I am currently starting to get into the home theater "obsession". I bought a Harmon/Kardon AVR130 and am going to purchase the epic grandmaster speaker set in the near future. My question is about cables. I will probably buy the bulk speaker wire from axiom and also some bananna plus from here as well, and my first question is this: does anyone know if the dual plugs on this site will fit my receiver? Just by eyeing teh terminals in the back i think they might but has anyone tried this?
My second question is about subwoofer/digital coaxial cables. What is the difference (if any) between these? Do I need to buy a special type of cable for these two applications of can I use one of the RCA-type cables that I have laying around my appartment? I know that many people will probably tell me that I should buy the best cables I can afford, but if I would rather use cables that I already have (if possible) for two reasons 1) I live in an appartment and so the ambient noise levels will probably cancel out any gains I may get from more expensive cables (aslo I do not yet have a very critical ear but I will soon be working on that
) and 2) I am a student and as such I will basically be blowing my wad of cash on the receiver and speakers and would rather use substandard cables now and buy better ones as I can afford them/move into a house where the gains from cables will truly be apparent
Thanks in advance for any feedback,
Owen Sweatman
As a matter of fact, almost nobody here will tell you to buy the best cable you can possibly afford. What you should do is buy the least expensive cable of good quality. In the audio world, spending more money doesn't necessarily mean you'll get a product that sounds better. This is expecially true with cables.
That being said, a few places that we often recommend for cables are
Radio Shack (no joke),
Parts Express, and
Blue Jeans Cable.
For sub and SPDIF (digital coaxial) cables - just use any good coaxial cable. (coaxial means there is a centre core, an insulator then either a braid or foil shield around it - as opposed to just two wires running alongside each other)
Be just and fear not.
Bren R.
Are Partsexpress and Bluejean both good places to get interconnects between an amp and preamp?
I am new to the whole separates game and don't know where to look for quality cables at a good price.
If you were looking at the Partsexpress site for other cables (Component, coax, sub) would you recommend the lowest priced Dayton or the AR RCA II's?
Thanks!
Partsexpress is a great place to buy cables - anytime I don't need one "absolutelythisvery****ingminute" I buy most of my stuff professionally through them.
Bren R.
Thank you for the replies. From your responce can I understand that a coaxial cable and an RCA (the kind that has one video and two audio cables that almost anything can be hooked up with) are not the same thing?
I know that a coaxial is a single cabel, but could you use the video cable from the RCA set as a subwoofer interconnect?
HA! Excelent. Now that I know what kinds of cables I need to get I CANNOT WAIT to move in november so that I can buy some SPEAKERS!!!
Huffer,
I use Dayton interconnects in my setup, and I like them very much. I feel they are a high quality cable for mid to low prices.
RCA refers to the type of plugs on the end of the cable. Coaxial cable refers to the type of cable. In practice, the words used fairly interchangeably to refer to a coaxial cable witih RCA jacks on the ends.
Jack,
Do the Dayton's tips have that thread that "flexes" to fit inputs better? My cables have a hard time fitting on some of my inputs. When my dad bought his PSB sub, the dealer threw in a subwoofer cable made by Silversonic. My dad didn't need the cable so he gave it to me and I love the tips. They seem to adjust to the input for a perfect fit. Is what I'm saying making sense?
Ajax,
For the cables between your amp and preamp would you be using 5 (if 5.1) of these:
Coax
And on another note, can someone tell me how to get the link to stop going to the next line!
Thanks!
In reply to:
Do the Dayton's tips have that thread that "flexes" to fit inputs better?
They don't flex, but I've never had any trouble getting them on or off. They do fit snugly, but you want that. I've had other cables (AR?) that REALLY gave me problems getting them on and off.
In reply to:
For the cables between your amp and preamp would you be using 5 (if 5.1) of these?
I don't have separates so I'm not real knowledgeable about this. Those are labeled "digital" audio cables. It is my belief, that being labeled "digital" doesn't make any difference so you could use them between your pre/pro and your amp. But, wait until somebody a bit more knowledgeable confirms or denies that.
If you really want to get fancy, you could use
these from BlueJeans cable. They are a little less than double the price for a 6 foot, 5-channel cable, but they sure are slick. If you can make do with a shorter length, they also come in lengths of 2 ft., 3 ft., 4 ft., and 5 ft., which are a little cheaper.
Owen, welcome. Particularly as a student with a limited budget(which I can remember)you should minimize what you spend on wires to connect your components. The best minimization would be to zero by using what you already have, wherever possible. Don't worry about banana plugs or any other connectors for the speaker wire; the bare wire is fine unless you're going to be frequently connecting and disconnecting the speakers. As for the speaker wire itself, regular 16ga lampcord which you might already have or can get very inexpensively works as well as anything else up to 30 feet or so.
Next, you don't have to worry about the ambient noise in your apartment cancelling out the gains from expensive connecting cables because there aren't any gains to cancel out. The requirement is for a wire with an RCA connector on each end; until the length would get longer than about 40 feet or there would be some unusually heavy interference that called for extra shielding the usual inexpensive "RCA" type(RCA actually refers to the connectors rather than the cable itself)cable works well for both the sub cable and other connections. This was discussed in more detail in a reply of mine a few days ago by Steve Lampen, Belden Cable engineer. Search his name on the board and read his comments and the other matters that I linked.
The cable you have with the yellow connectors is a 75ohm coaxial cable; the other two(usually red and white)commonly aren't 75ohms, but this makes no significant difference for the wavelengths and distances involved. Any of them are usable.
Huff, the Dayton cables from Parts Express are excellent and have a relatively moderate price; certainly no more than that should be spent. Note however that the five connects between a pre and an amp just carry analog signals a few feet and don't have to be "digital"( strictly speaking there is no such thing, since any reasonably conductive metal can carry both analog and digital information), so an even less expensive cable such as
this is suitable, although of course, shipping charges wouldn't make a small buy cost-effective.
Alright, now that we have all this stuff cleared up (and, after learning YET AGAIN that as a newbie on a message board you should SEARCH for the answers to your questions because they have probably been asked before -- although I haven't seen any flames for this yet) I have one more question.
Anyone here know of a good way to hide cables? I plan to wall-mount my surrounds and I do not think that my girlfriend will like the idea of having 20 odd feet of wires snaking up the living room walls. Any one know a way to hide the wires in this case? is it worth getting the more expensive Monster Navajo wires with the white jackets so that they blend in with the white walls? Any other cheaper cables that are white that anyone knows about?
Well, thank you for the welcome and the advice. I think I will go with bananna plugs for the receiver connection because the way the terminals work is such that it is a pain to connect the bottom -ve wire and I think that the $10 I will spend on plugs is worth the inconvenience.
If you can, try running the wire along the baseboard and then up through the wall. If you rent or don't have the time and or skill to risk holes then you can buy flat wire that will stick to the wall and can be painted over. Wire Mold is another option. You can browse PartsExpress for the tools and materials needed for this type of work. I ran most of my wire through the walls, I was lucky to have all of the fish tapes, pull sticks and special drill bits to complete the project.
feel free to PM me if you have any questions.
Tom
I bought some excellent wire from Accessories4Less. It's flat, navajo white wire, no adhesive. They also sell adhesive tape to go under it that doesn't screw up the paint on the wall. Just make sure they send you the right cable; they also have adhesive backed "cable" that's pretty much two flat pieces of copper in between two pieces of tape. Looks horrid, and tears off your paint. They sent me this one by accident, and it took me a couple of days to figure that out. When I called them, they sent me the right stuff free, and said I didn't have to ship back the wrong stuff.
Anyway, my surround wires are almost invisible; I could have done a slightly better job and made them even more invisible.
They're routed up the coreners and along the ceiling corner out to the QS4s.
I agree. Ken's surround cables are very well hidden, even though they're in plain sight.
Thanks for the reply Ajax and JohnK.
JohnK, the cable that you linked to has two connectors on each end. I am under the impression that to connect an amp and pre-amp for 5.1 that you would need 5 single ended cables. Am I right here or off?
Also, just to show my total ignorance, are the connections between the amp and pre-amp usually just the regular type? Sorry I don't know what they are actually called, but just the regular ones in either mine or JohnK's link.
Thanks for all the help!
Huffer,
Think about it. 5.1 = 6 cables. (1)Left front; (2)right front; (3)center; (4)left surround; (5)right surround; (.1)subwoofer. 3 cables like the ones John linked, which are just two cables stuck together, 3x2 = 6 cables. 3 of any regular analog audio cables will work just fine.
If you'll look at your pre-amp and amp you'll see the multi-channel inputs and outputs are probably color coded (left=white; right=red) These cables typically have a red and a white connector, or a red and a black connector at each end (Red for right channel, white or black for left channel).
Most pre-amps and amps have the left front input/output(white) and right front input/output (red) beside each other; the left surround input/output (white) and right surround input/output (red) right next to each other; and the center and sub inputs/outputs (both probably black) right next to each other. So, 3 of those cords will work beautifully.
Ajax,
Thanks for the reply. I know I'm an idiot.
I was thinking that the subwoofer cable was different. And that if you had 6 cables (3X2) that you would have one too many. But I'm guessing that it wouldn't make a difference if you hooked up the 6th anyway but didn't use it because you were using a separate subwoofer cable.
I just want to order the cables so that I would have them when my gear arrives.
Thanks again for your help!
Huffer,
You're not an idiot, and I hope you didn't think I meant to imply that you were. I'm still learning, too. Glad to be of service.
Huff, Jack covered it pretty well; the main point is though you'd need 5 cables with the right connectors(they're called RCA plugs)plus probably a longer one for the sub, that doesn't mean that you necessarily would have to buy 5 separate cables. For example, you could buy 3 double cables and use 5 of the 6.
Incidentally, if you should decide to send for those Dayton cables the cost effective way isn't to order 5 singles, but rather a set of 3 plus a set of two, which costs significantly less.
Nobody told you you'd need a degree in math to figure this stuff out, did they?
Thanks for the help JohnK and Ajax.
I wouldn't have probably noticed the cost effective way to buy the cables so thank you for that JohnK.
Huffer,
John Brought up a point where I let you down. You DO need six cables, but the subwoofer cable which comes out of your pre-amp, assuming you have a powered subwoofer, goes directly to the the subwoofer and NOT to the amplifier. So, that 3rd double cord would only have one side of it used from the pre-amp's center channel output, to the amplifier's center channel input. Assuming your amp is not located on top of the sub, the other side of the cable would just not be plugged into anything, and you'd need a separate cord (like
this) to reach your sub.
By the way, some of these "double" cords can be separated if you gently pull the ends apart, thus ending up with two single cords. My Dayton cords do this.
Huffer,
another dirt-cheap place to buy cables is Princess Auto. I'm not sure whether you are familiar with PA or not, but they do have stores in Winnipeg. For any other Canadian, it might be worth checking out. They have mostly mechanical goods, but do have a decent electrical section. They had good quality 18" RCA interconnects (perfect for pre-amp to amp connections) for $1 for a pair. The interconnects were made by Rocoton who I believe was the parent company of Acoustic Research before they went broke (please correct me if I'm wrong). I picked up a few pair because you can never have too many RCAs. I also picked up a couple of pairs of more expensive ones for $8/18"pair. They were yellow and looked "cooler" so I'm using them for interconnects right now. All the RCAs were solid/good build quality. Princess Auto also has numerous cell accessories and computer cables on the cheap. Can you say "bargain bin"???
ie : a car charger for Nokia 51xx/61xx phones for $2.99
Bren R.
I had to scrap this post because Home Depot's website doesn't appear to support direcct links to certain pages. You can go to their homepage and search for a product called "cordmate".
This would be another option if you wanted to hide wire in the room. I recently spent a small fortune on this stuff, but now that everything is wired in it looks great. The only tip I've got is if you're using regular >14ga cable, you won't be able to run 2 wires through the smaller Cordmate (at least not easily). You'll need the slightly beefed-up version.
Thanks for the tip sidvicious02. I will have to check out Princess Auto.
Would you say that the RCA's that you describe are comparable to the Dayton stuff from PartsExpress? Those were the ones I was planning on getting but if the Princess Auto one's are just as good that will save me some serious $.
Could I just use 5 of them as well to set up multichannel audio from a DVD player?
Having never owned Dayton cables I can't say for sure, but from the looks of the Parts Express website, they also appear to be of rugged/good quality design. I'm sure they are all of similar quality, the only real reason I picked up the "Tsunami" brand was the pretty colours (yellow, purple, green - i picked yellow). When I unscrewed the end, the solder connections appeared to be solid. I did not really examine the cheapest Rocoton ones closely, but I'm sure they are of equal quality. You could easily use either kinds to hook up multichannel audio. Should save you some serious coin.
(must warn you though, your local Princess Audio might not have the same stock. Because they are kind of a clearance center for so many different products, they may not have the same stock another location has).