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There's a big difference between investments and expenses. An investment implies you expect to get some return on your money, while an expense is money you spend and never plan to see again.

Despite the vast difference in money-use methodologies, shoppers tend to get their terminology mixed up. "Investing" in an LCD TV or Blu-Ray player is a misnomer. Just like a new car, these items lose value as soon as you take them for a spin. Though most consumers are already aware of this detail, it doesn't seem to slow their interest when it comes to electronics. The Consumer Electronics Association projects more than $1 trillion in such spending this year, an increase of 5 percent from 2011.

With the Consumer Electronics Show wrapping up last week, tech fanatics everywhere have an itch for the next big thing. If you plan on scratching it, use these tips to help defeat depreciation.

1. Use the News
Nothing kills the excitement of a brand new gadget like discovering a price drop days after you've opened the box. In fact, many holiday shoppers are suffering through this exact scenario, thanks to a recent $100 price drop in several popular tablets. Avoid getting stuck in this predicament by tracking the news on products you're planning to buy. Big cuts are usually announced in advance to help stimulate sales. Read more

Many manufacturers pack hookup cables in the carton with consumer electronic audio video equipment. These inexpensive cables are commonly referred to as "courtesy cables." They are included by the manufacturer as a courtesy to the purchaser in the case that the unit was purchased from a retailer who did not place a high degree of importance on the interconnect cables. It can be compared to the spare tire included on many rental cars. They are "courtesy tires" meant to get you to a repair station not to go 50,000 miles.

Courtesy cables can be detrimental to today's high-performance audio and video systems in many ways. The major problem they can introduce into the system is an intermittent signal path usually caused by a poor connection at the connector. The connectors on "courtesy cables" are molded-on plastic. The internal connection of the center conductor to the center pin of the connector is usually crimped. The crimping process is not always consistent which can leave the connector in a semi-connected state. Slight movements of the connector can cause the audio or video to cut in and out or worse cause a catastrophic failure of an amplifier or speaker system. The plastic used in molding provides no shielding of the signal at the connector. This leads to the second major problem with "courtesy cables", poor shielding.Read more

Maybe you're remodeling to optimize TV watching at home. Perhaps you're gearing up to secure virtual front-row seats to the “Big Game”. It's entirely possible that you're simply using the national conversion to 100-percent digital TV broadcasts at midnight on Feb. 17, 2009, as a good excuse to bring home a shiny, new high-definition TV.

Regardless of your motivation for the purchase, after eagerly unpacking your cherished widescreen DLP, LCD or plasma TV, you'll see there are many different options, tweaks and adjustments to make in pursuit of the best possible viewing experience. One oft-forgotten detail is how to use lighting in your media room or home theater. Read more

Buying a new piece of electronics can be exciting – it’s an opportunity to explore new features and update your home. But sometimes it's daunting, particularly when there is a wide range of options. And now for those who don’t already have TV sets that can show digital broadcasts, we have to convert or buy new ones. As of February 17, 2009, all analog signals will cease from television stations across the nation, so we all have to get on board with digital technology (either via a converter or a new TV) in order to keep watching our favorite network TV shows.

Buying a new TV should be easy, right?

Yes, buying a new TV is easy if you know what equipment you need. A typical electronics store will offer four types: flat panel, projection, tube and front projection/screen systems. Most people will want one of the first three. Projection TVs look like flat panel displays, but they are deeper in back, so for people who already have cases for their televisions or who are not mounting their sets to the wall, these are a better deal. If you need a set that's as thin as possible, flat panel is the only option. Read more

The next time you walk into the room where your new flat-screen TV is on display, take a good look around. Is it starting to look dirty? Between all the dust and lint that flies around the average room and the dirty fingers used to turn the TV on its mount, it doesn't take long before the set needs a good cleaning.

But don't be tempted to use the same methods you would to clean your tube TV. Flat-screen television sets require more specialized care. Here are a few "Dos" and "Don'ts" to keep in mind: Read more

You've got your new large-screen HDTV set up, and you have plenty of your favorite DVDs waiting to be viewed. Now all you need is the right sound. When you sit down to watch a movie -- or live music concert -- in your own home theater, you want to feel as though you're in a real movie theater. The audio is just as important as the picture quality, which means you should take great care in shopping for the right receiver and speaker pieces. As you shop for audio components for your home theater, first check out "HDTV – A beginner's guide." Then, consider the following points:

The AV receiver
Most average home theater users don’t need to buy separate tuners and amplifiers for the different channels. The easiest and perhaps most cost-effective way to get several pieces all in one package is to go with an audio/video receiver, which lets you plug in most, if not all, of the pieces in your system, including your television. Read more

You might answer that question a number of ways: “As big as it can be”, “As small as it can be”, or “Big enough to accommodate twelve seats”, or maybe “the exact size of the existing room I plan to convert”. However, many considerations are to be made before you answer too quickly. There is a lot of science involved in the design of a high performance theater, even in just determining its size. There are also budgetary constraints and physical limitations that come into play. Each theater has its own equation that must be understood and calculated based on these factors and the customer’s personal direction. It is the intent of this series of articles, titled “Home Theater Planning, Design, Calibration & Enjoyment,” to help you make educated decisions during the process. There are always pros and cons that must be weighed, and as a consultant, it is my job to make sure that my clients can make an intelligent decision. Customers may end up dissatisfied with the results if they didn’t know there was a choice to be made, or didn’t fully understand what the consequences were going to be. There are some things we cannot control, but we can influence almost every factor that determines our eventual success. It becomes a question of prioritizing. I cannot make these decisions for you because they are personal, but I’ll guide you through to a happy ending. Read more

Digital Video Recorders may very well be the future of television. They offer you unprecedented freedom: You can watch precisely what you'd like, whenever you desire. But options vary, and it's worthwhile to investigate what's available so you can be satisfied with your ultimate selection.

The accompanying chart lists six DVR options—TiVo, Comcast, Verizon FiOS, Dish Network, DirecTV and SnapStream Beyond TV4—and provides information about each company for each category to give you a starting point for comparing options. Read more

The intention of this article is to save you considerable money, while at the same time, afford you a better picture, all by selecting the right screen at the right location. Next to acoustics, screen selection is the most complicated element of the home theater design process, and least considered.

Screen Location
It all starts with location. Referring back to an earlier article in this series, we discussed how the number of seats dictates the room dimensions and that room dimensions dictate optimum speaker and listener locations. Once we determine these positions, we know that we want the sound to seem as if it is being created by the picture, rather than coming from in front of, below, above, behind or to the side of it. That said, we want the screen to be located about the same distance from us as the center channel speaker. Read more