Posted on 05/16/2007 3:02:53 PM PDT by george76
High-definition television (HDTV) has evolved from an early-adopter indulgence to a mainstream technology in less than a decade. Enthusiasm for HD everything is driving the sales of flat-panel TVs and has inspired a next-gen DVD format war. It’s showing up in camcorders and on your local TV news.
Yet HDTV remains a widely misunderstood technology, muddled with misconceptions and half-truths born of marketing mumbo jumbo and senseless jargon. The advertised specifications read like bewildering mathematical equations with “variables” such as 1080i, 720p, 4:3, 1080p and 16:9. To clear the air of confusion we’ve examined some of the most wrongheaded bits of received wisdom in the world of HD.
Myth #7 To get the best-quality HD, you need expensive cables.
Fact: Not true. If the cables running from your DVD player or cable box aren’t particularly long, you should be fine with inexpensive video cables. The extra shielding in expensive cables that prevents interference in analog equipment won’t improve the image of digital video through HDMI or DVI cables — the signal either comes through or it doesn’t. And the savings can be huge: 6-ft. HDMI cables range from $20 to $160.
(Excerpt) Read more at popularmechanics.com ...
This is rather less complicated than one of my setups...
I learned the hard way that it pays to label each cable — I use masking tape at each end to write the “to” and “from” info.
The point about not buying expensive cables applies to all Home Theater...
I wonder how the folks at Monster Cable can sleep at night - a whole business built on a scam.
That seems to be missing a phone jack to connect it to the Internet.
I always use www.monoprice.com
You can sometimes get stuff for under 10% of the Monster prices, and with digital hdmi there is *no* difference under 50 feet of wire.
The mind of a TV junkie.
The most vicious flamewars I ever saw on USEnet were between the “speaker cables matter” and “speaker cables don’t matter” folks.
Analog cables can make a difference, except you get diminishing returns when it starts getting really expensive for sure.
Digital is a whole different matter. As long as it works, it’s fine.
I’m not an electronic engineer, but I was told and read long ago that cables for the OLD home stereo systems benefited from better cables only to a point of diminishing return on performance. I would think the same is true for today. Wire is wire and has not changed much has it?
Monster cables are best known in the audiophile world. There are two rules:
If it sounds good, it must be expensive.
If it's expensive, it must sound good.
Repeat until broke.
Basically unless there's an enormously long cable or wire run or some sort of absurd unusual interference situation, there's no actual difference in sound from anything from Home Depot Wire up through the most expensive "premium" cables.
However, if someone has a stereo system, spends $100 on some premium speaker cables, and takes them home and installs them, they're ALWAYS going to THINK their system sounds better.
But when you take people have have them listen blind to the identical system with different $$$ cables, they can't tell the difference or don't pick the expensive ones as better than cheap ones any more often than vice-versa.
Basically, what happened is you had weenie anal audiophiles spending $10,000 on a setup, and then having the nagging feeling that the $10 they spent on speaker wire was somehow compromising the system - some clever people figured out how to exploit this psychological anxiety and thus the whole "premium cable" industry was born - with massive advertising in magazines, reviewers in audiophile magazines "reviewing" cables like they were brands of wine, etc.
The basic reality is that for any given sum of money spent on your system, any money you might spend on premium cables is far better spent on better speakers. For example, for a $1,000 setup where you're spending $400 on speakers and $100 on premium cables, you're far better off spending $490 on speakers and $10 on plain old home depot wire.
Speaking of speakers, the REAL fun used to start on the audiophile USENet groups when people asked about Bose.
The other thing about the premium cables is the profit margins on them are HUGE, and salespeople also are very big on pressuring people into buying them as well, sort of like the pressure to buy extended warranties.
Very comforatbly, I’m sure. The sucker industry has its perqs.
If it sounds good, it must be expensive.
If it's expensive, it must sound good.
It reminds me of the story about then iodine first came on the market for consumers.(The early 19th century, or so) It was clear, didn't sting, and didn't sell.
The long and the short of it, the makers kept the same Rx only dyed it red, put a touch or two of alcohol to make it sting, and the stuff has sold ever since.
Monster Cable is crap. The ends are barely soldered onto the cables, among other things. And the management is arrogant and lawsuit-happy.
Where did you get a picture of the back of my TV?
I bought an HDMI cable hoping it would improve my sets standard definition performance but it did nothing in comparison to the component video cables that I had at the start. I returned it because it cost a ridiculous amount for a cable.
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