Hook Set

Hook Set


Do you need to buy an A/V receiver to hook up a set of surround sound speakers to a 40 inch HD tv?

I ask because I want to know if I should just buy a set of speakers or if I should also buy a receiver.

An external surround system (AV receiver and surround speakers) will give the best sound, but you may wish to consider a sound bar HTIB speaker system (See link). The big advantage is simplicity (and reduced cost). The disadvantage, as mentioned, is sound won't be as good as a true receiver (or amplifier .. which is a receiver minus the radio tuner) and surround speaker setup. A half way approach is a soundbar that requires a stand alone receiver (2nd link).

Note that by having a receiver (either with soundbar or stand alone speakers) is that you can feed the audio from set top boxes (cable or satellite), DVD or Blu-ray players or game consoles and send the video only to the TV.

So you have several options. In order of increasing sound/equipment quality (and price/complexity) they are: soundbar with built in amp, soundbar + amp/receiver, Home -theater-in-a-box (HTIB, a compact combo receiver (and sometimes DVD or Blu-ray player) and speakers), and, stand alone speakers and receiver (you pick the brand/model independently). The last link may be useful.