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Anybody else wanna pull their hair out ?

I just got done trying to "re-plumb" my HT system. How i pity professional installers of this stuff. It is PATHETIC what one has to do to get all of this stuff hooked up "right". I am an electronics tech by trade and even i get confused as to what goes where !!! The two worst things that i realized is that there is really no standardization of jacks ( audio RCA's, Balanced, S-Video, Component Level video, Composite Video, 75 ohm digital, toslink, spades, banana's, etc....). Between the 3 trillion different types of connectors, you also have to worry about what length of each type of cable you need where.... It's enough to drive you crazy. On top of that, you should pray to God that you never loose power once you get all of that crap programmed !!! Some of this stuff will "reset" at the drop of a hat. Take my advice people. Keep your HT system as simple as possible !!! You'll enjoy it more when you watch a good movie rather than remembering all of the hassle that you had to go through just to get the damn thing to work. I would do things VERY differently if i knew then what i know now. Sean
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sean
slartibartfast
100 posts
 
Well, you should try and "plumb" 25 different components (not including the speakers) in the same system... and then try throwing balanced professional gear in the mix too... as well as seperate AC circuits for Analog, Digital, and Video. This installation could never have been done without lots of advanced planning and every time we change a piece of gear, you usually just can't throw it in the loop. The only real pain was that not all of the older professional gear was pinned the same way and had to go in to the cables with a soldering iron to fix the problems. Not for the faint of heart... dealers are even scared of the installation and rightfully so.
pcc
150 posts
 
I too had to re plumb not long ago. I have a HT system and was adding 2channel to it. Well when I started to audition some new pre amps for the 2ch I realized I had removed a couple of cables.. oops Well one of my friends who is into electronics had these sticky numbers 0-9/letters A-Z.. I remembered this and when I figured I would be doing this all over again I went to radio shack and picked up 2 packs of labels for electronics. The labels had long and thin for around cable and small square label for tight area. For instance the #1 would go on both ends of the cable and the square #1 would go on the "out" of one component to the "in" of the other component. Now its easy when I audition new cables or components. Just look at the # or the letter.. Good luck Cost $2.00 radio shack
swampwalker's avatar
swampwalker
5,138 posts
 
Or you could do like me and have a different brand of IC for each component. LOL. Actually true however, unfortunately. Side effect of buying used on web. So far I've been too cheap to buy new (except for T-14 speaker cable. Now I think I'm going to change my whole 2 ch over to Homegrown, at least for ICs (but that shifts the MIT, Straightwire, etc over to the HT, which still allows me to differentiate ICs based on wire type. However, my HT speaker set up consists of NHT superzeros with sub for LCR and a separate sub for LFE (all with same speaker wire) so that's enough of a nightmare. Pcc great idea for the labels.
bigwood
30 posts
 
I'm selling my house the 20th of this month and moving into my next one on the 30th! At last count I have 23 components and 7 speakers in my main system and 7 components and 2 speakers in my bedroom system. I'd like to thank you all for reminding me just how fun this hobby is! THANKS A LOT GUYS! Later...
njonker
107 posts
 
Sounds like compared to some of you, my system was simple. With a bit of planning and one of those nifty handheld label makers, plus about 5 trips to the store to get the missing pieces of cable, I now have everything marked and working. End result is well worth it. I too pulled some hair out, but I am glad I did; especially component video was worth all the hassle.
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