Can today's home theaters that come with blueray players be used as receivers?

[MariyaShteynberg]

Or do I need a traditional receiver to use the surround sound. Pros and cons of both?

 

[GrumpyMac]

The box systems are Disk Players with attached speakers.

Some of them have 1 input but it is usually left/right analog. Think "MP3" player.

Thats it.

They do play disks pretty well and some people love them. But as soon as you try to hook up to get sound from your TV, game system, media server, bluray player, etc. - you learn what you gave up for the low price.

In my opinion: you only buy these box systems if you are really broke, you are sending it to college with a kid and dont care if it comes back or you have a technology-impatient elder that needs a simple to use system.

Hope this helps.