Cables and Connections

Are they a myth or do they have meaning?

Every system needs cables and connectors, but what do you choose and do they offer improvements? The answer to those questions will always bring you back to the equipment. Like all other aspects of choosing a system the overall performance will only be as good as its weakest link.

On that basis, follow the advice of the people who know your equipment well and where appropriate audition the recommended cable as you would with any other component in the system. If this is not possible within the constraints of your own system then recreate a representative system within the store. The best to hope for with cables is getting out more of what you already like about your system.

It’s worth noting that although you can tweak the performance with cables by improving tonality, presence, detail, picture quality etc. you will never make a poor system a fabulous system in a cost-effective manner. However, carefully chosen cables will give ‘pound for pound’ as good an upgrade as you can hope for.

Areas to consider include:

The AV system

• Power cords and power distribution block

• Analogue interconnect cable

• Digital CO-axial or optical interconnect cable

• Speaker cable

• Subwoofer cable

• Scart cable

• Component video cable

• S-video cable

• HDMI/DVI cable

Loud & Clear operate a cable home loan service. Check in-store for further advice and cable loan availability.