Speaker wire matters, but only up to a point. There's no need to run 10 gauge Monster cables bi-wired to a system that will only see 90dB tops. The voltages that are being pushed through at those levels will be carried by 14 gauge wire with no difference in sound.
But, running smaller wire will cause degradation of signal over distance. The happy medium is in the 14 gauge range...
When you go to a concert, if you've ever seen the cables attached to the speaker arrays, you'll see some huge multicables... BUT... inside those 'snakes', you'll find 14 and 12 gauge wire- and this is on a system that is designed to push 110 dB. The average run for those cables is 100 feet, which is farther than 90% of the home theater applications.
as for the AV cables... the only thing Monster, Tara, etc cables have to offer is shielding from outside noise, where the $2 cables don't have that.
But, on video cables, I'm really picky... Some video cables just plain suck (Monster video cables suck).
Packaging rocks on the name brand cables... You can get a 'rainbow' cable that is made for multichannel audio applications... It's not much better than a $2 AV cable, but it has a MUCH higher markup, and peofits ARE the name of the game, eh
(o, yeah.. btw... a quick qualifier on the concert thing... When i'm not doing home theaters, or lazing around being a slacka, I work for a concert lighting company based in San Francisco... i've been doing that for almost 20 years now)
We can do it my way, or we can do it my way while I yell. The choice is yours.
