A home theater is a wonderful thing in so many ways, and I’m very happy with mine. Unfortunately, price is an issue that’s difficult to ignore. There’s a lot that goes into building a home theater, even if you aren’t doing any construction. In my experience, the pain point wasn’t even the speakers, especially since you’re able to start small with cheaper speakers if you want to. You can’t do that with a receiver because if you start with something cheap, you’ll likely be upgrading before you know it.

The receiver is the mothership of your setup, and you should get something that can handle anything you throw at it. This means you need know how many speakers you plan to add, what audio formats you want, and what kind of connectivity you want from your receiver. My Denon S760H is a 7.1 receiver with numerous HDMI ports and Dolby Atmos support. That was exactly what I was looking for, and this Denon fit my price point nicely when I bought it a few years ago.

Sadly, 2026 hasn’t been kind to us with prices, so receivers aren’t cheap to find. There are quite a few ways to keep the price down, and you should do anything you can to save some cash that you can put toward other parts of your setup. Believe it or not, but refurbished receivers are an excellent way to do that.

Refurbished receivers are much cheaper

Save a few hundred dollars

It goes without saying that buying something used or refurbished is a good way to save cash, but when we’re talking about receivers, it’s a massive price cut. Using the same receiver I have as an example, a refurbished version of it slashes $300 off the MSRP directly from Denon. Anything I bought refurbished has worked great, and I couldn’t even tell if it was refurbished to begin with.

When it comes to saving a few hundred, I don’t see much of a reason not to go for refurbished. You’re going to save a lot of money, and if there are problems, you can always send it back. Sure, this S760H is several years old at this point, but I’m still using mine without an issue. If you can snag a deal like this, I don’t see why you wouldn’t jump on it.

Refurbished still has a warranty

Better than used in this regard

I picked up a receiver from Goodwill for a few bucks, and while it worked just fine, I took a risk by doing that. When you pick stuff up from thrift stores or yard sales, you essentially roll the dice on whether it works or not. In the case of eBay, you can usually get a refund, but that’s not the case everywhere. When you buy something refurbished, you’re typically covered the same way you would be if you bought something new. I haven’t seen any example of a refurbished electronic not coming with some sort of protection.

Using that same Denon receiver as an example, you’re covered with a 30-day return policy if you buy refurbished. This gives you ample opportunity to discover any problems that can arise and allow you to get all your money back. That beats a yard sale any day for me, and it’s great for my piece of mind. As I said, receivers aren’t cheap at all, so knowing you’re covered is a good thing. I bought a refurbished PS1 memory card from eBay that came with a 1-year warranty, so there’s a lot of coverage if you buy from the right storefront. Just keep an eye out for what’s being offered.

Cuts down on e-waste

Nice for the environment

I’ll be honest and say that eliminating e-waste isn’t a primary factor in me buying a receiver, but it’s a nice bonus. E-waste is a big problem, and I’m definitely contributing to it. I have so many old game consoles, TVs, cables, etc. just lying around and collecting dust. I don’t really know what to do with these devices, so it’s a mix of hoarding and feeling weird about getting rid of something that once had some value. Many stores offer electronics recycling, so that’s something to consider if you have a bunch of devices stacking up in your basement or closet that you don’t know what to do with.

A refurbished electronic, whether it’s a receiver or something else, gives that old device some new life. As I said earlier, the Denon S760H receiver isn’t a new receiver by any means, but getting it refurbished keeps it alive and relevant for longer than it would have otherwise. It also helps that it supports many modern features, so it doesn’t feel like it’s from 2021. The Goodwill receiver I grabbed is a Yamaha that dates back to before 4K HDMI took hold. This means I don’t even plug any devices into it since it’s just 1080p, but it still works perfectly find for audio, even if it doesn’t support Atmos. It’s nice to give things like this some new life, because there’s nothing wrong with them other than the fact that they’re old.

It’s more reliable than regular used

You know it works

Refurbished and used don’t mean the same thing, but I can see why people think they do. Refurbished typically means the seller has extensively tested the product, and when you buy it, it’s almost guaranteed to work. If it doesn’t, you can just return it and get your money back. Buying something used is much more of a gamble. If you’re at a yard sale or flea market and see a receiver, sales are often treated as final, even if you get home and find out the device doesn’t work. Fortunately, that hasn’t ever happened to me, but I see people online talk about it often enough to the point where it’s bound to happen if you buy enough used things.

A refurbished product doesn’t have those risks because it’s treated much more like a regular purchase. You’re often given a warranty and lengthy return window, and you know the product has been tested before going up for sale. A lot of people at garage sales will grab old electronics and just put them up for sale without knowing if they work. That’s why it’s nice to see places like Goodwill have outlets you can use to test things, but you need more time to test a receiver, and you won’t really know if you have problems unless you can plug it into a TV and start testing several things. I trust that manufacturers selling refurbished products do all that testing for me, so it takes out a lot of the guesswork.