Hey guys,
I just ordered the 1050 and hopefully will have it in the next couple of days. I would like to get some advice on what cables I should get. I currently don't have a tv with any inputs, so only cables I will need will be for a cd player,dual cassette and vcr. I will be getting a DVD Player at the end of this month which will replace the cd player. I'm assuming for this setup at the moment, probably just good quality RCA's, then Optical cables for the DVD ?? Does the length matter ?
Also, good speaker wire. And is it important to have the same lengtth on the wire going to the left and right speakers ? I saw somewhere that it was important to do this, but never heard of that before.

Thanks again in advance,

Jay-1

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I just didn't think they made radios like this anymore then ....there's Outlaw !!

If your TV doesn't have any composite or S-video inputs, then you'll need to have an RF modulator for your DVD player. DVD players, unlike VCRs, don't have the RF out jack you can connect to a TV's antenna input, so you'll need an RF modulator to produce one for you from one of the DVD player's other outputs.

I've bought the 1.8m Outlaw optical cable for my DVD player and I'm quite happy with it. It's far longer than I would ever need in my single rack setup.

You can get an auto switching RF modulator at Radio Shack for $30.

Here's a pretty straightforward site about speaker wire http://www.sundial.net/~rogerr/wire.htm and you can also go over to the interconnects saloon and see a myriad of discussions on speaker wire. I'd try to use 12 ga. wire but that's just my opinion.

Good luck!

Analog audio interconnects (the CD player, tape deck, and VCR) -- The Outlaw PCA's are quite good, and I'd recommend them for your CD player. If the CD has a digital output (which it may, but many don't have), you could get a coax or optical digital cable for it (depending on which it has). For the tape deck and VCR, you could go with the PCA's again or simply use whatever's handy (maybe some light-weight Radio Shack stuff). As for length, get lengths that are close to what you need -- a lot of slack gets in the way. In general, 1-meter to 2-meter cables are fine (the PCA's are available in 0.5 meter and 1.8 meter lengths -- if you can't get to the back of your equipment easily without pulling the equipment out of the cabinet, the 1.8 meter will be handy because they should give you enough slack to move stuff all the way out).

I've also heard that it's good to have speaker cables be the same length, but I've seen some numbers somewhere on the amount of delay generated by extra cable length -- unless you plan to have a difference of several meters I wouldn't care at all (even a 25 foot difference in length probably wouldn't have much effect). As for good cable? A lot of people use Home Depot 12ga speaker cable, which has the benefit of being very inexpensive. More expensive cables worth considering might be BetterCables or TMC (I have been very impressed with TMC's cables, although they are pretty pricey). The latter two options (and the scads of similarly expensive cables) are generally made assuming that you have 5-way binding posts on all of your speakers. If you have spring clips, which is common on a lot of mass-market stuff, then you're probably best off just getting some Home Depot stuff and not worrying about it (you can always upgrade later and not be out much money).

Matthew and kugumby mentioned RF modulators, and they're absolutely right. If you have a TV that only has an antenna input, you'll need an RF modulator to hook up the DVD player when you get it. They're $30 at Radio Shack , and I believe that they'll even automatically switch between the DVD's input and a coaxial ("cable TV") connection from the VCR for you.

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Gonk

What is the purpose of the RF Modulator ? I thought the DVD hooked into the receiver like the cd player ? Sorry for stupidiness, but just learning.

Thanks a million,

Jeff

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I just didn't think they made radios like this anymore then ....there's Outlaw !!

The problem is video only (the audio should go to the receiver to get surround sound), and it only applies with TV's that do not have a video input (composite, S-Video, or component video). If you have an older or small TV that only has an antenna/Cable TV input on the back, then you need an RF modulator. The problem is that none (more or less) of the DVD players on the market output an RF audio/video signal that's compatible with that antenna input. The RF modulator will take a video signal from the DVD player and convert it to something the TV can use.

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Gonk

[This message has been edited by gonk (edited January 08, 2002).]