Thanks for the correction, Gonk. I think I had a brain ____ at 11:00 last night due to all the cables running through my mind.

Another mistake I picked up on, JonIsland. Where I say, at the beginning, if the speaker wire run is over 25', it should be to use 12 gauge wire. Sorry for the typo.

JonIsland, a quick question. What are you using for your Center and Surround speakers?

C/L/R 2300 for center. Onix rockets for 750 sig rears. By the way thanks for the post, very helpful information! I've already ordered the stuff you suggested from Outlaw

also, cable and my hdtv ofer dvi/hdmi. Can you tell a diference in quality of picture when using these cables?

Looks like you're all set. Good luck. After you finish this, you'll be an expert on the various connections and wiring.

By the way, I'm a Def Tech guy too. I've got the 7001s, 3000 and BPVXs. I'm sure you will be very happy with the set up you've got.

I don't know on the DVI/HDMI. There are probably others on the forum who can weighin better on the quality difference. For sure you would lose the video switching aspect of the 950, if you elect to use those connections. I'm using a Component connection on my home theater which features an Infocus 5700 front projector, but I also have an EDTV plasma in the room just to watch TV which utilizes a Composite connection. When I'm watching an HD channel on the plasma, it's hard to imagine the picture being much better, even though it uses the inferior composite connection. I've got two other HD ready TVs in the house, with HD feeds, utilizing the Component cables and their pictures look great, but not dramatically better than the plasma with the supposedly inferior connection.

The people who installed my projector say that they prefer Component because everytime they compared it to DVI, the DVI would be a little softer, less sharp. The advantage of the DVI/HDMI is that it feeds both Video and Audio to your TV. What you might consider, if the TV will allow it, is to use a DVI/HDMI feed from your cable box to the TV to use to just watch TV, without your 950 on. Then run the Component cables from the 950 to a component input on the TV that is different from the input that the DVI/HDMI is plugged into. Then you have some real flexibility and the capability of making a real comparison for yourself by switching between two different video sources on you TV.

I don't know on the DVI/HDMI. There are probably others on the forum who can weighin better on the quality difference. For sure you would lose the video switching aspect of the 950, if you elect to use those connections. I'm using a Component connection on my home theater which features an Infocus 5700 front projector, but I also have an EDTV plasma in the room just to watch TV which utilizes a Composite connection. When I'm watching an HD channel on the plasma, it's hard to imagine the picture being much better, even though it uses the inferior composite connection. I've got two other HD ready TVs in the house, with HD feeds, utilizing the Component cables and their pictures look great, but not dramatically better than the plasma with the supposedly inferior connection.

The people who installed my projector say that they prefer Component because everytime they compared it to DVI, the DVI would be a little softer, less sharp. The advantage of the DVI/HDMI is that it feeds both Video and Audio to your TV. What you might consider, if the TV will allow it, is to use a DVI/HDMI feed from your cable box to the TV to use to just watch TV, without your 950 on. Then run the Component cables from the 950 to a component input on the TV that is different from the input that the DVI/HDMI is plugged into. Then you have some real flexibility and the capability of making a real comparison for yourself by switching between two different video sources on you TV.

The general opinion that I've seen online is that DVI on cable boxes currently offers little or no benefit over component. In some cases, I've heard folks prefer component, but not always. In theory, DVI has the potential to be better, if utilized fully, but the cable boxes and companies are not quite there yet. When I was shopping for my HDTV earlier this year, HDMI was not offered on cable boxes, so I don't know what performance HDMI might offer if available - but I would expect it to be similar to DVI since the boxes would likely produce the digital audio signal the same way. HDMI will carry digital audio, but DVI will not.

For what it's worth, here's what I do: component video from DVD player and DVD recorder to the 950's component inputs with the 950's component output to the HDTV, DVI from HD cable box to HDTV, digital audio from all three sources to 950 plus analog audio from HD cable box to 950. I would probably use component with the HD cable box if I didn't have the DVD recorder in the setup.