receiver for a home theatre system

[kulki]

Over the past few moneths I have noticed quite afew hot deals regarding home theatre systems. I have a 20 year old TV with a old VCR and a cheap DVD player. I was wondering if I could buy a Home theatre system which comes with just a bunch of speakers. I cant understand why one would need receivers for. The DVD player does the 5.1 decoding, so I am at a loss to understand the reason why people buy receivers. DO I have to buy a reciever inorder to be able hook up the speakers?
thanks

 

[Spendthrift]

you pretty much summed it up yourself. its impossible to power speakers without a reciever/amplifier. your dvd player will decode the signal but it cant power speakers.

other wise youll have 5.1 speakers sitting around your living room with no sound coming out of them. kind of a bummer, at least in my mind.

 

[kulki]

well my computer speakers which are 400watts dont seem to require any kind of special amplifiers. Why is that? Also I thought that these speakers would be externally powered. And typically are these recievers that important for the quality of sound?

 

[Spendthrift]

well your computer speakers arent really 400watts. they may be 400watts peak which means if you crank them all the way, they may put out that much power at a particularly high point in a song. but thats different than 400watts RMS which means continuous power to each speaker.

your computer speakers are self powered/amplified as are 95% of computer speakers. your sound card doesnt put out much power so the speakers need to be self-powered if they want to go very loud. you arent going to find home speakers (decent ones) that are self amplified. and yes a revciever/amplifier is important for quality sound.

 

[kgraeme]

I bought a receiver system that included the speakers. Two weeks later I was buying new speakers.

 

[kami]

Originally posted by: kulki
well my computer speakers which are 400watts dont seem to require any kind of special amplifiers. Why is that? Also I thought that these speakers would be externally powered. And typically are these recievers that important for the quality of sound?

Computer speakers usually carry $2 amps in the subwoofer or something. Yes receivers are important for the quality of sound, you need a decent one, but not a great one.

 

[kulki]

I own logitech z560 speakers and they simply sound awesome. I am so impressed by these speakers that I hate the sound coming out from my 20 yr old TV. I really am looking for a cheap alternative to get some reasonable sound. If these speakers sound so great w/o any amplifiers isnt it possible that I can get great sounding self powered speakers for around 200-300 bucks??