I’m skeptical of any company willing to make a $100 HDMI cable so My personal opinion is no but I’m open to suggestions.
I like the Monster Lo-Carb energy drinks, but I don’t think these are the same company.
I think the OP was referring to this Monster Cable
not that I can think of.
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HDMI cables are one of those “works or it doesn’t” things. If the cable’s not up to spec, it’s plainly obvious; either you’ll get very noticeable pixel “popping” or “sparkles” on the screen, or if the source is encrypted you’ll have HDCP handshake failures and no picture at all. a $5 HDMI cable that meets specifications is just as good as a $100 cable that meets specifications.
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Video cables can vary in quality, but as long as the cable itself is reasonably good 75-ohm coaxial with non-shitty connectors, picture quality will be as good as it can be. While unlike HDMI it’s not an “all or nothing” case, again it’s usually pretty easy to tell when the cable’s not up to scratch. The most common is doubling, where you see a “ghost” image slightly offset from the real picture, this is typically an impedance mis-match either from not using 75 ohm cable or from broken connectors. Belden RG-59 with properly attached Canare cinch plugs will be as good as anything.
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audio cables… audio is too low in frequency to really matter. As long as the cable capacitance is low enough, it’ll have no effect on the signal at all. If the capacitance is too high, it’ll start to roll off the high frequencies. But again, this is trivially measurable. Audio cables will not make any difference in “nuances,” “soundstage,” or “coloration” regardless of what some delusional audiophools claim.
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speaker wire. It’s wire, for fuck’s sake. As long as the wire gauge is large enough to minimize the total resistance between source (amplifier) and load (speaker,) it’s good. Audio frequencies don’t care if the wire is solid core, fine strand rope lay, or other such nonsense.
I bought an iCarPlay for $80 about 5 years ago when I got my first iPod, and it still works like a charm. Charges up the iPod while in the car and gives me reliable sound from the iPod to the radio. I just used it this weekend, for the first time in a long time, and it was great.
So, there’s at least that. Component cables? Eh, I dunno.
I bought a Monster power strip on sale today at Amazon for $7. As long as it gives me power to all outlets when I plug it in, I’ll be happy.
This reminds me , a long while back Stereo Review did blind tests where they compared cheap equipment to high end stuff in blind tests. For the amps nobody could tell a $200 amp vs. a $1500 amp. It made a lot of “expert” people look really foolish.
But what about the tannins, man, the tannins! And the aeration!
I have long suspected this to be the case, there seems to be a certain price beyond which some products don’t improve. Same with running trainers, you can pay $80-100 for a good pair or you can pay $300 and see no difference.
It also seems to be true for wine, I remember reading about a vintner who submitted the same wine under 3 labels into a prestigious competition, one of the wines won a double-gold award or somesuch, one came middle of the pack and the other was removed from the competition before judging really began for being sub-par.
This anecdote is seriously dated but I think I remember it more or less accurately. When I got my first set of decent speakers (AR15’s I think), I initially hooked them up with normal speaker wire. I don’t remember the gauge but I would guess it was 12 gauge, maybe 10.
Monster cables were ridiculously overpriced so I got a knock off but it claimed to use pure copper and these suckers were huge - I still have them (currently drive a set of Polk Monitor 40’s). They are easily 6 or 7 gauge. When I first hooked them up, I did notice a difference. The speakers seemed a little cleaner and crisper. It wasn’t a huge difference, but I did notice something.
A lot of self proclaimed audiophiles take a lot of pride in being able to hear things that others can’t. I’m sure this is true of some people, just like most people in their 20’s can hear certain very high frequencies that are inaudible to most people over 35 - hence those high pitched ringtones that were popular a couple of years ago.
But as a general rule, such people are not nearly as special as they would like to believe. But since the belief persists, savvy marketers have no compunctions about feeding off of it to sell those folks obscenely priced items that are 99% packaging and presentation and only 1% usable performance. The specs might in fact be much better than something comparable from another vendor, but an amp that goes up to 40khz doesn’t really do you any good if your hearing tops out at 13khz.
it’s called “placebo effect.” You made a change- expecting to hear a difference- and what do ya know, you think you heard a difference.
this is why we have things like double-blind testing.
The best explanation for why “subjective” evaluation listeners hear things that that are not detected in double-blind listening is here. The gist is that the act of getting up and changing a cable or component results in the listener’s ears not being in exactly the same place, and that even tiny differences in position result in changes in sound due to acoustic comb filtering.
What I love about Winer’s explanation is that it doesn’t require audiophiles to be delusional fools. They do hear a difference - it’s just not for the reason they think they do. And the changes are transient, which results in the continuing desire to upgrade. They may be fooling themselves into thinking a change is “better”, but they are hearing a difference.
Hi Mr. gaffa,
Not to cause trouble, but I see no reason to spare the feelings of audiophiles. If they imagine something is better when it isn’t (as tested in double blinds) then they are delusional. And probably fools.
I readily believe they can detect audio differences far better than I could, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t bozos and misguided elitists.
while I use the term “audiophools,” I don’t always believe that foolishness is at the core of this. For one, our senses are extraordinarily easy to fool. Hearing (and the memory of what we hear) is especially so. the other part of what gaffa said above is part placebo, and part confirmation bias. if you- say- get up and change cables, then sit back down to listen again, you are listening with the full knowledge of what you changed, and the properties of the item you changed. So you listen again with the expectation of hearing a difference (confirmation bias) and since you have imperfect memory of the previous setup, you convince yourself that there is a difference (placebo.)
Please read the link I posted. Audiophiles aren’t hearing differences entirely because of placebo effect (though that may have quite a bit to do with it) but because they got up and changed the cables and their ears are in a slightly different location. Look at the curve - there are differences of more than six dB at some frequencies with a change in position of only two inches!
This paper, and the supporting research, allows each camp their dignity. Again, they do hear a difference, it’s just not for the reasons they think. It also explains why these same subjective listeners fail to hear a difference when placed in A/B/X comparator tests.
A little diplomacy will go a long way.