Gadgetry's Golden Rule

I have to say I know a few people that would be forming a lynch mob right now, but I do agree with you for the most part. One area of consideration though should be shielded cables. If you are running video or audio cables either across or near power cabling you can introduce a hum in the audio signal and noise in the video signal. I've experienced this myself and found it to be quite an annoyance. I cannot confirm if this is the case with digital, which I suspect it is not, however in a mixed analogue/digital environment it pays to take notice of which cables are crossing or in close proximity to power.

I agree with you completely. I used to work with a guy who had a second job at best buy. He would regail us for long periods of time about cables after they would give them little seminars. I had to just ignore him.

Yes if you bend the cable in half some might break, and a monster wont. If you irradiate it or putit in some other histile environment it may degrade. It comes down to if you have a special need buy a cable designed for that spec. ..but most of us dont have strange environments in our living rooms, they are 70 degrees, dry, and the cables only move 1x per year if that.

For that just buy the chep ones and get it done.

Very good post. Thank you. Somebody had to say this. I have to disagree about audio cables, because quality of copper does matter, if you have speakers that are quality enough to detect the difference... However, for the most part, I completely agree, and want to thank you for speaking out. Cables are a huge scam, and I hope many will come away reading your article a little wiser, and with more dough in their pockets.

I'm not going to say that every app needs a $700 cable. However, I'm not going to say that cable quality doesn't make a difference-- analog or digital.

Things to look for
- connectors -- if your equipment has gold, you should have gold (If it's tin, you should also be tin). Dissimilar metals are bad. They will eventually cause problems.
- connector quality: connectors are the weak link of any cable system. Cheap ones have crappy plating. Also, they may be undersize, All of this will have you twisting cables to try to get your sound/vid

- mechanical: this includes soldering and strain relief. Cheap cables may have crappy solder joints with uncleaned flux. They will fail. Mechanical protection is also important. Someone will eventually yank on your cable. It would be better if the wire didn't come out.

Wire gauge and exotic wire processing tricks probably aren't worth much.

Don't overbuy -- but don't buy crap

I do believe that the writer may have missed one very special criteria that has effected the HDMI interface and its roll out. I belong to a performance ranking company where HDMI products, including cables, has been at the top of the list.
As I would agree that HDMI cables really offer very little difference in picture quality there is a substantial difference in reliability. The operational integrity of these products has been the biggest issue of all. We have tested many different cable products only to find that they are all over the map. There are differences. These tests require bandwidth, amplitude, timing, communication integrity, interpair skew, intrapair skew, and supply voltage performance. Any one or a mix of any of these parameters can result in an HDMI failure. Failures can occur upon start up, during operation, or just over time. We have found the headroom over and above the minimums are continually challenged. If the dynamics over and above the minimums are not satisfied for the entire system(source, sinks and cables) there can be problems. As the length increases so does the need for even better integrity.
These are the issues that have been on the for front of all HDMI issues. There is much to know and understand. Even installations can be an issues if one does not route these products in an orderly fashion.
That is not to even mention the integrity issues when it comes to high resolution demands.
Like I said, there is much to know. You are more than welcome to visit the Digital Performance Ranking web site dplrating.org for more information or contact me directly by email.

Best Buy (which should be called "Idiots Who Know Damned Little About Anything Except How To Upsell Cables, 'Power Cleaners', and Useless Warrantees") is the worst place. The jerks who work there don't know anything about most of their equipment and make up stuff all the time. They regularly lie and cheat. They try to sell you these ridiculous cables which add NOTHING to the sound of the equipment and they will cheat you on the warrantees every time. Those extended warrantees are a 98.8% profit center for the company. Avoid this company like the plague.

As a former sales manager at a major consumer electronics retailer, I can confirm that the two priority items that our sales staff was pushed to sell were accessories, such as Monster Cables, and extended warranties. If extended warranties didn't make up at least 5% of your total sales, you didn't last very long.

In fact, my monthly bonus was heavily impacted by the sale of those two items. Why? Because as the article states, these items have very high margins. On the daily sales reports, extended warranties came up as 100% margin.

As far as new scams are concerned, I believe it has to be the ISF calibrations that many consumer electronics stores are currently pushing at roughly $300 a pop. I had never heard of it until a couple months ago when I stopped into a BestBuy. There, I stood and listened as a sales associate went into his long spiel about how all new HDTVs leave the factory completely out of calibration because they're adjusted to standout on the showroom floor. But luckily there's a way to correct the problem; just have one of BestBuy's ISF certified calibrators come out to your home and spend an hour or more calibrating your set to exacting broadcast standards and your own unique lighting situation.

Per the certifying authority - isfcalibration.com:

"A Basic ISF Calibration includes adjustment of Scan Velocity Modulation and electrical focus, touch up of convergence and calibration of color temperature to 6500K."

"Cost of a Basic ISF Calibration is: $245.00 + $45.00 each hour of travel past the first hour + sales tax."

"After the initial calibration of the display, touch up adjustments should be performed every 6 to 12 month or when you feel they may be required. This will all depend on the usage of the display."

Wow! Just $300 every 6 to 12 months to keep your TV set calibrated - nice racket.

i too ran a high-end audio store, and worked the retail floor for years. in fact, one year i sold more monster cable than anyone else in the country. ;)

yes, accessories and warranties are the most profitable items electronics stores sell. that does not mean they're not worth it, nor that they bring no value to the customer. ask anyone who's iPod died after a year if they're sorry they bought applecare?

as to the specifics of whether one cable or another is better, why not let your own eyes and ears be the guide? if you can't see/hear the difference, don't pay for it. if your dealer won't offer you a refund, don't patronize them.

there's a lot of high priced dreck out there. but there are a lot of very well made products that will provide a superior experience, and they're not necessarily the most expensive. for instance, i'm currently evaluating the SOUND of 4 different USB cables in my system (PC audio into an external DAC), raging in price from about $5 to $40. I'm as yet undecided which sounds the best, but they all unquestionably sound different. whether those differences are important to you is a value judgement.

Monster makes some excellent products, although they'r enot to my taste for the most part. They are unfairly singled out in this regard, IMHO.

your post, sadly, is misleading, and will likely cause some uneducated consumers to get less than what they paid for when they bought their flats creen TVs and surround systems.

FWIW, i haven't been in the business for ten years.

Friends don't let friends buy Monster.

Most oif the time this is absolutely correct. However.. there is a place cables can make a difference, but it's not the most expensive that sound the best.

Home HiFi systems (and guitar amplifiers) have high-impedance audio interconnects, and in a high impedance system, things like cable reactance (inductance and capacitance) can make a difference. The more capacitance, the more the high end is rolled off. Smart guitar players use low-capacitance cables to keep from losing highs.

The very expensive audio interconnects can in fact sound different- but not because they're made of silver, or have exotic cable geometries. It's because they're very reactive, and are screwing up the frequency response.

Not that most audiophiles can actually hear a high end roll off. I worked for many years in a llarge auditory research lab, and my experience with audiophiles was that, as a group, they tend to be middle aged men with high disposable incomes and a great degree of high frequency hearing loss that they're not aware of.

As for cheap gold-tipped cables found in consumer electronics stores: An incredible waste of money. As the gold is plated on top of other metals it makes no difference. And even if you had solid gold connectors- gold has higher resistance to electricity than either copper or silver!

The thing that used to drive me absolutely insane when browsing through high-end hi-fi stores was 'directional' cable. This stuff, which usually seemed to retail in the three figures per meter bracket, purportedly had a preferred direction for it to be plugged in. One end went to the source, the other end to the speaker. Trying to explain to the sales assistant that the audio signal coming out the back of the amp was AC was like trying to teach group theory to a cocker spaniel.

Then there was the cable that the manufacturers said should not be laid in right angles, because the signal would leak if the bend radius was too small...

It's amazing to me that a 'professional' would say he's evaluating the 'sound' of different USB cables.

People need to learn the difference between analog signals and digital signals. People need to learn what sample rate and bit depth actually mean.

All a digital signal needs to send is 0 or 1 at a high rate. That's it. Think of it as 'on' or 'off.' The least shielded crappy cheapest, ugliest etc. HDMI, USB, digital coax, will transmit the EXACT same signal as the 220 gold infused, I'll be your personal sex slave sexy horrendously expensive monster cables. The EXACT same. No subjective difference. No difference in signals. No interference. No cycle hum. No whine. PERIOD! It either works or it doesn't.

NOW - an analog signal IS affected by quality of the cable. You CAN (maybe) get an increase in quality by the amount of shielding and the gauge of the cable, and you can by special cable like underwater, outdoors, high temp cable etc... but for normal home theater use, just buy a simple well shielded plain cable and strip the damn cable yourself. As far as high end cables go, Monster is about the worst of them. They're like Bose, HUGE reputation, high customer satisfaction, high price, but terrible performance. In the end it's more like Yellow Tail ($5 bottle rotgut that is surprisingly popular) than Chateau Petrus ($1000's bottle that connosieurs would kill for). If you don't have taste... what's it matter to buy the expensive one? And if YOU can't tell the difference, why let some punk at best buy tell you that you will? Believe me Monster is a ripoff. Even for analog.

Cables for digital audio that are less than 30' and are more than 10-15 bucks should be considered criminal.

don't bother- if you can't hear the difference, uhmmm, don't bother spending the money. i don't pretend to understand why they sound different, all i can tell is they do- and the most expensive is not necessarily the best in any case. and, depending on the overall sound of your system, one or the other might be preferable.

for those of you who want something better, but don't want to pay the "long green", check out Belkin's PureAV Silver series- search on amazon- they're surprisingly cheap. the digital and video cables are particularly good.

In college I witnessed an amazing test of personal preferences by some students of the associated graduate school of business. The testers had about 20 brands of cigarettes with them. They asked for volunteers who smoked, and asked each of 3 volunteers which brand they liked most, and which brand they disliked the most. The testers also had one volunteer who smoked anything, but thought he could pick out various brands.

The testers blindfolded each subject and gave each of them puffs from the two brands that they liked and disliked, of course without identifying the brands. They asked the volunteers to name what they were smoking.

The volunteers who had a strong brand preference could not tell the difference between brands! One guy couldn't believe it, and insisted that the testers were fooling him.

The volunteer who smoked anything could indeed identify many brands by flavor. He said that he liked some more than others, but usually smoked whatever was available or whatever he could get free from his friends.

The testers confirmed something from marketing theory. People with strong brand preferences were the most affected by image and advertising and were the least able to sense a real difference. They formed a strong brand preference in part because they needed a guide to something that they could not directly sense.

Ironically, people who actually can sense a difference in products are usually unconcerned about small variations, even when they have preferences.

This is probably true about cables. People who want status from their systems, but who really cannot tell the difference in sound, are motivated to buy the most expensive systems and cables because they don't want to make an embarrassing mistake. People who can really tell the difference are not as concerned, because they hear all cables as being different in some ways, and so they have the personal freedom to buy the ones that are adequate, or the cheapest ones that sound good.

One thing i think needs to be said is printers are just as bad i went to buy a Kodak and realized they don't even come with the cords and then went and got a semi cheap one for 25.00 if your going to sell me a product at least give me everything i need so when i get home im not stuck with a printer i cant use till i buy a cord.

I agree that cables are ridiculously over priced. I used to work at Circuit City, and we could buy many things at cost. I purchased several "gold plated" USB cables for $2.00 each. they retailed for $30.00 each.

*precious herbs and berries* that was hilarious!

Comments from ‘dontbother’ are correct. What we hear from a digital signal is a numerically created emulation of a sound wave. Binary info for each time frame is sent as a number representing an amplitude value of a wave. Degrees of variance determined by bit size I.E. (8,16,32,64). An 8 bit would have 255 levels and a 64 bit would have 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 levels (Variance:2^(bits)). This is where the quality of the signal is determined and remains. If we hear ANYTHING the resembled the original transmission (this verifying mere transmission only) than it must be transmitting the full signal. With this transmission delivery system, it is impossible to detect aural transmission degradation because it is an on-off issue, there is no loss. We can no more here a difference in this than you can hear the color blue. Because of this, ‘FrankBoston’ must have some merit of truth to his comment. I believe it is difficult to create a new, un-biased belief when we observe that the sum of the parts make up the whole and if the individual parts are better, the whole is somehow not better. Gold is a better conductor than silver or copper and resists corrosion. Gold may have a higher resistance to electricity ratio, but as ‘mje’ pointed out, that is only an issue if they were solid gold and these are merely plated with negligible resistance. The thing is (in digital), if I hear it, it is making contact. If it is making contact, a signal is received and the cables role is defined as ‘functional’, having no loss.
Analog and manufacturing quality comments are dead on guys! Shielding, sufficient gauge, and adequate mfr techniques (good solder) are sufficient.

As for longevity of any cables I look at like this: I could buy 27 replacement HDMI cables @$8/ea or 8 replacement cables @$25/ea instead of buying Monster’s $220.00 HDMI cable. Either way, I would probably have enough HDMI cables to last me to the end of my life.

I agree, digital information is an electrical signal not an audio signal. It is pretty simple, if you flip on a light it is either On or Off. The switch can have a dimmer then it will still be a dim On or Off. Weather it is a 2.5 volt, 5 volt or 120 volt it is still On = 1 and Off = 0. The conversion to digital happens inside the device and has nothing to do with the cable. As long as the receiving device can tell the difference between a 1 and a 0 the cable is great. Improving the cable to provide a better signal will not nothing for audio or video quality.

Industry standards define the specification for the devices and the cables that connect them together. For instance HDMI is a industry standard. For any device to so say it is an HDMI device it has to conform to the specifications of HDMI. A HDMI cable built to be made to HDMI specifications as well. The specification states that any HDMI cable will work without loosing the 1s or 0s to about 50 feet in length. At most, using wire with better quality shielding may allow you to make a connection of about 60’ but that is not supported by HDMI and you are taking engineering into your own hands.

As for analogue signals these are also designed standards. Yes, you might get a measurable fidelity gain but it will most likely be outside the normal range of human hearing and only your dog will appreciate the improvement.

In short price shop your cables and choose the one that meets the standard and is the lowest cost.

You can say that I'm one of those people that is not bound by product name, but rather by product performance. And have been so all my life.

I work in the communications field (for high transmission frequencies and high rate digital data packages). < That sounds extravagant to most people when they hear me say it that way. But all that really makes it is the Edward Norton (Honeymooner's) way of upgrading his sewer working job.

When it comes to digital transmissions. The most used format is one in which the data (1 or 0) is transmitted in a verifiable double transmission. That means the same bit of converted information is sent twice. One would be the signal to be used, and the other would be to verify the original. That is to prevent data corruption in the information.

In essence, the digital portion of your audio or video signals has very little to do with your cables. In a high demand practice (such as the one I am in) we use the average purchased cable and then verify the cable's integrity, and connection points. We ohm out the cable to verify it is not damaged and meets the required impedance, and we check the connections to be sure they are rugged enough for our use (not really applicable in a home configuration as the home cables tend to rarely be moved).

As for the analog portion of cables... well we do the same thing as above, but we also verify the shielding to verify its not damaged also. That's it. Nothing more.

We use the correct 'type' of cable for the application we have. We don't use the name brand cable that costs the average person $10.00 a linear foot - unless that is the ONLY company making that type of cable, and we cannot manufacture the cable ourselves.

Considering (in audio) what the non-injured ear can actually hear, and what the high cost cable companies say you could hear, to be relevant IN a cable.... shame should go to the person that believes they can hear more than what the human ear is designed to hear. The average being in the 2-4k range.

Like other posters: What makes a good cable is the cables integrity and connections. Not the brand that it is. Not the cost for the cable. And not that guy that says: "These may cost more but are better quality because x, y, z!" (If you like to verify something, ask one of them guys what components are in an S-Video to Composite cable adapter, and see if they say Capacitor.)

Do you have any thoughts on those $100 surge protectors that they sell to you when you drop a few thousand on a big screen TV? Seemed like the thing to do at the time!

Get one for $20. No problems with ours so far!

I work for a wire & cable manufacturer. I can tell you, there are critical specifications that must be maintained if the HD picture is not going to suffer. Some of these have to do with the manufacturing of the cable, but more have to do with how the connectors are installed on the cable. Great cable + crappy connector job = crappy cable.

Rumor in my industry holds that some HDTV companies are suing there cable assembly suppliers because the suppliers are not holding to the critical specs (take a guess where these shoddy assemblies are made, first two don't count).

When it comes to HDMI cables, there is a tremendous quality issue. If your cables aren't getting the job done, take them back and get replacements. If the cables came from a country with an extremely high population, maybe you should try a different make.

As for audio cables, none of the gold-tipped jobs are any better than bare copper. If you believe you can "hear the difference", what you're hearing is your ego telling you "you didn't waste the cash", even though you did.

Guitar cables are in a different category. The best use a combination of silver-plated copper conductors, silicone insulation, semi-conductive compound, and shielding. Anything less, and your cable isn't going to be as flexible as you want, and may have trouble with triboelectric noise (noise generated by components rubbing against each other inside the cable).

I worked for a year at a certain electronics store (RS) and we were REQUIRED to sell at least 3 accessories with every sale because the major item on sale had hardly any markup while the accessories were marked up at 400-500%
When we started to sell iPods we actually were told we couldn't make the sale without an accessory sale because we were making about $2 on the iPod.

I worked for a year at a certain electronics store (RS) and we were REQUIRED to sell at least 3 accessories with every sale because the major item on sale had hardly any markup while the accessories were marked up at 400-500%
When we started to sell iPods we actually were told we couldn't make the sale without an accessory sale because we were making about $2 on the iPod.

One affair i anticipate needs to be said is printers are aloof as bad i went to buy a Kodak and accomplished they don't alike appear with the cords and again went and got a semi bargain one for 25.00 if your activity to advertise me a artifact at atomic accord me aggregate i charge so back i get home I'm not ashore with a printer i deceit use till i buy a cord. Cheers. [ triathlon bike ] [ triathlon wetsuit ]