What is a amplifier in your home theater for?

I'm interested in upgrading to a very good home theater and I know a lot of what too look for in Receivers but what exactly is a Amplifier for in your home theater system?? And how do you hook one up?

Every AV receiver has multiple amplifiers inside. An amplifier simply takes the low voltage signal coming out of a source (like a CD player, or a cable box) and turns it into a different higher voltage that makes speakers do what they need to do, and that is "move air" to make sound.

So if you get a good AV receiver, you won't need any separate amplifiers. Unless you want to go all audiophile with your bad self. Some people buy a good AV receiver and never use the internal amplifiers, they only use the receivers as pre-amplifiers (as a surround sound decoder) and send every channel out of the pre-amp side to separate outboard dedicated amplifiers. They think this sounds better.

They are doofy. They are no longer enjoying the movie and are all caught up in "how it sounds." Great. As in, "Hey, that's great there... hope you're having a good time."

Meanwhile, you, the smarter of the two, has found an AV receiver that fits your budget and is already having a great time enjoying the movies and music, while the other dude is still tweaking around with his amplifiers. Well the amplifier is what drives the speakers. Aka makes the signal from your sources loud enough to be heard. Now most of you entry to even some high end home theater receivers have integrated amps in them so all you need to do is hook up your speakers to it and configure it. The higher end systems will have a pre-amp to process the sound and then send it to the amp. If your looking for a good home theater system go to a CEDIA (Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association) dealer www.cedia.net , they will help you find what your looking for. Hi there.A Receiver is an Amplifier in your home theater .A Receiver is made up of three sections: Tuner,Preamplifier Processor, and a number of Power Amplifiers .All these together in the one unit are called a Receiver. You can also purchase the three components separately which usually gives you a better quality sound from your speakers.In any audio system the signal is passed down a chain.Sound travels from the Source components (DVD or CD player,VCR, Satellite etc.) to the Surround Sound Processing Preamplifier also known as the Control Preamplifier. Audio and Video signals are sent to the Preamp which selects the input source (picking which source you want to listen to or watch.) processes the sound and controls the amount of power the Power Amplifiers give to the speakers.The surround processor that is built into the Preamp.takes the audio signals from the Source components (DVD,CD Player, VCR, Satellite etc.) and directs them to the appropriate Power Amplifiers.Any small error by the Preamp.,such as noise,distortion,or harshness,will be multiplied when the Power Amplifiers make a bigger copy and send it to the Speakers.Preamplifiers are the heart of the system.