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, I’m 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. That’s actually a very good example, because when you’re listening to audio for instance, what we’re 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 child’s 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 don’t physically change the sound – instead it’s 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 – it’s simply a matter of degree. As far as which cables are the best? That’s 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.

Enhance your experience of Home Theater with HDMI cables

A high quality home theater is not only about high-definition televisions and DVD players. It is also about the cables used to transmit programming through these products. A type of cable that is proving to be a winner in excellent quality is the HDMI cable. HDMI stands for High-Definition Multimedia Interface, which is an audio/video connector interface used to transmit uncompressed digital signals.

HDMI provides audio/video cables that will connect electronics such as a HD-DVD player, a personal computer, a set-top box, a video game console or a Blu-ray Disc to a digital television or digital audio device. HDMI cable compatibility was also introduced to the world of digital camera and camcorder.

Why do HDMI cables?

The old adage, "If you're going to do something, do it right!" Any configuration of high-quality home theater is as good as the cables used to transmit digital information. You can have the HD-DVD player, better, more expensive in the world, but low quality cables will undermine the quality of image and sound because the transmission is simply not good enough or powerful enough for your system achieve its maximum potential. With HDMI, you're getting a high transmission quality to your quality system, which maximizes the quality of image and sound as you watch movies, use your computer, a video game, listen to music, or anything else!

Benefits and capabilities of HDMI cable

Regular analog cables convert the digital signal to analog and then send it to the television monitor. The signal is then converted to digital to be displayed, which can cause a loss of quality during the process. With HDMI cables, no conversion is required, so there's no loss of quality. HDMI cables transmit digital signals directly and also in its purest form, eliminating the need for compression.

Another benefit is that HDMI can support large-screen visualization, including plasma panels and LCDs, 625 p, 1125p or even 1440p high speed HDMI cables with 1.3. HDMI cables simplify the process of finding yourself why audio and video signals are transmitted over a single cable. In addition, HDMI cables provide users with an interface that works with any audio/video source. In other words, all your HDMI equipped components can be enhanced with pure image and sound quality. HDMI cables can support digital audio standard, as well as increased and video high definition and 8 channels digital audio. HDMI cables can also support future upgrades with plenty of bandwidth to spare.

Shopping for HDMI cables

HDMI cables come in different compatibilities, but fortunately the high-speed HDMI will support standard systems. If you plan to upgrade in the near future, it is a wise choice to go ahead and buy the high-speed cables or cable 1.3, which can carry 1080p 120 Hz video easily to any HDMI cable can support 8-channel audio, but not all cables will support special features like video Deep Color. With HDTV color depth, Look for a version number on the cables or for other tips on the packaging that the cable will support 30-bit Deep Color or True HD.

You can easily find affordable HDMI cables online. There are electronics stores online that offer all versions of HDMI cables along with other products, including computer cables, iPod accessories, computer fans, video cables, audio cables, chargers, adapters, mobile phone accessories, digital photo accessories and more.

Don't miss out on all your home theater system can offer. HDMI cables can bring you quality images and sound like never before!