The best stereo receivers are the heart of your home entertainment setup and the most important audio device you need for any home theater setup. They are a necessity for any surround sound speaker setup and the best path for integrating smart home functionality into your entertainment system.

Anyone building a home theater setup or looking to take their existing setup to the next level of sonic and immersiveness needs a great receiver to anchor the entire project.

Yamaha offers consumers a great middle ground in stereo receivers, with enough power to drive your speaker setup and enough features to give you options, and the R-S202BL earns our top spot here for doing all of these things well. The best thing about the 202BL is that you get a 100W/channel stereo receiver with just enough features to feel premium at a very non-premium price, without the flashiness that can significantly increase the cost of your receiver.

To be clear, this unit is a true stereo receiver that offers nothing like surround sound outputs or HDMI pass-through. It is an amplifier that can power up to two pairs of 8 ohm passive speakers for up to 100W of processing. It is a good match for a turntable setup as well as a basic TV entertainment setup. There are 4 RCA inputs and 1 RCA output to expand your system to a separate receiver if you need more channels. It also has an onboard radio receiver for 40 AM/FM stations.