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There are a lot of cables on the market, from cheap options on eBay and Jaycar to expensive professional grade products. Is it worth spending a bit more on cables and how can your cable choice can affect your technology, here are a few things to consider.

Often cheaper cables are hard to manage, they don’t bend very well and can be a bit too long or too short. Long leftover cables can create messy areas and if there’s a need to trace a cable or reconnect equipment – messy cables can be frustrating. If there is an issue somewhere it might be hard to identify with messy cables. Better quality cables for professional installation will be optimal length, they can be managed better, bend and fit into the right areas, and as a result look and function well for year to come.

Better materials used in better cables (like Auqioquest http://www.audioquest.com/) perform better from the connection point of view, where cheaper cables might have a shorter life span with maintaining good connections.

Sometimes cables need to run longer distances, and extenders need to be used. They can facilitate extend connectivity up to 100m or longer. These will often incorporate infra red, so the remote will work where the monitor or the TV is. Also common these days using extenders with standard ethernet cables to set up multiple receivers and transmitters. Changing channels on the receivers switching between available transmitters. This is often suitable for large homes or commercial premises. Cabling technology like HDBaseT allows high quality uncompressed HD multimedia content, audio & video, ethernet, etc. The price of these has come down a bit making it more affordable for wider use. For example a 20m HDMI cable will have a similar cost to the HDBaseT transmitter/receiver unit, but you will have additional features. Also products like Video over IP allow access and control of video over the network. 

Devices are becoming more network based, including audio/visual, security and automation. And so for everything to function well good quality network cabling is very important. Investing in a good cabling infrastructure is well worth it also because it doesn’t usually go out of date, and in most cases the new devices and networks will be relying on it for best flexibility for installation.

We recommend equipment that we consider good quality and value. This is not an advertisement or an affiliate content. If you have any questions or would like to discuss your installation – feel free to contact us.