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Thursday, April 1, 2010

Choosing the Right Speaker Cables

So you're starting to put a home theater together and you're looking to setup a killer audio system. It's true that good audio adds another layer to your overall home theater experience. You've been looking for the perfect speaker cables to use so that whenever you watch an action movie on DVD, you can feel your face vibrating every time the hero fires a series of shots with an armalite. You've been looking around and the prices of some of the speaker cables make you cringe.
Take heart. A high price doesn't guarantee quality. There are lower priced speaker cables out in the market. You just have to know what you are looking for.
Because of its impressive conductive attributes and low-set resistance, majority of the speaker cables are comprised of cheap braided copper. Other cables, on the other hand, use silver, which is even more highly conductive. Silver, however, is costlier. Certain impurities can make perform poorly as compared to copper. This is precisely the reason why audio experts opt for the prior.
As a general rule of thumb when it comes to these cables, sound signals depreciate with the distance. This means that shorter runs are more preferable than longer ones. Moreover, compared to thinner wires, thicker wires sustain the integrity of the signal better and have low-set resistance, even with the distance. Its low resistance allows lower resonance frequencies to get through. You can check the thickness of each speaker cable with the gauge. Lower gauges mean thicker wires. An 18- to 20-gauge is thin compared to the 10- and 12-gauge wires which are quite thick.
Music lovers will get more if they achieve some balance, such that they pick a 10-gauge subwoofer with a 12-gauge surround. Subwoofers are great bass speakers for home theater systems. Using a thick cable (around 10-gauge) can offer good replication and low resonance.
There are a number of high priced high end bass speakers in the market, but remember that high price points doesn't always ensure high quality. You'll do just as well with a more affordable option.
One thing you have to do when dealing with speaker cables is think about how you are going to organize your wires. Part of what makes a good speaker system is a well-organized wiring system that is discreetly connected behind the home theater system. It is easy to read up on ways to do that.

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