Home Theatre - What Difference Do Cables Make?
2199
Product Reviews > Consumer Electronics
Mar 1, 2007
Warren Thompson
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. 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.
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. 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.
Write a Review
Add to My Favorite
Refer it to Friend
Report Article
Other links owned by this user
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
Category:
Other links at Product Reviews > Consumer Electronics
Whether you are buying your first DVD Player or replacing an old one it?s important to know what?s available on the market at the moment. It?s also useful to know what some of the terminology means ? many of us think terms like HD and Progressive Scan
Category:
When considering any electronics purchase there is usually more than enough brands and models to choose from and it can even start to get confusing for the average person who is not an electronics equipment whiz. Fortunately, the internet is a vast
Category:
Barcode scanners are light emitting devices that are used to read barcodes. Usually attached to a computer or laptop via PS2 or RS-232, the data collected is stored on a computer for processing or storage. It is now used in many different industries such
Category:
4. Best LCD TVs
Buying an LCD TV is more of an art than a purchase. Originally LCD TVs were available in only smaller sizes, but now they are available in sizes as big as 50 inches. Whether big or small screen, LCD TVs suffer from certain flaws: they have lower contrast
Category:
Do you need to have a ecoding of you telephone convesations fo legal, covet o even taining puposes? Thee ae many types of digital voice ecodes available. Once such ecode has a five hou ecoding capacity and featues a calle ID, which
Category:
Site Sponsor
Directory Statistics
Articles: 68205
Categories: 501
Yahoo Entertainment
