Receivers, the heart of your home theater system, deliver depth, clarity of sound and power.

These are our favorites.

The Yamaha RX-V385 offers a lot for its suggested price tag, including a powerful 5.1 channel amplifier, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio decoding for Blu-ray Discs. Built-in Bluetooth also allows for direct streaming from compatible devices such as smartphones, and the receiver can send audio to Bluetooth-compatible speakers or headphones.

The SCENE function offers preset or custom listening and viewing modes. One feature I particularly like is the Silent Cinema headphone surround output.