Reviews of Home Theater Accessories and Cables.

For information on home theater furniture and furniture accessories see the HT Room Design section .

There are several different schools of thought when it comes to home theater accessories and the connectivity of home theater system components, especially with regards to the speakers and speaker cables .

The first school declares that specialized cables (usually meaning expensive) are needed to ensure accurate signal transmission from one component to the next (ie. DVD player to receiver to TV). This school believes that if top-quality "monster" cables are not used, signal transmission suffers and thus video and audio quality suffers.

Most notably this school dictates that connections from the receiver to the speakers be mediated by large diameter specialized speaker cables which limit distortion and ensure sound quality.It depends of course on what you're looking for, so this page will explain a few different schools. It is recommended of course to invest in something that will last a long time and do you good service. It is also worth getting some Aviva or other insurance for your home theater system to make doubly sure that it lasts you for several years of happy film-viewing! Let's move onto the second school

The second school in the connectivity of home theater components field declares that connectivity can be performed by basic accessories, and that specialized expensive cables are wasteful and unneeded. This school claims that connecting the speakers to the receiver can be accomplished with basic lamp wire.

Lamp wire costs pennies per foot while some premier "monster" cables cost upwards of 5$ per yard. This school claims that connections between DVD player and receiver need not be mediated by gold-plated cables which cost 2-5 times more than standard connectors and cables. Certainly this school of thought is cheaper than the other.

I am not going to tell you which school I believe is correct. Truth is, I am smack dab in the middle with regard to home theater accessories and cables. I am of the third school of thought. On one hand I believe most of us will not have high-quality enough home theater systems, that cable selection would noticeably affect performance.

That is, I am admitting that signal transmission may indeed suffer with lower quality speaker, S-video, coaxial, or optical cables. However, lower to middle level systems probably will not have the performance to reflect such a minute change in signal degradation from these inferior cables.

On the other hand I do believe that larger diameter cables (monster), or gold-plated connectors are worth consideration. It would be unfortunate if you did have a system which was capable of performing better than it currently was, but you purchased low quality cables and connectors. Specialized audio cables do make a difference.

Imagine you had spent a total of $2000 on home theater equipment (big screen TV, speakers, home theater receiver and DVD player) and it performed poorly simply because you spent $20 on all your cables rather than $100. Sub-optimal audio and video performance from a system due to cheaper choice of home theater accessories is a shame indeed.

I'm stopping short of saying you get what you pay for because it depends on the raw performance capabilities of your system in general. Perhaps my take home point is to buy better quality cables and accessories. Home theater accessories and cables are a minor cost of your system and could make the difference between a good performer and a great performer.

PLEASE - If there are HT accessory reviews you don't see and would like me to investigate and include here, please email us through our Contact Us page with your request.