Just ordered a LCD HDTV set from a discounter by phone after checking prices online. New set, good price w/shipping included.
After being bombarded by the pitch to buy a long-term extended warranty and constantly repeating “Not interested, will pass,” the sales guy finally gave up, then started trying to sell me a HDMI cable.
I know this is the price of doing business with these low cost outfits, but when he would not listen to my refusals, I finally asked, just out of curiosity, what a 12’ HDMI cable would cost. Hang on: $250!
I finally got he sale closed without buying anything else, then went to Google to see the prices of that cable. To my surprise, they ranged all the way from $25 to near $200 (but certainly not $250).
Is there really a difference in the quality in these cables that would justify this disparity in costs? Are there any criteria by which one could judge them?
Cables usually have a very high markup, that’s why they are pushed so heavily.
There are differences in cable quality, due to the components used, skill of the assembler, and testing of the completed assembly. The trick is separating the facts from the hype in the advertising. I like to look for companies that specialize in cable fabrication, and are willing to tell you where they get their components, and how they assemble and test their cables.
One of my old roommates was a professional musician and electrical engineer for a company that designs high-end studio recording equipment. His opinion was that for home use the vast majority of expensive cables were simply overpriced snakeoil.
If your local shop will let you borrow a cable (or purchase one with a trial period during whihc you can return it for a full refund) then do so after ordering a budget cable and compare the two.
HDMI is an all-digital signal. If you plug in an el-cheapo cable and it works at all without any glaringly obvious problems, it is working just as well as the most expensive one will.
Ding ding! That’s exactly true. Either all the ones and zeros get there or they don’t. It’s not like a cheap cable makes your TV just get 0.5’s and zeros.
I’m watching ESPN HD right now with my cable box hooked up to my TV by a $10, 6-ft HDMI cable from monoprice.com (not shilling, just demonstrating). The cable has served me well for over a year now. You certainly don’t have to pay for horrendously expensive cables.
I have a hard time imagining how a “high quality” cable makes a bit of difference in transmitting a digital signal. In fact, I was under the impression that we prefer digital signals precisely because they are resistant to low level degredation.
I can imagine how a high quality cable makes a difference in a low power analog signal, like an audio interconnect. Whether or not my imagination has a real-world effect is a point of argument, but at least there is some sort of conceivable method for the effect.
For the record, I got my HDMI from monoprice as well at 1/10th the price of Monster, and can confirm that it appears to be a well made cable, not cheap garbage someone made in their basement.
Gigabit Ethernet uses some very sophisticated signal processing to transport the data over Cat-5 cable. In essence, it uses four sets of 250 Mbps full-duplex modems. The Cat-5 cable has four twisted pairs, each of which can carry 250 Mbps.
Oh but you have to get an expensive HDMI cable!
The contrast will be tighter, the brightness imaging will be more complex, transparency will be colder, vividness will be more texturized, and the reds and blues will not be as bitter.
Not to mention the resolution hues will be more static, the color dynamics more subdued, and ghost imaging won’t have a sour post image. Translucency will be compressed and monochrome elasticity will be warmer.
It all made perfect sense to me when I read the packaging.
It can make a difference at high bit rates, where the signals involved have frequency components at radio frequencies. It’s no longer a simple piece of wire, it’s an RF transmission line, and has to be designed as such. While a digital signal is resistant to moderate amounts of distortion, it can still be mangled beyond recognition. There are also issues of cross-talk and shielding that have to be considered, along with the mechanical robustness of the cable and connectors.
While I wouldn’t blow $250 on overpriced cables from Monster or their ilk, there is a difference between industrial/commercial quality cables from reputable manufacturers and cheap junk from Radio Shack or low-end companies in China.
Agreed. An expensive cable won’t necessarily give you a better signal, but a cheapo cable will often have quality problems with the physical construction of the cable. The plastic molding around the connector might not be well attached to the cable itself, for example, which eventually causes the connections to get damaged after repeated use.
I’ve used RG-223/U coaxial cable, which uses silver-plated copper conductors and a double shield. It’s a higher quality, and more expensive, version of RG-58/U. It’s been around for many years.
However, “Firstly, the cable employs silver-clad copper signal conductors of 6N (>99.9999%) purity, which is produced through the OCC (Ohno Continuous Casting) process utilizing Wireworld’s proprietary Grain Optimization technique” sounds like pure snake oil to me.