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Home Theater Wiring: Home Theater Wiring Contributes Significantly To Home Theater Performance
Home theater wiring can seem an intimidating task for a beginner. But if you know where to start and the basic principles of using wires to connect your home theater components, wiring your own home theater can become a task that is not out of reach, after all.
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The most basic step is to check your A/V receiver for the connections it is capable of handling. Nowadays this is almost not necessary, as recent A/V receivers often support all the connections necessary for a home theater, but for older units some connections might not be present. Unfortunately if this is the case, one would have to either replace the A/V receiver entirely or else not be able to connect everything together.
Okay, once it is certain that the receiver can handle everything that the home theater equipment requires, it is time to get down to the actual wire business. Selecting what thickness of wire to use is an important first step. |
The thickness of wire required depends upon the length of wire that will be used. As longer lengths of wire are used, it becomes important to use thicker wires to offset the losses that the signal might incur.
Thicker wires transmit the signal better and with less power loss than thinner wires, but are more expensive. Wire thickness is measured in AWG or American wire gauge, with lower numbers meaning thicker wires. As a rule of thumb, good speaker wiring uses wires that are between 12 to 16 awg.
Apart from the wire thickness, you should also ensure that the wire you are going to be using is of the same quality as your equipment. It’d be a shame for good equipment to go to waste and not perform optimally because of flimsy or ill-made speaker wire. You should also make sure that the wires are able to handle the power ratings of your home theater system.
And finally, do not forget to monitor your budget. Thicker wires are used for longer lengths, and are thus doubly more expensive.
Since wire thickness depends on the length of wire required, you should have a general idea of speaker placement with respect to where the A/V receiver is to be placed. String can be a useful tool to roughly determine the lengths of wire required. Be sure to leave allowances and record the lengths as a bit longer than strictly necessary.
And that is basically it. Once you have the general layout of your home theater planned, find out what lengths of wire you need, and then based on these what thicknesses of wire you need. For typical single-room installations, gauge 16 wire would probably be sufficient. Thicker wires are mostly required only for huge rooms or for multi-room installations. In-wall home theater wiring is also an option for a neater home theater, but be sure to evaluate your skill level honestly and call a professional for help if you need it!
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