ll be capable to configure them from the receiver’s internal menu using the remote control. On a good deal of receivers, all the factor video inputs, for example, are linked to a single composite audio input (usually “DVD”), so if you connect more than one of the element inputs, you will be competing for sound when more than one device is active. This is why you’d want to configure the factor inputs to use dissimilar audio inputs. Your manual is the only way to figure out how to go regarding it. Composite video will ordinarily match up to composite audio inputs with naming conventions like Video 1 -> Video 1, Video 2 -> Video 2, etc., but cables like element and DVI may not. You will have to likewise configure digital audio inputs to match up with the video inputs you’re planning on using. For example, if you’re using a digital coaxial input (possibly “Digital 1″), and you use factor video, you’ll want to match “Digital 1″ with “Comp 1″. Again, refer to your users manual for how to do this. |
Composite audio is the bottom-of-the-barrel in audio. Its utterly fine for most use, but if you’re looking for high quality surround sound, you don’t want composite. Game systems, like the Wii or Xbox, and very basic DVD players are a perfective match for composite audio.
channel direct input. This is only used for two purposes: SACD or DVD Audio. SACD is an acronym for Super Audio CD. It is a proprietary audio format formulated by Sony for particular CDs that are recorded in 5.1 surround sound. That means you need a CD or DVD/CD player that supports SACDs, a receiver with SACD support (as in the picture), and of course Super Audio CD’s. DVD Audio is the same idea, dissimilar brand, dissimilar media (its a DVD, not a CD!).
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