Clarification on Audio Visual hardware recommendations

Question

I can't see anywhere in the site scope, help or meta posts that specifically covers 'audio-visual' hardware - receivers, amps, speakers etc.

I mentioned in comments under A/V receiver that can increase the level of LFE channel mixed into front left and right channels output in case when no subwoofer is used that not only did I think it too broad, but also off-topic as being 'not connected to a computer.'

Now, of course, we're all aware that in these days of HTPC, certainly one of the things that's going to be connected to an AVR [audio-visual receiver/amp] is going to be a computer.

Does this make AVRs on topic? …and more broadly, home theatre speakers or similar peripherals?

I think not, personally. I think it's too large a Pandora's box to open. I also don't think we are ever going to be competition for such as AVForums who have had this topic covered for decades.

We have many questions on televisions; I see crossover in this as TVs can be monitors too, but only a couple of questions specifically on AVR - A/V receiver for HDMI, optical audio in and AVR + Hi-Fi speakers? which I see I've already commented on, yet remains open. [Should have been closed as too broad anyway, imo.]

Answer 1

Now, of course, we're all aware that in these days of HTPC, certainly one of the things that's going to be connected to an AVR [audio-visual receiver/amp] is going to be a computer.

Does this make AVRs on topic? …and more broadly, home theatre speakers or similar peripherals?

It seems fair to allow people to ask for AVR recommendations if we allow questions for headphones and speakers. For any of those products they would typically be plugged in to a computer or device that falls under the "primary computing platform" definition.

However, headphones and speakers don't satisfy the "can perform more than one task" requirement in the meta post. Furthermore it doesn't define what a "task" is so it's hard to count how many tasks any particular product is able to perform. I would like to see this definition of "hardware" get an update to clear all of this up.

AVRs are able to satisfy the "can perform more than one task" requirement but they probably also fall under the same case as the car in the counter examples; The computer inside the AVR can't do meaningful work without being hooked up to a bunch of AV ports, it is too specialized.