The HT-TX72's receiver is a multifunctional machine with many features, which will be covered in the following pages. For now, let's stay only skin deep as we take a look at the exterior. Like the speakers, the receiver also comes in a all-black plastic case. The buttons and knob on the face of the receiver all have a metallic finish to them which gives the device a nice look.

On the left side of the receiver is the power button which, as you can see, is surrounded by a crisp blue light when the unit is turned on.

To the right of the power button are three inputs hidden by a folding face plate. The left input is really the headphone jack output, the middle input is an auxiliary input and the right input is a USB port to plug in a MP3 player or USB flash stick. More on playing files from the USB port in a bit.

As far as controls go, the front of the receiver contains enough buttons to give the user basic control over the device; playback buttons, a volume control knob, and disc selection buttons.

The back of the receiver contains all of the speaker outputs as well as a variety of other unique inputs, shown in the lower image. At the far left of the image we see a XM input which can be used to connect a XM satellite radio receiver to the HT-TX72. The wide input next to the XM input is a wireless port that accepts a TX card (not included) that will send a signal to a wireless receiving module (SWA-3000, not included) which connects to the rear speakers. This is an optional feature that can be used to eliminate long wires that stretch across the room to the rear speakers. To the right of the wireless card the inputs become more familiar with your Composite and Component video inputs and Left+Right audio inputs. Moving to the right we find the digital audio input and the HDMI IN and HDMI OUT ports. And last but not least we have the radio antenna input to enable the receiver to play FM radio.

Above is an image of how the SWA3000 wireless module works with the HT-TX72 and it's rear speakers. It's quite simple, as we previously explained just put a TX card into the back of the receiver and it then communicates wirelessly with the SWA3000 unit which is directly connected to the rear speakers making for a clean speaker wire layout.