Video Asylum

Posted by Estes (A) on February 02, 2002 at 05:55:07

In Reply to: Novice upgrade advice posted by JRH on February 01, 2002 at 15:05:58:

I have the speakers the next level up from those, at least as centre and surrounds. They are good speakers for the money, but there are speakers with better resolution. I am guessing that you also have an entry level DVD player.

Actually everything is likely balanced now. The question is how to upgrade. If you have good quality TV, then I would look at a better reciever & DVD player. Entry level equipment tends to have lots of bells & whistles, but they are built to a price point. Going up market will get you better power supplies for the player and receiver. But as a first step I would look to better speaker cable and interconnects, assuming you are using what came in the box with the player. You can get good improvements with only a couple of hundred dollars. Basically, get good speaker cable for the fronts and centre. Audioquest, Kimber, etc., etc. make decent budget cable that will give you a good improvement. Then upgrade the interconnects from the DVD player to receiver. Don't forget the S-video cable/component cables. For S-video, Tributaries makes a good one for under $50. My experience has been unless you have an expensive monitor, do not spend more than $100 on an individual video cable, you won't see the difference.