Page 1 of Cables - do you choose brand names??

Hi.

I need to buy 3/4 scart cables and a sound coaxial cable.
for new home cinema setup.

I have been to sites like keene.co.uk etc which have been recommended, but it is impossible to know if these are good
cables or not as they do not appear to be branded so there is no possibility of looking them up anywhere.

Q/ Do you guys go for brand names when choosing cables?.
Are there brand names for cables that are recommended so i can compare prices on the net??.

Richer sounds site lists "Cambridge" - would Cambridge be the one to go for?.

Advice appreciated.

Thank you

( A total cabling novice)

This item was edited on Friday, 29th June 2001, 10:26

It all depends on what kit you have got. But on scarts Ixos 126 AV (What Hi-Fi 5 star, Hi-Fi choice bust buy) is a safe bet, £39.95. On the coaxial lead, Ixos 105 £29.95 or The chord company Prodac £50.00.

Please remember interconects can make or break a system so spend what you can. (within reason)

Hope this helps,

Andrew.

I agree about IXOS cables.

Beacuse of my set up, my DVD player is the opposite corner of the room to my amp and speakers (only stereo at the mo).

I`ve got the IXO bronze 5 metre cables and for the length of cable they do an excellent job. For about £20 pounds they do a standard 1m version.

Heard some more expensive ones (silver it think, about 30-35 quid, don`t quote me on that) and they sound rather good too.

Cheers for the recommendation i will look around for IXOS.
My concern for these cables currently is cost. Although i appreciate the importance, i am on a tight budget for cables.
Am i right in thinking the most important scart connection is dvd to tv, the other scart connections such as tv to video, sky to tv, dvd to video i can get away with less expensive scart leads?.
Do IXOS make less expensive leads!!, i hope so, i dont want to be paying £40 per lead if i can help it.

thanks again

You don`t have to spend £40 to get a decent cable! It`s only worth spending that much if you`ve spent a heck of a lot on the rest of the system, and don`t want to compromise at all on hooking it together. It`s not really possible to recommend a cable without knowing what equipment you have - if you have a £120 DVD player and a £300 TV, spending £50 on a cable to hook them together is ridiculous :-)

For the typical budget setup, I`d look to spend around £10 on a SCART cable. For that price you won`t get diamond-encrusted, solid gold plugs, oxygen-free copper connectors and go-faster stripes, but you should get a well-constructed cable with fully-shielded conductors. (If you`re unsure, look at the thickness of the cable - it should be more than 12mm in diameter.)


Mike

I agree, my TV is a Hitachi 28in WS and the player is a TEAC DVD3000 and I use a £13 scart lead (gold connectors, decent width to the cable). The 5m Ixos Bronze does a good enough job for the sound.

For 35 quid, you should be able to get both cables (audio in 1m version) from a good shop.

Sean

This item was edited on Saturday, 30th June 2001, 08:24

Have a look at the B-Tech X range at www.beyondhifi.com. I`ve just bought a 80cm for £10.70 delivered. Still to receive it, so no idea what it`s like:
Oxygen Free Copper cable
Fully shielded, all pins connected
24 carat gold plated connectors
Ultra low capacitance

I`ve got the £20 Cambridge cable from RicherSounds and it`s fine. You can also get Profigold scarts for less which are very good. The guys are right a £150 player and standard 28" TV is not going to be improved by a £50 scart. Spend this much only when the transfer of data is the limiting factor (like using bell wire to carry sound to a £500 speaker from a £500 amp!!!).

The old adage is to spend no more than 10% of your system price on speaker cable and interconnects.

My budget setup (Encore DV450, JPW Mini Monitors and a Yammy DSPA5) is hooked up thus :

Gale XL189 speaker cable - 99p a metre : does the job as I only have little speakers

Beyond HiFi SCART lead - £12 : it`s the one Hal mentions above - does a great job and is a massive improvement over the normal Argos £5 SCART leads - nice and chunky, and blue too !

Cambridge Audio coaxial digital interconnect - £20 from Richer : superb, does the job it`s supposed to do, and the sound (despite my dodgy speakers) is awesome, thanks to the Yammy.

I spent in total £42 in leads. The Encore was £175 on release, the Yammy £280 on release (ie what I paid) making a total of £455. Fancy that - well within 10% !

Hi Guys sorry maybe i should have listed the items im buying:

TV - Toshiba 36" 36ZP18P
DVD - Toshiba 210e
Video - Toshiba 851UK
Sky

Any recommendations on cables is very much appreciated. 10% of the above would be £200, i am really reluctant to spend £200 on cables!!!.

TIA

(Amp & speakers yet to decide)