Receivers and amplifiers are essential components of your home theatre system, allowing you to connect your devices, such as bluray players and gaming consoles, to your hifi speakers.
Receivers feature a variety of services offered in one device: amplification, pre-amplification, and tuning. They are cost-effective, simple, and save space. The biggest drawbacks of an AV receiver are reduction in quality compared to separate devices, and inefficient upgrading. If one aspect of the receiver needs to be updated, the entire device must be replaced. Amplifiers provide high quality amplification compared to receivers, but you must also purchase a preamplifier and a tuner to complete your system. These are recommended for hifi audio systems geared toward music or professional cinema purposes. Selby offers 2-channel hifi amps as well as multizonal amplifiers, suited for use with sound systems reaching multiple rooms of the home, typical for in-wall or in-ceiling speakers. Some amplifiers are “integrated”, meaning they have the features of a receiver included, but are designed to preserve high quality amplification.
In terms of choosing a device, the channel number indicates the number of speakers in your system, with the decimal place separating the number of subwoofers. For example, 7.2 indicates a device suited for a speaker system with 7 various surround speakers and two subwoofers.