can i just hook up plain speakers directly to my dvr
Most DVRs that I have seen do not have power amplifiers, and so cannot take plain speakers. If your DVR (not just the remote, but the DVR itself) has an obvious knob or buttons on the front for Volume, then you may be in luck and can wire speakers directly to some sort of Speaker Out connections on the back panel. But in most cases, you are only going to have outputs labeled Audio Out - L - R or something like that. If this is the case, then you will need either an AV receiver (an amplifier that can drive speakers, but that can also decode things like Dolby 5.1 surround sound) OR you will need powered speakers that include their own built-in amplifier.
