Difference between receivers and DVD HT systems

[JamesKurtovich]

Hi, this has been a question that's pawed at me since my budding days as a HT enthusiast. If you go into a retailer, like Wal-Mart, you might find one kind of receiver and the rest are DVD. Meaning... instead of a receiver with input/output for various different kinds of consoles.. you have a 5-disc DVD changer of sorts. Is this a receiver with a built in DVD player or just a DVD player capable of producing a 5.1 sound?

Thanks.

[kpkelley]

Originally Posted by JamesKurtovich

Is this a receiver with a built in DVD player or just a DVD player capable of producing a 5.1 sound?

Thanks.

Generally the latter. They tend to try to make these as small as possible, which results in a lot of issues. It takes a lot of components to do all the things that these try to do, read and output a disc, convert the audio and video, power the speakers, etc. As such it results in having too many components too close to eachother without the proper shielding, this can lead to noise(audio or video) and distortion. Furthermore, all of this is running off of a single rather small power supply. Consequently the speakers and subwoofer can't always get all the power they need to accurately recreate the soundfield.

The only such players that can create sound and video that comes close to matching a receiver, cost much more because they user higher quality and smaller components. If given a choice between an all-in-one system and a system involving seperate components costing the same value, the seperated system will almost always give a better experience.