As I'm continuing to refine the details of my soon-to-be-built media room, another detail has arisen: wall plates or not? Or more specifically, I realize that they are nice aesthetically, but will they affect sound quality significantly? While they theoretically will degrade the signal by introducing additional connections, does it make a practical (audible) difference? I'm thinking of having wall plates in both the equipment closet and the media room, so that a typical audio signal will go like this:

receiver -> 12ga wire -> wall plate -> 12ga wire (in wall) -> wall plate -> 12 ga wire -> speaker

Wall plates would be great b/c the media room is going to be prewired by the builder, and I'm still not sure exactly where I'll want to place my speakers. Parts Express seem to have good prices on what I'd need.

How about video wall plates? I was thinking of putting a wall plate with connections for HDMI/component/S-video on the front edge of my riser, to faciliate connecting a video game console. Does introducing a pass-through connector affect the video signal appreciably? DVI Gear seems to have some nice wall plates also.

I tried searching for previous posts on wall plates, and there were only a handful. Any thoughts/advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

Dennis, as long as the connections are tight the wall plates won't affect the sound at all. The "additional connections" are totally inconsequential.

Unless they were made of non conductive material. :P

Yes, if that's the case, the speakers will seem to "disappear".

I used wall plates in our theater, however i ended up taking off the ones for the rears because they looked soo much nicer flush mounted. Im keeping the wall plates for the fronts and center though.

What about for video?

I did use wallplates for a secondary component and composite video at the front of my room, and for a composite to the projector if need be. But i used a component cable straight through for the projector. It was just a bettercables silver serpent. All the other video cables i just used studio grade quad sheild Rg6 I got some of the decora inserts and just drilled a hole large enough for the cable to come out, while still keeping with the clean apperance.

I didnt install any DVI or HDMI, or Svideo cables.