Firstly let me preface this by saying all you have been very helpful with my questions, and I hope I am not bordering on a pain in the a$$!! It's kinda weird, cause I loved high end audio when I was 16 to about 25 or so, bought stuff I had no right buying. Then, 15 years later I started seeing this girl that has a great H.T. system, and I said man things of changed, but my enjoyment for sound and pure music has not. So you have a resurected fanatic here!!

OK, what is the best hook up with patch cords, all of my componants will support optic connects, or are high quality RCA type better. what about s-video, what gives the best resoltion, and detail. I am currently running all speakers with 14 ga. and sodered banana plugs, any thoughts, mostly confused on the video end, that was non-existant in my day, Man, 40 sure seems old, huh??? Jon

This might help with your quest.
http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/audioprinciples/cables.htm

Here's another....
http://www.hometheatermag.com/cables/

For video I use component (best analog), SVIDEO (Good Analog) and composite (ok analog). Also, I use DVI for all of my digital video sources because that's the only option I have.

Audio I use both optical and coax.
Toslink - I use for my DVD and CD player because my receiver has better DAC's than the DVD or CD player.
If you have better DAC's in your source(s) then you can or should use analog to take advantage of the DAC's in the source(s), I recently learned this the hard way .
All analog interconnects are 75 Ohm with RCA ends, I use Canare.
www.bluejeanscable.com

Digital cable- (not coax) I buy from Liberty wire and cable. I can it at a good price.

Speaker wire- I didn’t get carried away, I bought the Liberty Ultra cap 12/2 .

Hopefully this helps and other people chime in.

Tom

"Man, 40 seems so old"!!!!!!!

Boy, is Jack gonna be upset. After he gets up from his nap. And wipes the drool off his chin.

14. ga is fine (buy bulk from Home Depot - they'll cut it for you. Component is best for video if you don't have DVI. Blue Jeans Cables has excellent cables at a reasonable price. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Jon, I hope that you've learned to be wary of the term "high-end". Audio discussion is rife with nonsense which attempts to divide equipment into different classes, but unless price alone is the factor under discussion, it's pure hogwash. In audio there's very little correlation between price and sound quality.

Optical and coaxial connections are equal in quality, but the coaxial cable is a bit more sturdy and should be slightly preferred. Look for very inexpensive cables; here in particular price is meaningless.

Yes, other factors being equal, the S-video connection will give a somewhat better picture than the composite connection.

Anybody have feedback on the Axiom cable line? It's not mentioned too much here.