How Do I Hook Up... my home theater receiver? Newsletter Signup

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Home Theater Receiver Tips and Comments

Congratulations, you made it to the end of the Receiver How-To! By now, you're able to hook up your 5.1 surround sound receiver to the rest of your home theater.

You should feel comfortable now with the various inputs and outputs on your receiver. You've learned about digital audio, component video, HDMI, and even using an HDMI-to-DVI adapter (if you missed that, I needed to plug one of these on to the end of an HDMI cable coming from my cable box because my TV only has DVI).

Now I know I said everything we went over was "basic", and I promise, it really was! I left out some advanced things like Multi-Room/7.1/8.1 Surround, zones, amplifiers, speaker switchboxes, high definition DVD players and more. These topics and many others will soon be covered on HowToHookItUp.com, so keep an eye out!

Home Theater Tips: Concealing Cables, Mounting TVs, Smart Buying

- If running wires through the wall, under the carpet, in the ceiling, or otherwise "concealed", don't use cheapo RCA cables! Buy something with a sturdy protective coating. Heat will eventually melt the cheap cables' protective coating, causing you to have to rip the wall open to replace it or (even worse) resulting in a fire!

- If mounting an LCD or Plasma, please, PLEASE don't mount it on top of a REAL fireplace! A fireplace that produces HEAT will cut the life of your plasma in half. And they don't last quite long enough to not worry about it. Rule of thumb: electronics and heat do not mix.

- When buying cables, like HDMI or component, don't buy the $100 one when you can get it for $6 online! Do some searching. There is no difference between the $100 cable and the $6 one, I assure you ("digital is digital"). The only thing to think about is what I said above about concealing wires. Get something with a nice thick coating if you're going to be putting it in the wall or somewhere similar. Otherwise, the quality of your picture or sound will not change depending on the price of a cable. Its as simple as that! In fact, all digital cables, like DVI, HDMI, fiber optic, and digital coaxial, absolutely cannot differ in picture or sound quality. Digital is digital - you either receive the signal, or you don't!

Hook up your Receiver!

Thanks for reading through the Receiver How-To at HowToHookItUp.com. Now, if you haven't already, go hook up your receiver and enjoy digital surround sound!

Didn't understand some of the terms used above?
Check our our Home Theater Glossary to lookup some of the words you haven't seen before or don't fully understand. Its a great way to familiarize yourself with home theater connections and will help you make better buying and configuring decisions.
>>Glossary

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