Home Theater question (cables)

[svn2002s]

Monoprice is the way to go. Just get a good power surge protector.

[equate975]

It only matters if you are going a super long distance (for video) or you feel the needs to stick a microwave or something on your TV that's going to interfere with everything. Especially RCA, go buy anything, it won't matter.

The only thing that there could possibly be a difference on between a $2 walmart RCA cable, and something like monster would be the shielding. Like I said, unless you have a microwave sitting on your tv or some other really weird interference going around it's not going to matter.

[silversleeper]

another vote for Monoprice here!

[daniel]

monoprice is the best website on the whole internets.

[Wh33lhop]

Those monster optical cables sure are worth the money

;)

[Cha Ching]

Great thread! I know better to avoid the 'Monster Cable' ass-rape, but I didn't know about monoprice.com! I'm gonna pick up a shitload of their HDMI cables now! Thanks guys!

[th3blue]

I'm going to play devils advocate here as somebody who's into home audio.

It is very true that many of the home audio cables are a rip off. However, this does mean that any cheap cable will work. I own 3 different types of speaker cable that I have played with to find that one that I like. I have some audioquest, totem tress (silver plated), and what I'm currently using - Have Inc's canary cable (this is what many recording studios use) terminated with spades. I promise you that even if you know nothing about audio, that I could change the cables and your would hear a difference. The difference is mostly due to coating, purity, and wire gauge - there is no magic here.

With this said, I have a simple theory on where to spend your money on cables. If it a digital cable (HDMI, optical) then go cheap with monoprice or similar, but if it's an analog cable (interconnects, speaker cable) do your research and spend your money here (but not foolishly).

[Jean]

I call BS on the difference in sound by changing the high level speaker cables. From a guy who's been in hi-fi audio since childhood.

[th3blue]

think carefully... do you deny that gauge of wire is capable of making any difference?

it's not magic, it's science.

I'm using $200 worth of cable for my bi-powered double run, nothing insane. I'm not one of these people saying the $10,000 stuff is worth buying, but you can certainly have inadequate, and silver vs copper do have different sounds. (especially with tweeters)