Cables - The big rip off!

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Here's a link to a BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat article on the price and quality of HDMI cables.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/technology/newsid_10050000/newsid_10056500/10056547.stm

Basically a £10 cable is as good as a £100 one, there's no improvement in picture quality to be had by paying more for a supposedly better cable. With one possible exception, if you want a long run of cable, a few meters as opposed to 1 or 2 meters then better quality wire may make a difference, but you'd need to be sure it was actually better quality and not just higher priced.
 
thats been quite obvious for a while now, compared to analog signals which do degrade with poor quality cables/distances, digital cables should make no difference (as long as the cable is working correctly i.e not broken), a higher quality cable may improve handshake times between components and lead to less loss over long distances but for the most part its probably not worth worrying about, unless the picture or song start dropping out and then you want to take the cable back as its not working correctly

it is worth mentioning however that their are a number of different spec HDMI cables available, HDMI v1.0 cables will not carry a 1080p signal, alot of the really cheap cables are this version (e.g the gold plated one that tescos sell is 1.0). you need v1.3 cables for 1080p

personally ive bought 7dayshop cheap as chips v1.3 cables which do the job perfectly. (a 1.5m cable was about £5, the 5metre one i have was under a tenner)


HOWEVER, sales people do this everywhere and they are on comission so they are bound to persuade you towards more expensive gear, thats what they do, go armed correctly with the info before you enter the shop.

and the tech labs bloke on that link is talking B.S as well, you link components to a source, you would not need to chain link any components together in the way he mentions, why would a HD box, a blu ray player and a console need to be connected together, they will be connected to a single output (be it a tv or an AV amp) you would not link them together in a way where cable quality would come into play over multiple cables (except from source>AVamp>screen and then you would not expect any quality loss issues)
 
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Interesting stuff. I have never been one to pay out for expensive cabling.

Glad my Humax HD box came with a v1.3 cable now!!
 
dont get me wrong ill pay out for reasonable analog cabling such as speaker cable (although ill only shell out for midrange stuff), and analog interconnects for AV sources, but not for a digital connection.

for example i have a 30m of speaker cable ready to fit for my rear surround speakers (i paid £40 for 30m) due to the length of the cable runs and i wanted thin cable compared to the cheap really thick pink stuff
 
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It's even better when you see reports that claim the quality of USB cables can affect the width of the soundstage in audio systems :D
 
Oh it gets much better than HDMI cables... fancy a mains cable at just short of £1300? LINK
 
Cheapskate,:D click the link I posted

I just altered the length to 2m

Price
£4,341.80
This item will be despatched within 10 working days of ordering.

Or **** me we sold one, quick make it
 
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They proved this on the Gadget show a while back too. :D
 
There's a web site - Reference Audio Mods - the ultimate in esoteric geek hifi. They used to sell a replacement wooden volume knob - $485. It had all the usual gushing over how much the sound was improved. It has disappeared off the site now, but it was there for over 2 years.
 
Audiophiles have always been some of the most gullible punters about!
 
Well I bought one of the 10m hdmi cables from 7day too. Cost about £13 and does the job perfectly. I needed another one for my bluray but they were out of stock so I bought a virtually identcal one via Amazon and it is rubbish. Couldn't even get a handshake over it. Never mind a decent picture. Just waiting for them to get back to me re: a replacement. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. That's the great thing about digital. It is entirely one or t'other, nothing inbetween.
I'm glad I'm immune to all this "you gotta invest in great cables" pish.
 
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Oh yeah, there's a long running debate about a Bluray player by a company called Lexington. It has a $3500 player that has EXACTLY the same guts as an Oppo player which costs $500. 7 times the price for a fancy box.
There's even a review on a well known website where the reviewer raves about how much better it is than the cheaper player. Totally unfounded.
 
That makes quite funny reading (as long as you didn't buy one). The average markup on brown goods is less than 10%, their pricing gives them 700%!

Nice work if you can get it :)
 
Just my opinion but it IS worth replacing the crappy interconnects that come in the box with many "hi-fi" components. Not worth spending a fortune but a modest upgrade really does improve the sound. Same goes for speaker cables - ditch the bell-wire and use something a bit thicker (even mains lighting flex) and you'll get the benefit. Not worth spending a fortune since it's unlikely you'll have a specially designed and acoustically planned room to listen in. (IIRC, my interconnects came from Tandy and were around £20 for 6 stereo pairs and the speaker cable is 79 strand and was well under a quid per metre)
 
Oh I don't deny it IS worth upgrading the stuff you get out of the box but you can get a helluva lot better than the standard stuff for not a lot of cash. The difference between a £10 cable and a £100 is NOT much, if any. Decent speaker cable is worthwhile but really only if you have a big system using a fair bit of juice.

"Experts" will froth about the startling clarity of sound and picture you get from a new MAINS cable!
 
I was in PC World yesterday and noticed in their now very small cable section, mains power leads of the kettle and fig 8 variety, of which I have a boxfull under the stairs - £20+. And a modem cable for £20 which Tesco sells the same one for £9.
 
oh yeh they see you coming, last time i looked at the price of a 1m LAN cable i was stunned, places like maplin, tescos etc sell them much much cheaper!
 
OSB said:
Audiophiles have always been some of the most gullible punters about!
Click to expand...

:lol::lol: I must be one then Pete, mind you whilst my kit is old hat and by far top of the range, if you were to listen to some tracks with the sennheiser hd650 bins coupled up to a Graham Slee Novo Headphone Amp it will make you smile :D Mind you I said no to a bloke once at an exhibition when he tried to get me to part with £150 for a 1mtr headphone cable upgrade :cuckoo:
As mentioned good quality cable for a long run is a must, as for all my interconnects for the tv and surround amp, they are just gold plated semi decent ones.
 
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