Accessories

HOME CINEMA CABLING

The quality of cables you use to connect your home cinema components together are just as important as the cabling you might use for a two channel hi-fi system. It would be a pity to spend a lot of money on your amp, DVD or flat screen TV for example and never see or hear fully what you have spent your hard earned money on .If you think about it for a minute how does the signal travel between components via cables and if they are poor in quality then the quality of signal generated will be degraded.
    
Many of the cables in use for this application are similar to those used for hooking up a hi-fi. You will use RCA phono to phono cables both for audio, video, subwoofer and digital data transfer. Manufactuers making cables for each use. Video and audio transfer can be done via 21 pin SCART leads, S-VHS, component and more often today with flat screen TVs an HDMI cable.
    
If you intend to use a long run of cable then quality requirement increases. Once you go over 5 metres of length any video transfer lead be it s VHS, component or HDMI, must be of even better quality and we would never recommend using any length of composite lead as the picture quality you would get using a projector or flat panel would be very poor.
   
Speaker cable is vital too, and many customers refuse to consider these cables either. Again you will only hear your system to its fullest potential if you get this right. With home cinema movie applications the three front speakers need the best cables as 70% of the sound comes out of the center speaker and while not as vital the fronts are still more important than the rears. If you plan to play CDs then  100% of the sound will come out of the left and right speakers if you are listening to music in two channel mode. If SACD and DVD audio is a consideration then all cables for front, centre, rear and subwoofer must be equal in quality.
   
As HDMI cables can carry digital audio data we can see a time when the co-ax and fibre optic cable will be used less but at the present time they are still important and must be used to carry Dolby and DTS Digital sound between your DVD player and surround sound amplifier so again it is vital to pick the best.
   
It is generally felt that as a starting point you should budget between 10%-20% of your budget on cables and we will be able to talk you through the various types and where best to allocate most funds and for what application.
 
   
There are many brands of cables available today but we have some that we recommend for home cinema use and those are liberty, QED professional and domestic, TCI and Wireworld.

While we try to keep as many options in stock, generally we mainly keep the more popular types and lengths, so please contact us to check if we have what you need; if not we can order it in within a few days.

HOME CINEMA FURNITURE

Unlike hi-fi furniture most home cinema customers choose furniture for different reasons mainly functional and aesthetics, unlike a hi-fi enthusiast who puts sound quality before looks. It is now possible to do both with functionality, excellent looks and sound quality. Many companies who make hi-fi furniture with an eye to sound quality now make AV or home cinema furniture too.
      
There are now many companies who make these items and some offer multiple choices within a range, such as glass colour, spacing of shelves, upright materials etc because of this wealth of choice it is impossible to list all options here.
     
We list here our most popular brands, followed by those we can also get.
     
Due to the many options available we don’t carry stock, except for display furniture. Normal procedure is for you to pick a brand and options and we order it in. This takes from one to two weeks usually.

BRANDS AVAILABLE

Alphason, Block, B Tech, Custom Design, Future Glass, Gregsons, Hamilex, Iso Blue, Kuban, Machines for Living, Optimum International, Sanus, Sonorous, Soundstyle, Stands Unique, Spectral and Vogels.