Cables
Hippo’s carries audio and video cables from Monster Cable and Liberty Cable. It's very important to connect your audio and video components with high quality cables. Superior quality audio/video combinations interconnect for audiophiles and videophiles who demand maximum performance and flawless fidelity to the original signal.
Every cable acts as an antenna. With all the radio transmissions in the air, you don't want the cable to become an antenna and introduce noise into your system. If you are running speaker cables a long distance, you also want to make sure you have a large enough gauge to carry the signal effectively. Connections at each end need to be tight and secure. We can demonstrate the difference a good cable can make in our showroom.
Nothing has shown the impact of cables more than the introduction of HDMI for video. We've had clients use an inexpensive HDMI cable brand for a long TV run and see all kinds of signal problems due to inferior construction and design. When the cable was replaced with a high quality HDMI cable, the problems disappeared and the picture looked better!
Another important thing to consider is the power coming into your home. Here, you need to be concerned about two points: protecting your gear from external surge events, and cleaning the power as it fluctuates in both voltage and signal noise. Hippo’s carries power products from Monster Power and Richard Grays Power Company that can do both. They will protect from sudden surges like lightning strikes or shorted power lines that can instantly destroy systems. There are units that incorporate UPS (uninterruptible power supply) technology so that a sudden loss of power doesn’t cause failure of projector lamps that need to cool down before they shut off and keep phone systems operating when the power goes off.
Power conditioning can make a big difference in performance if your power company supplies dirty power. This happens in metro areas or at the end of a run. Remember, all of your components are designed on test benches with great clean power. The power you get from your wall socket is almost certainly not as regulated or clean!
