Audio Cables

Audio Cables - Digital Audio

Digital Optical Cables are Fibre Optic Cables that are terminated with Toslink connectors, the Cable transmits the Audio signal as Pulses of Light from a TV, DVD, Games Console, Blueray to Sound System,  Most Audio Visual Equipment Manufactured today will be equipped with Toslink Ports. There are two types of toslink plugs, one is the standard size Toslink which is the most common version found on most things digital including gaming consoles, Amps, TV's etc. the other is the Mini Toslink (sometimes inaccurately referred to as the 3.5mm toslink) The mini toslink plug is the same shape and almost the same size (0.5mm longer) than the standard analogue 3.5mm plug however the extra length will not allow connection of the mini toslink into standard 3.5mm sockets. The mini toslink is sometimes used on Apple computers or mini disc players.

When choosing Digital Optical cables in our opinion you should be looking for cables that have a cable diameter of 5mm or more. Thin and poorly constructed optical cables offer little or no protection to the fibres breaking down within the lead, The result of this is a decrease in performance and possibly signal dropout, The fibres can breakdown in any optical cable but the thicker leads offer better resistance against this issue, The thicker the cable the better.

Another big factor in choosing a digital audio cable is which route should I go down? Optical or Coaxial? The real answer is that there is minimal if any difference between the 2 types of technologies.

What happens if one of your devices has a Digital Coaxial (RCA) and the other has only a Fibre Optic Digital Toslink? are the two types of connections compatible? the simple answer to this is Yes they are compatible but only through the use of a converter, The converters can change the connection / signal from coaxial to toslink or from toslink to coaxial, 

A Subwoofer Cable is a Copper Conductor Terminated with  RCA Type Connectors. it's designed to transfer the Low level (Bass) from an Amplfier / Receiver or Sound System to Active Subwoofer, It's fairly straight forward process to connect but some Active Subs have 2 Low level Inputs Left and Right whereas the Amp / Receivers only have the one output, Ways around this would be to connect a single RCA Subwoofer Cable from the amp output into the left Low Level Input on sub, Alternately Sub RCA Y Splitters will resolve this problem by allowing the Connection of the 1 into 2. When deciding on the type of subwoofer cable ensure the cable is screened, A screened subwoofer cable will help ensure there is no hum present through the sub.

 Choosing the correct Speaker Wire for your system is an important part of  Home Cinema  Hi-Fi Installation, Occasionally when buying a new set of speakers Speaker wire is included in with your Purchase, but the type of cable supplied is not usually anything other than a means of connecting to get your system operational.  Selecting a suitable Cable from the available options can sometimes be confusing. However the wire you use can have a noticeable impact on the sound quality of your system.

There are a number of important things to bear in mind when selecting speaker cable such as ensure you choose Pure OFC Cable, Look at the overall wire gauge of the cable the thicker the Speaker cable the lower the resistance, to much resistance will cause poor performance, The wire gauge of a cable can sometimes cause confusion because the thicker the wire the less the AWG will be, for example 12 AWG is a smaller and thinner wire than 10AWG, It's important to ensure that when running longer lengths A larger wire diameter with higher amount of strands is used.

When Selecting Speaker cable we suggest you look at a Multi Core cable with a reasonable amount of strands, we suggest staying above 42 strands, our more popular speaker cable is  Multi Core OFC with 105 strands.

Another consideration when purchasing speaker cable is to ensure the cable is actually Pure OFC Speaker cable, When browsing the Internet it's very easy to get attracted by the low price of some of the speaker cable on the market, However the low price doesn't always mean good quality. Not all speaker cable is manufactured using OFC and there is a lot of cable being supplied that is manufactured with CCA or CCS (Copper Clad Aluminium / Copper Clad Steel), CCA / CCS is more prone to oxidation which will ultimately degrade the audio signal quality, This is an issue that can occur over time. A CCA or CCS cable has steel or aluminium conductors which are wrapped in a copper cladding, Not forgetting that copper is a better electrical conductor than steel or aluminium so a cable which in essence is made up of 90% steel or aluminium then the results are going to be fairly obvious, inferior audio transmission which will degrade as time passes.

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Another big decision for Connecting Speaker cable is should I use Speaker Plugs? 2 of the most common types of Connectors used to connect speaker Wire to Amplifiers or Receivers are Banana Plugs or Terminal Spades, Banana Plugs fit directly into the Binding Posts found on Loudspeakers or Amps, Banana Plugs make good electrical contact at various points along the inside of the Binding post and are a far more convenient method with simple plug and play once the Plug has been connected to the Ends of the Speaker Wire, Terminal Spades are attached to the Speaker wire and are connected between the Nut and the base of the binding post, Due to the flat surface of the Spade good contact is made between adjoining components. We recommend in the very least that gold Plated Speaker Plugs are used as gold is a Good Conductor of electricity and is Resistant to corrosion.

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