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Monster Cables- The World should know!

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f0dder:
Were this not true, modern computers could not function.
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Indeed not - use any motherboard monitor and check how "stable" voltages are being reported...

Using ExactAudioCopy I can ensure that I'm getting the precise recorded data.
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Yes and no :) - you need to add AccurateRip to the mix to be sure you get the correct data. And for some of the protected audio CDs, you're entirely at the mercy of the drive's error correction capability, and for instance a plextor and a LiteOn drive probably wouldn't give the same AccurateRip result. I think you need some preeeeetty high-end standalone CD players to achieve this kind of correctness, not to mention that for the protected discs, EAC can go below 1x speed, meaning you wouldn't be able to playback realtime.

Anyway, I probably have to take back the statement about checksumming for HDMI, as I couldn't find a reference to it any place (I was sure I had seen it somewhere, though). But then again, HDMI is only the transport, which can carry multiple formats, meaning that a format could carry checksumming. Checksumming would have limited use anyway, since the stuff is realtime you can't really re-transmit on error, but at least you could detect that "this cable isn't good enough".

Oh, and sure, if you want 100Hz 1080p content at 30m distance, you need better cable quality than a 1m cable from your BluRay player that's right beneath your TV. You don't need gold wires for the latter :)

Armando:
It's the same thing with digital cabling. The input signal might be questionable, and after the signal has traversed the cable, the output systems can be questioned. But as f0dder and Edvard have said, the perfection of a cable carrying a digital signal within its specifications (distance, input voltage, etc) can be easily verified.
-CWuestefeld (March 22, 2008, 01:39 PM)
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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 :)
-f0dder (March 22, 2008, 09:07 AM)
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Exactly. And a tiny bit of research will show that this applies to analog also. Debate seems to be well over since the 1990s...

Since others have explained it very clearly over and over Please let me quote from an article, The Ten Biggest Lies in Audio, from The Audio Critic, issue no. 26, Fall 2000. (but there are countless other references)

The Cable Lie

Logically this is not the lie to start with because cables are accessories, not primary audio components. But it is the hugest, dirtiest, most cynical, most intelligence-insulting and, above all, most fraudulently profitable lie in audio, and therefore must go to the head of the list. The lie is that high-priced speaker cables and interconnects sound better than the standard, run-of-the-mill (say, Radio Shack) ones.  [...]

The simple truth is that resistance, inductance, and capacitance (R, L, and C) are the only cable parameters that affect performance in the range below radio frequencies. The signal has no idea whether it is being transmitted through cheap or expensive RLC. Yes, you have to pay a little more than rock bottom for decent plugs, shielding, insulation, etc., to avoid reliability problems, and you have to pay attention to resistance in longer connections. In basic electrical performance, however, a nice pair of straightened-out wire coat hangers with the ends scraped is not a whit inferior to a $2000 gee-whiz miracle cable. Nor is 16-gauge lamp cord at 18ยข a foot. Ultrahigh-priced cables are the biggest scam in consumer electronics, and the cowardly surrender of nearly all audio publications to the pressures of the cable marketers is truly depressing to behold. (For an in-depth examination of fact and fiction in speaker cables and audio interconnects, see Issues No. 16 and No. 17.)
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If spinrite is snake oil, then high-priced speaker cables and interconnects would be something like... homeopathic snake oil?

CWuestefeld:
Yes and no :) - you need to add AccurateRip to the mix to be sure you get the correct data.
-f0dder (March 22, 2008, 02:31 PM)
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The latest version of EAC has AccurateRip built in. Update your beta  ;)

And what you said about copy-protected CDs is true. But it doesn't apply to this discussion because they're intentionally non-standard, broken discs. Not to mention the fact that I will not buy one.

Armando:
BTW :

One *could* say that they more expensive digital cables sound better because one paid more and is listening more closely...

Ok - Devil's advocate session is over...
-Renegade (March 22, 2008, 11:23 AM)
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Love it.  :)

Curt:
I really wish my English was a hundred times better. You guys are ruining my mood this evening. I gave you a hint: I have been a hifiholic for thirty years, not merely an audiofile; I have studied this subject. First In First Out (FIFO) is *NOT* to be taken literally! FIFO is First In ALMOST First Out - the teqnique brings distortion, and distortion is not "perfect". I gladly admit that FIFO was a major step forward, in bringing the distortion down - today the distortion via FIFO is close to be measured in less than a nano second - but to talk about digital perfectness is not trustworthy; even a nano second is too late = distortion.

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