New TV and Digital Audio system

**iriegnome** · #1 06-20-2011, 08:37 AM

I went all out for Fathers day this year. My 17th year as a father!! 46" Hitatchi LED TV. Sony 1000w Digital 5.1 Surround and a new Sony Dvd player. Now, I have all this stuff and not a single cable to hook it up!! Well that is not exactly true, I have some component cables for the DVD to the TV and I have a couple of Monster Audio RCA cables to hook the surround to the TV, but I am upgrading everythng to 1.4 HDMI Cables. Funny, Best Buy wanted $99 for the Monster HDMI cables. Ebay, wanted $4 each with Free Shipping!
Now what I really dont know is am I supposed to use Optical cable or HDMI for the TV/Audio/DVD as well as the HDMI? Or are they seperate and the same, kind of an either or thing?
Also, is one better than the other and for whitch one/s?
Input (I liked the pun) would be greatly appriciated.

mmbongo · #2 06-20-2011, 09:09 AM

All you need (other than speaker cables) is HDMI. It handles both audio and video.

The receiver should have HDMI inputs and outputs. HDMI from DVD (or throw it away and get a BluRay player!) to receiver, HDMI out from receiver to TV. That's it, other than speaker hook ups!

**iriegnome** · #3 06-20-2011, 12:33 PM

Very Cool. You know I was in Best Buy looking at HDMI Cables. $99 each.. What a scam..

Pilgrim · #4 06-20-2011, 02:22 PM

Don't EVER - under ANY circumstances - buy a cable with the brand name Monster on it. You will have just wasted at least 50% of your money. They are the most grossly overpriced cables on the market.

I buy most cables on Ebay. If not, at least do some Internet searching for discount versions.

BartmanPDX · #5 06-20-2011, 02:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pilgrim

Don't EVER - under ANY circumstances - buy a cable with the brand name Monster on it. You will have just wasted at least 50% of your money. They are the most grossly overpriced cables on the market.

I buy most cables on Ebay. If not, at least do some Internet searching for discount versions.

Agreed with all of this, but having spent a lot of time in the home theater/high end audio field, I can state that there are actually a few lesser known brands that are amazingly enough even more grossly overpriced than Monster.

The 0s and 1s don't care if the cable they are going through is .30 per foot or $500 per foot.

L-A · #6 06-20-2011, 04:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BartmanPDX

The 0s and 1s don't care if the cable they are going through is .30 per foot or $500 per foot.

When I have to explain this to people, I ask "Does a better network cable give you a better Internet quality? Well, that is what digital signals are".

**iriegnome** · #7 06-20-2011, 08:55 PM

no. I just used the monster cable thing for an example. I always buy my home audio/theater cables from ebay. Like I said, I only paid $3 per cable with fre shipping