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Monster Cables- The World should know!

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Cuffy:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=1073&tag=nl.e539

Do I need monster HDMI cables?
No, HDMI monster cables are simply a monster rip-off.  If a cable is HDMI certified, it will by definition offer you a perfect digital signal.  Despite the fact that the electrical signals traversing an HDMI cable degrade as a cable gets longer, it will still offer perfect digital transmission so long as the signal loss or distortion is within a certain tolerance.  Analog cables might benefit from extra thickness and insulation because there’s not much you can do to fix analog signal loss or distortion other than to amplify and maybe filter the signal a little to mitigate the bad side effects.  But when it comes to digital technology, the signal is either all there or it isn’t.  There is zero measurable difference in the digital signal quality between the $6 HDMI cable and the $60 monster HDMI cable.

Caveat Emptor!

TucknDar:
Luckily my monster cables were bought well before anyone had thought of HDMI :P

Edvard:
This is a constant topic among audiophiles...
Does type of cables really make a difference?
You are absolutely correct, Cuffy. With digital, the signal is there or it isn't. Period. Noise due to improper shielding or connections may cause artifacting, but a decent cable (not bottom-of-the-barrel) is more than adequate for most purposes.

On the analog side, I have seen wild arguments for gold-plated connectors, solid-core cabling, crystalline copper (?) and everything in-between, but the bottom line comes down to two things (especially for instrument cables that get moved around, stepped on, twisted, pulled, etc.), shielding and robustness of the connection.
Braided shielding is less vulnerable than wrapped, and connectors with strain relief boots tend to "hang on" longer.
For something that is going to hang behind your home stereo for months at a time, it's not so critical.

...And don't use coax for speaker cables...

Curt:
... There is zero measurable difference in the digital signal quality between the $6 HDMI cable and the $60 monster HDMI cable...-Cuffy (March 21, 2008, 12:04 PM)
--- End quote ---


Without knowing your preferences in general I would guess that you are the kind of type that also claims there can be no spiritual world because it cannot be measured? I really don't care if you can measure the difference in digital audio cables or not. The difference is there, but you probably have something blocking your ears...  :P

Piece!  :-[

For thirty years I was a hifiholic. I already have had this 'debate' too often.  8)

f0dder:
Curt, with digital signals, either it's going to work or it's not going to work. And it should be trivial to test, since you can do an exact bit-by-bit comparison at the destination, which is 100% objective and doesn't rely on something as fragile and subjective as the human ears. Iirc, the HDMI protocol even has checksum built-in, so corrupted signals can be detected. There is no arguing this.

With analog signals, it's a bit of a different story, because you can't do the same kind of bit-by-bit comparison, and then people get all emotional about their investment and obviously want to justify spending a zillion dollars on gold wired cables. All you really need, though, is cabling with the right level of resistance and enough shielding. If you live in a normal withtout a lot of EMI, buying super-expensive audio cables is just plain silly. I daresay that normal power-chord cables would do the job just fine :)

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