Wire mire: Confusion can reign while connecting electronic equipment

Kirk Baird

Monday, June 4, 2001 | 8:20 a.m.

It's been said that the two happiest days in a man's life are the day he gets a boat and the day he sells it.

The same can be true for anyone new to home-theater equipment.

At first the lure of the new gadgetry DVD players, receivers with theater-quality sound, satellite dishes, audio CD recorders is enticing, especially when it's already set up in a store.

But once these components are purchased and pulled out of the box in your home, reality sets in: Wires, cables and plugs that seem to serve little purpose other than to confuse; enough plug-in options on the back of the equipment to keep Einstein busy for days; and an instruction booklet that's often more difficult to decipher than a Bob Dylan concert.

But take heart: If you've been known to utter such choice phrases as,"Plug what

into where?" or "A banana plug? What's fruit got to do with my speakers?" and even, "Shouldn't I be getting sound from my receiver?" there's hope.

"With a little education, people can learn to hook these things up," said Richard Hollingsworth, sales manager for Premiere Home Entertainment on North Rainbow Boulevard, one of several Las Vegas-area stores that service, sell and install home-theater equipment.

It isn't that today's audio and video equipment connects any differently than in previous decades, it's just that there's more components to connect, Hollingsworth said.

"It used to be you had a few (audio) components -- turntable, tape deck, receiver and a pair of speakers," he said. "Now you've got a DVD player, hard-drive video-storage devices (otherwise known as personal video recorders), satellites and cable TV.

"But the simple hookups haven't changed that drastically."

For example, much of today's equipment still uses RCA plugs, which were first used by RCA to connect phonographs to amplifiers in the early 20th century. The plugs are color-coded -- red and white for audio and yellow for video -- to make hookup even simpler.

In a TV-to-VCR system, connecting the units is relatively simple, Hollingsworth said. It's even easier for a DVD player.

A VCR requires a video and audio signal going both in and out of the unit so it can record a program and play it on TV, he said.

Since most DVD players cannot record (unless you're willing to spend at least $2,000 for a new recording unit), there is only one set of cables that go out from the player and into the TV or a receiver.

The difficulty of DVD players, Hollingsworth said, comes with something designed to make them easier and, therefore, more attractive to consumers: user-interface, which is the onscreen menu that appears before selecting "play."

"Some (DVD) discs, you (insert) and they automatically play. Others have a menu for audio and video. Some you turn over for widescreen" presentation, he said.

This usually means getting out the instruction manual, which most consumers -- particularly men -- are unwilling to do, Hollingsworth said.

Wired in

For those reluctant to take the plunge into home theater because it seems too complicated -- with endless wires and connections -- help is on its way.

A new type of wire connection between computers and hardware, called 1EEE 1394 (more commonly referred to by the brand name FireWire), allows one cable to plug into any type of hardware -- provided it's FireWire compatible.

The hardware is then "daisy chained" (or looped) with one cable going from the computer to the monitor, a cable going from the monitor to the keyboard, a cable going from the keyboard to the mouse and so on.

Stuart Wilhoite, business development manager for Abbott's Audio Video on West Sahara Avenue, said it would be the same for home-theater components.

"One cable does it all," Wilhoite said. "It continues to loop into the equipment, and the network (the computer software inside each audio-video component) automatically knows what to do with the (signal).

"The whole concept is to make it easier. When you look at all the cabling that would be necessary to hookup five different components going back to the amplifier and then out, that's pretty confusing.

"But when you have the same wire that's the same all the time and you can never plug it in incorrectly, that's pretty cool and will make it a lot easier."

The downside is the technology is still several years away from becoming standard in home-theater electronics, and it will be even longer before the average consumer can afford it, Wilhoite said. Also, there's always a chance the electronic industry will abandon FireWire for another method of connection.

"Who knows what the future holds?" he said.

Helpful advice

But what about now? The consumer who is facing the task of hooking up a DVD player to a receiver along with new surround-sound speakers?

Personnel at several local audio-video stores offer these tips:

Know what you already have before you buy another component, and know what you want to do with the system in the future.

"Tell them (the sales people) your full needs of what you want -- even if it's two years down the road," said Roy Thomas, senior product specialist at the Good Guys at the WOW Multimedia Superstore on West Sahara Avenue.

This will prevent having compatibility issues in the future, he said, such as buying a DTS-compatible receiver and discovering the DVD player cannot process the sound.

Ask the sales personnel to demonstrate how to hook up the component.

"I think they owe you the benefit of helping you out," Hollingsworth said. "That's what makes makes the difference between the professionals versus the guy who was selling tacos last week and is now trying to sell audio equipment."

Read the manual -- not just to learn how to set up the component but how it works and its various features.

"Customers need to read the manual all the way through," Thomas said. "The hookup part is easy. The difficult part is knowing can it be incorporated" into the system.

When using RCA plugs, remember to insert the color plugs in the matching plug-ins. And when there is more than one choice -- say four in-and-out plugs-ins for the VCR -- read left to right and top to bottom, as usual.

"The plugs can go in any (same-color plug-in), as long as it's in the same row," Thomas said.

Remember that all plugs match up in an "in-to-out and out-to-in" pattern.

"Absolutely the No. 1 rule," Hollingsworth said. "It's always 'something goes out to something marked in.' It's standard for everything."

If there are still problems, call the store where the product was purchased and ask for help over the phone.

"They owe you the benefit of helping you out," Hollingsworth said.

Even if the component or components were purchased elsewhere, most stores are willing to help as way of building future business.

When the product doesn't perform as expected or match the needs of the system, most stores offer a limited-time return policy. Use it.

"Don't feel ashamed for returning something," Hollingsworth said. "There's no excuse for saying, 'I'm not happy with this,' when (stores) have these rules."

If all else fails, most stores offer an in-home installation service. Keep in mind it's not free and -- depending on the labor -- can be expensive.

Just make sure the components are all plugged in and turned on before calling for service.

"The absolute worst is when they forgot to turn something on," Hollingsworth said. "It happens a lot."

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