By Bob Gatton
Now that we've installed speakers in the walls and ceilings, it's time for a quick review. We have covered some of the basic building blocks for a media room: sources, sound and displays, lighting control, prewiring and in-wall and in-ceiling speaker installation. The next three articles will delve into the seemingly cryptic world of the wires that connect this stuff.
In this article we will look at analog and digital audio connections. The next article will be about analog video connections and the third will be digital video connections. Before your eyes glaze over, let me assure you that all of this is not that technical or difficult. By taking it one step at a time, anyone can connect fairly complex systems.
Connecting the analog audio connections from a source to your receiver is very straightforward. The type of connection is called an RCA cable or an audio interconnect. They are usually packaged as a pair of cables, one for the audio signal that will end up at the left loudspeaker and one for the right. On most audio/video equipment, the plug for the right channel is red and the left is white.
In addition to left or right, these connections are labeled either "out" or "in." Just remember where you want the sound to go. For example, on a CD player, you want the music to go "out" from the CD player and "in" to the receiver. If the source records as well as supplying a signal (the case with VCRs, CD recorders and DVD recorders), it will have both audio outputs as well as inputs. Just remember two things:
- Keep the "outs" going to the "ins" and
- Keep the lefts going to lefts and the rights going to rights.
It is even simpler with digital audio. One cable can carry not only the left and right audio, but also the signal for the center channel, surround speakers and subwoofer. The same rule of "outs" to "ins" applies when using digital connections, though.
The only decision to make is which of the two types of digital audio plugs and cables to use: digital coax or optical cables. The digital coax cables look just like the cables that are used for analog audio, but I do recommend that you use a cable specifically made for digital audio or a composite video cable (to be discussed in the next article).
Standard analog audio cables also will work, but they are usually not shielded as well as a digital audio or composite video cable, so a low-quality analog audio cable is susceptible to interference from other electrical signals. This can decrease the sound quality.
Optical cables sometimes referred to as a Toslink cable (TOShibaLINK). Instead of wire, it uses a fiber optic cable to transfer the information.
Which of the digital audio connections is better? That's been the subject of much debate for many years among audio and home theater enthusiasts. But even people who are strongly in favor of one over the other usually admit that the difference is very small. A low-quality digital audio cable is susceptible to electrical interference; optical cables can be damaged if kinked or bent sharply.
In some situations, you may not have much choice; many pieces of equipment only have one type of digital audio connection. But when you can, use a quality digital coax cable, don't mistreat the optical cables and you shouldn't have any problems.
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