Home Theater Civics, 7th Grade

But who shall receive the receiver?

The place: Philadelphia. The year: 1787. James Madison and Thomas Jefferson hold a heated discussion in the back room of Independence Hall. Their topic: The role of A/V receivers in the future of United States Home Theaters.

Madison argued vehemently that the role of the receiver should be limited in scope, and kept in check by the other branches: AV output, and AV input. He foresaw that a power-hungry receiver such as a 7.1CH 3D-Ready Pioneer would overwhelm the other branches with its mobile device compatibility and Dolby TrueHD, plunging the home theater experience back onto the dark ages.

However, Jefferson believed that a strong receiver was the centerpiece of a successful home theater. Without the power to amplify up to nine speaker channels and switch between HD video sources, the movie-watching experience would get bogged down in the the other branches, leading to maddening incrementalism.

In the end, the two agreed to a compromise in which the receiver acted as a strong executive, but remained answerable to both the media source and audio/video display. This same system is still in use today, and remains one of the most enduring examples of entertainment systems in the world.

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