• PC World
• »Audio/Video

Did Santa leave an HDTV under the tree last year? If you've been very, very good, he might leave a new surround-sound receiver this time. If he doesn't, you may have to take matters into your own hands.

Your big excuse: high-definition audio. This year, midrange and higher audio video receivers, or AVRs--costing $500-plus--will have HD audio decoders built in, so you'll be able to connect a Blu-ray, HD DVD, or high-def cable/satellite box to your receiver via HDMI and enjoy uncompressed audio at higher bit rates.

The difference between HD and stereo audio is like the difference between HD and standard video. Once you go high-def, you won't go back.

If you already have an HD or high-end DVD player plugged into your home theater, the change won't be quite as dramatic, because your player already decodes HD audio. Even so, having this capability built into the receiver will give you better control and a richer sound experience, according to Jeff Talmadge, director of product development at Denon, a manufacturer of audio equipment.

Speaker Overload

Your new AVR is also likely to be a 7.1 system, though you may not have much use for the extra two speaker ports. Nearly all movies are mixed for 5.1, in part because Hollywood hasn't settled on how to use those other two channels, says Craig Eggers, senior product manager for Dolby. He expects the industry to nail down a definition of 7.1 sometime next year. If your receiver supports Dolby Pro Logic IIx, it can convert a 5.1 soundtrack to 7.1 sound.

Of course, if you have $5500 to spare, you can buy an 11.2 receiver from Yamaha and be set for the next decade. But unless you have a dedicated home theater room or are a single guy in a cave, you're unlikely to have all those speakers and wires cluttering your house.

Panasonic and Samsung offer 5.1 systems with wireless rear speakers, which reduces the wiring problem slightly. A bigger trend, though, is virtualization--that is, single-cabinet systems that mimic the effect of surround sound.

Improvements in digital signal processing allow manufacturers to generate surround-sound effects through ever smaller boxes, says Vineet Ganju, marketing manager for Texas Instruments' Performance Audio division. For $800 to $1800 you'll find one-box systems from firms like Boston Acoustics, Philips, Polk Audio, and Yamaha that sound as good as many multispeaker setups--minus the clutter.

Tune In All Over

The future of your receiver is connectivity. Denon has a new line of Wi-Fi-enabled receivers that can stream music from your PC, your iPod, or Internet radio stations. These devices start at $1600, but prices have dropped 20 percent in a year, Talmadge says--and that trend should continue. (See our chart of streaming media player alternatives.)

As surround sound grows more mainstream, it will move into your car, your handheld media player, and even your phone, says Shawn Hopwood, director of evangelism for Coding Technologies, developers of the AAC codecs.

Its MPEG Surround format can deliver full six-channel audio in half the bandwidth of a stereo MP3 file. MPEG Surround codecs are being added to PCs this fall and handhelds next year. Plug in Bluetooth headphones that can do surround-sound virtualization (they're coming), and you'll be able to have a surround-sound experience anywhere--no home theater necessary. Sounds good to me.