You go to Monoprice when you want the lowest price and perfectly fine cables, wires and accessories.
You go to Bluejeanscable when you want literally the exact same cables that are used in broadcast and mastering facilities and you are willing to pay a higher price for maximum quality (which doesn't make any noticeable difference vs. Monoprice, but is sometimes nice just for the sheer feel of the construction quality).
You go to Tartancable when you want prices that are occassionally even lower than Monoprice on some items or specific lengths. Tartan is a subsidiary of Bluejeans where they offer Chinese-sourced cables at very low prices. Not nearly the full selection of items as what Monoprice offers, but they'll sometimes have a specific length that Monoprice doesn't offer.
You never buy Monster Cable. They managed to apply for a patent on an industry standardized RCA plug by making their version of the plug too tight so that it rips out the entire plug on your electronics when you try to take the Monster Cables out! They also sue absolutely ANYONE who uses the word "monster" in their name - like miniature golf companies and baby clothing companies, 'cause, y'know, those small businesses are confusing customers and causing Monster Cable to lose sales
Monster Cable is over-priced crap from an evil company. They're worse than Bose.
If you need a cable right away and can't wait for an internet order, you run down to Home Depot and get a generic brand cable. I'm not sure what brands Home Depot is carrying in the US these days. Up here in Canada, it's mostly RCA brand or Phillips, and they also carry Monster now (ugh!). Way over-priced, but at least you can get what you need right away. Get cheap, bulk 14 gauge lamp cord if you need speaker wire right away.
If you want some really nice, extremely flexible 12 gauge speaker wire with a BLACK outer sleeve (oddly, Monoprice, Bluejeans & Tartan all fail to offer black speaker wire for some reason), go with Axiomaudio.com's bulk speaker wire. It's a bit pricey at about $1 per foot, but it is really, really nice to work with. Super flexible and stays where you put it. And, like I said, black outer sleeve.
And since we're on the topic of accessories, one thing that people far too often overlook IMO is power protection. Most everyone knows to plug their expensive gear into a surge protector at the very least. But then people either get duped into spending WAY too much on a "power conditioner", or they fail to address other power issues that I think are really important in a home theater.
Primarily, I'm a HUGE fan of having a battery backup UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply). If you have a DVR, a UPS means that your recordings keep going, even if the power goes out! This is an absolute MUST in my house! A UPS is also VITAL if you use a front or rear projection display that has a lamp. Those lamps get HOT (it's why they have fans cooling them!). If the power goes out, the fan stops, and that lamp can easily overheat. That reduces the life of the lamp and can sometimes even break the lamp or cause it to explode! So you've gotta have a UPS if your display uses a lamp.
I also just love having a UPS in place so that I don't lose guide data or little settings like clocks and alarms and whatnot. It's also really important for any device with a hard drive (which is a lot of devices these days! DVRs, game consoles, Home Theater PCs, etc.). You won't be using your UPS to keep your whole theater powered for hours on end or anything, but you can certainly buy yourself enough time to safely shut everything down and never worry about losing your data or recordings in progress!
So get a UPS, I say! Monoprice has a cheap UPS unit. I've not used it myself, but it's so darn cheap, it's hard to think of any way to knock it.
For rock solid power protection that I know for certain works perfectly though, you want to go to APC.com
APC is THE power protection company. If you want to really go whole hog, check out APCAV.com for APC's products that are specifically designed for home theater. The S-Type are the top of the line and the most expensive. They produce a pure sine-wave output, which is only important for things that use vacuum tubes or have really poorly designed power sections (like super expensive esoteric gear that can't pass a UL certification!). The J-type units are the ones I recommend most. They're a few hundred dollars, so not cheap. But when you consider how they address every possible power concern and can keep your DVR running for a couple of hours at least during a black out, I think they're totally worth it! The J15 gives battery backup for all 12 of its outlets. The J25 and J35 offer 8 outlets and only 6 of those are battery backup (the other two are surge protected only), but for a considerably lower price. And don't worry about the MSRP prices shown on apcav.com . Just do a google product search and you can find them for hundreds less!
And if all you need is short term battery power (just enough to safely shut things down), then check out APC's Back-UPS ES units. You'll get 4 or 5 battery backup outlets for around $100 or less. Perfect for a HTPC or NAS or a display.
