Receivers

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A radio receiver is an electronic circuit that receives its input from an antenna, uses electronic filters to separate a wanted radio signal from all other signals picked up by this antenna, amplifies it to a level suitable for further processing, and finally converts through demodulation and decoding the signal into a form usable for the consumer, such as sound, pictures, digital data, measurement values, navigational positions, etc.

In consumer electronics, the terms radio and radio receiver are often used specifically for receivers designed for the sound signals transmitted by radio broadcasting services – historically the first mass-market radio application.

Consumer audio receivers

In the context of home audio systems, the term "receiver" often refers to a combination of a tuner, a preamplifier, and a power amplifier all on the same chassis. Audiophiles will refer to such a device as an integrated receiver, while a single chassis that implements only one of the three component functions is called a discrete component. Some audio purists still prefer three discreet units - tuner, preamplifier and power amplifier - but the integrated receiver has, for some years, been the mainstream choice for music listening. The first integrated stereo receiver was made by the Harman Kardon company, and came onto the market in 1958. It had undistinguished performance, but it represented a breakthrough to the "all in one" concept of a receiver, and rapidly improving designs gradually made the receiver the mainstay of the marketplace.

Many radio receivers also include a loudspeaker.

Hi-Fi / Home theater

Today AV receivers are a common component in a high-fidelity or home-theatre system. The receiver is generally the nerve centre of a sophisticated home-theatre system providing selectable inputs for a number of different audio components like turntables, compact-disc players and recorders, and tape decks ( like video-cassette recorders) and video components (DVD players and recorders, video-game systems, and televisions).

With the decline of vinyl discs, modern receivers tend to omit inputs for turntables, which have separate requirements of their own. All other common audio/visual components can use any of the identical line-level inputs on the receiver for playback, regardless of how they are marked (the "name" on each input is mostly for the convienience of the user.) For instance, a second CD player can be plugged into an "Aux" input, and will work the same as it will in the "CD" input jacks.

Read more at Wikipedia.org