Home Theatre - What Difference Do Cables Make?

If you go to your local home theater store, you may be confronted by a variety of extreme sounding names for cabling: Mega Cables, Monster Cables, Uber Cables the proliferation of boutique cabling is always a source of controversy in home theater and audiophile circles. The question is, how much difference do they make, and are they worth it? Well despite the perils involved in even mentioning this topic, Im going to attempt to add something to the discussion.

The most important thing to recognize is that a cable cannot improve the sound of a home stereo system any more than an electrical wire can create extra electricity when you plug it into the wall. Thats actually a very good example, because when youre listening to audio for instance, what were hearing is an electronic representation of acoustic sounds that is to say, the actual sounds have not been captured and stuffed into a compact disc like fireflies in a childs jar they have been copied, imitated, and a representation stored on the disc as a series of numbers.

These numbers are then read and translated into electronic signals, which are sent to the speakers in order to approximate the actual sounds. With that in mind, it makes sense that poor quality wires dont physically change the sound instead its like a game of telephone, in which the band tells the CD, the CD tells the player, the player tells the wires, and the wires tell the speakers, with something being lost at every step so that the message Aunt Betty baked a pie is altered to Fat Eddy wants to cry or what should be a great live recording sounds tinny, distant, or otherwise just plain wrong.

A good cable will change the signal as little as possible, but all cables do damage your signal a bit its simply a matter of degree. As far as which cables are the best? Thats up to you or your local audio guru to decide much is up to personal preference, with the rest probably being left up to your budget to decide.

Warren Thompson is fanatic about his new home theater system. He is also a contributing writer for hometheaterfocus.com an immensely informative guide to home theater technology, with information about speaker positioning, home theater lighting, projection systems and more.

Using A Home Movie Theater Projector For That Dramatic Effect!
Setting up your own home theatre is a great way to add value to your home and it can be a refreshing thing to do after you spend lot of time in your work. A home movie theatre is very easy to build once you know some basic concepts behind the whole thing.Setting up a home theatre is nothing but creating the kind of environment you experience in a r...

Why Everyone With an HD Television Needs HDTV Cables
Over the last century, one of the greatest inventions was the television set. When it was first introduced to the mass population, it was just a wooden box with a black and white screen. How times have changed since them. Today we have television sets that are as thin as a finger and are as big as a wall. The picture quality has vastly improved...

Tips on Home Theater Speaker Placement
Home theater speaker placement is equally important as the system itself. Even if you have the best speakers, if you do not consider the proper home theater speaker placement then your equipment will not produce the best effect.However, there are so many things to consider in home theater speaker placement that the task can be really confusing. You...

HDTV Cables Give You the Full Picture
To Get the Best Video Quality Possible, You Need HDTV Cables.You have your brand new HDTV (high definition television) set, and figure you are well on your way to watching television shows and movies in glorious high definition. What you do not know is that there may be a problem that will prevent you from watching 1080p content, and instead your b...

SCSI Cables - Trouble Shooting Problems
For many years now quite a number of companies have been assisting their customers in sorting out performance problems with their SCSI subsystems. In all too many cases, overwhelmed systems integrators wind up forgoing all of their profits by making multiple trips to their clients sites in an empty handed search for system performance issues.One th...

Buying Screens and Caring For Your Home Theater Projector
If you just recently purchased a home theater projector, then your next purchase is a screen. There are so many kinds available today but you can categorize them into three basic types.Consider the following types of screens for your home theater projector:First, you can choose a permanent screen to go with your home theater projector. The screen i...

Digital Projector Ceiling Mounts - Why You Should Have One
A digital projector ceiling mount is a bracket that allows you to suspend your digital projector from the ceiling. Digital projector ceiling mounts come in a range of shapes, styles and colors, but basically they are a bracket that allows you to hang your projector from the ceiling.While many digital projector brands have custom ceiling mounts desi...