The heart of a home theater audio system is a surround sound receiver (or an A/V preamplifier surround processor and a separate component multi-channel power amplifier), and the soul is the surround sound speaker system.

But there's a lot more to setting up a home theater than just connecting a bunch of speakers and a subwoofer using speaker wire and a subwoofer cable to an A/V receiver.

You also need to connect each of your source components such as Blu-ray/DVD/CD players, video game consoles, and HDTV receivers/DVRs to the inputs on the back of the surround sound receiver, preferably using just a single HDMI cable.

Of course, you will also need to send HD video out to your high definition television or home theater projector, preferably using just a single HDMI cable. You may also need to run an Ethernet cable from your home network to any network-ready equipment. Depending on your particular home theater system components and situation, you might also need to separately purchase floor stands or wall/ceiling mounting brackets for speakers, entertainment center furniture and/or wall mounts for holding A/V components and/or television, and perhaps some additional digital audio, component video, and other audio/video cables. All powered components should be plugged into a home theater surge protector instead of directly into AC power outlets.