HELP I THINK IM IN OVER MY HEAD

Robert Harley's book on Home Theater is good place to start. You can get it through AudioAdvisor, the link is http://www.audioadvisor.com/product.cfm?productid=1193.

Did you buy your equipment from a local dealer? I'm assuming you didn't because if you did he should be helping you. Do you know where the equipment is going--not just what room, but precisely where each component will be placed. If you aren't sure, buy some inexpensive (you can get bulk Monstor cable at Home Depot) and experiment a little with speaker placement. Eventually, you will want to get better cables, but don't invest in them until you have equipment location nailed down. Then buy high quality speaker cables and interconnects that are the correct length for your set-up. As to your question on bananas or spades, I don't know the speakers you mentioned, but many speaker terminations accept both as do most Denon AV receivers. I recommend spades because of the higher surface area, but you may not have this option for your speakers.

Invest $20 in the book--it can give you far more information than I or anyone else can post.

Hi Dave. You might consider the DH Labs T12 for your system and save some money, given the amount you'll likely be using. The T14 is a great cable for the money but the T12 is positioned for HT applications and, IMHO, I doubt that you'll notice any drop in performance given your system/application. Maybe go with the T14 or Q10 for your mains if you plan on any 2 channel only operation. Also, check out the Monster HTS200. It's a nice unit for the money and does what it's claimed to do. I bought two as surge protection for my 2 channel system and was surprised at the noticeable positive effect (YMMV). Good luck.

Re: previous post... I meant the HTS2000.

Dave- Kweisner gave you a fantastic, detailed explanation. The only thing I might add is that you may want to consider sending the DVD video signal directly to your TV. I believe the DVD and TV have component video out and in, so connect them with 75 ohm video cables (doesn't necessarily have to be "component video" set up which is just 3 color coded 75 ohm video cables bundled together, but it does cut down the the spaghetti. Then send the audio signal from the DVD to the receiver. You will loose picture quality when you use s video and if you route the signal thru the receiver; the trade-off of going direct to TV is that you have to do some remote juggling when you change inputs. Also, if the subwoofer is powered, you would hook that up from the LFE (or subwoofer) line-level output from the receiver, via a male RCA terminated cable to the line level input on the HSU. If its not powered, then you would go with RCA cable to whatever amp you are using, and then speaker wire to the subwoofer itself.

Have fun.

Way to go kweisner! Great guy for helping out like that! And +2's for all of you others too for being such helpful people.
One potential problem with denon's and spades is that some denon's (at least mine) have a little plastic shield around the speaker cable connector that would make it require a very small spade to work. Just make sure you get small spades if you go with spades. Some semi-sage advice: 1) before you turn everything on, re-check all the connections. 2) label the cables with little tags. It really does help if you start having to make changes. 3) buy those little plastic cable bundlers at radio shack to keep things clean ($2 for 25 or so), and 4) when you power the system up, make sure the volume is at zero, then slowly turn it up while keeping your hand near the power switch. This will allow you to shut it down if you start to hear static, or other problems.

I would buy at least a surge suppressor.
Have fun !