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Topic: Home Theater Cable Ripoff

Martin Brooks
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 900
From: Forest Hills, NY, USA
Registered: May 2002

posted 01-26-2004 09:44 PM

I've always believed that high-end cable was a bunch of crap. I have challenged many to a double-blind A/B test. Of course, they never accept the challenge. It reminds me of the guy who led the "fight" against New Coke and when a newscaster made him test whether he could actually tell the difference between New Coke and Classic Coke, the guy couldn't tell them apart.

However, in NYC, the chain "Nobody Beats the Wiz" went out of business last year and I was able to pick up some Monster speaker cable remarkably cheaply. I bought it mainly for cosmetic reasons. And I have to admit, it does sound slightly better (tighter and just a hint of more bottom) than my previous cable, which was very heavy duty zip cord. I've got very short speaker runs, so the zip cord should have been fine.

So..is it worth the extra money at regular prices?? Absolutely not. But does it make a difference? Well..it seems to make a little difference and I suspect it would make a bigger difference for video signals.

Monster's got a very confusing product line. It's hard to tell the difference between many of their cables that sell at different price points. But it actually might be worth getting something right above the bottom of the line, which isn't too pricey and looks well made. But anyone who buys their $750 cable should have all their money taken away from them -- they' ve obviously got more than they can handle.

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 01-30-2004 06:50 AM

Martin,

In the case of the frequencies involved with video...the difference between good and bad video cables are easily measured (with instruments and just your monitor)...it is pretty cut and dried. With the longer the cable and the higher the quality of image making the biggest difference.

If it is just lowly composite from a VCR...run just about anything...but as you move up the ladder...the better stuff makes a progressively bigger difference. Heck, if you work with HD-SDI signals (broadcast quality)...not only are you restricted to your cable types but even how tightly you can turn a bend in them...the change in capacitance will attenuate the signal too much.

With color and using multi-cables (component, RGB, RGBS, RGBHV)...they have to be exactly the same length or you will not have your colors aligned correctly. Put up a crosshatch and use different legth cables and you will clearly see convergence issues.

Even wtih the new "twisted pair" craze going on with computer interfaces (mainly at universities) where a computer interface is placed down by the screen and the line is run up to the projector over some 200-feet...many companies offer a twisted-pair (read Cat. 5) solution so you don't have to run expensive 5-wire coax and put up with significant signal loss over such a long run. You will get color shifting if you don't use "skew free" Cat. 5 cable. The "skew free" part is that all of the conductors in the Cat 5 cable are the exact same length, even after twisting.

Steve

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