Would people recommend getting banana plugs for connecting my speakers to my receiver, or do you find them to be unnecessary?
what? make more clear what your exact question is. you mean RCA/patch cables? regular speaker wire? fiber?
it depends on the gauge of the speaker wire and how clean you can twist the bare wire. the heavier the gauge the more i would suggest banana plugs. if you are only using 24-16g and are careful with your twist then the plugs are not needed. as far as making a difference with your sound, it really wont affect it, in fact bare wire(un-corroded) will transfer signal better.
no problem. i assume that you are using a high/er grade wire like something from Monster, for example. if that is the case then make sure you are careful when stripping the jacket from the wire and try to maintain the direction of the twist if possible. most name brands have special twisting for sound travel. Monster has a dual wrap that transmits lower frequencies along the center in a more straight twist, with a tighter second layer wrapped around the core for higher frequencies to help keep the frequencies travel time similar. the two sets of frequencies arrive at the voice coil at the same time.
Monster Cable is waaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy too overpriced for me. I bought my cable from monoprice.com If you have never been, I suggest giving it a look. Much better prices than monster, and no loss in quality. www.monoprice.com
you would be AMAZED at the markup on Monster products! there are other more affordable brands out there. i usually use Acoustic Research when i can find them.
I used to work at Circuit City (in movies/music/games dept), and our biggest discounts came on cables and wiring. The mark up on those things are insane.
13 years Best Buy myself. Home and car audio, Video(tv's, cameras, dvd/vcrs) computers, media/fun 'n games and services/Geek Squad. the markup is usually around 70/75% and some cases 85/90% for cables. it was insane! i'd buy my cables and what retailed for $100, i'd get for $18...
Yea, that's why I go to monoprice.com. No mark up it seems, just have to pay for shipping. I would have liked to stay at circuity city, but they wouldn't let me work part time/weekends, and I had accepted a co-op at the time that was paying $14/hr (made $19/hr just as recent as this past spring). So I was like, whatever, your loss. I worked 14 hours on black friday the year I worked there. BLah. That day was not fun. You still work at BB?
