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Thread ID: 135652	2013-11-27 17:39:00	Monster Audio Cables vs Coat Hanger Wires = No Difference	Strommer (42)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
1360988	2013-11-27 21:35:00	It's all marketing, even if the cables are better they are not worth what they cost. Same with expensive HDMI cables - total marketing gimmick (ok well to qualify, at 1080P or lower and under 5M. Outside that it does actually matter). Pretty much! Mate was buying a TV, was about to go buy a couple of their hundred dollar "gold plated" HDMI cables. I told him it was all BS and went down the road to Foodtown and got 3 of them for $10 each (Including a spare, coz they're so cheap, for his 3rd device). Told him there was no difference (Digital signal, not analog) and politely asked for a box of beer for saving him two hundred bucks. He happily obliged :D	Chilling_Silence (9)
1360989	2013-11-27 22:15:00	The digital thing can fool you if you only think of it in terms of a single pulse either being there or not. When you start transmitting lots of them along a cable at speed there is really no such thing as digital, it's effectivley an analogue signal. Squarewave sure, but is has frequency and a waveform that degrades over distance due to the impedance characteristics of the cable. Which is why I qualified the HDMI thing as 1080P and under 5M, over longer distances or higher resolution the cheaper cables might not perform due to the bandwidth requirements. Tricky modulation can improve things but only to a point. None of which changes the fact that Cheap HDMI cables work perfectly :) I just didn't want to give the impression there's never a reason for better ones because occasionally there is. Incidentally one of the tests I read tried to see if any of the expensive cables over 10M could handle 1440P and they all failed, imagine 4k over that distance! In a few years if 4K takes over we may need to replace some of the cheap cables but I'd try them first.	dugimodo (138)
1360990	2013-11-27 22:50:00	Given it's supposed to function at 4gbps as HDMI 1.0 spec, and 10gbps at HDMI 1.3 spec. Granted it's not sending the 1080p signal through to the TV as a 30mbps h.264 'file', even if the throughput were to degrade by roughly 25% over 10 meters, I believe that's still more than sufficient, even at HDMI 1.0 spec?	Chilling_Silence (9)
1360991	2013-11-28 02:11:00	None of which changes the fact that Cheap HDMI cables work perfectly :) Depends how cheap you are talking. Cheap enough and as you say even a 'digital' signal will be unusable. I think the bigger issue with cheap cables is they usually aren't as robust, the plugs are more likely to break or break off etc. I wouldn't go any better than cheap brand name ones, but certainly not el-cheapo dollar store ones. And with any real budget cable you run the risk of something being miswired, shorted, or not even connected at all.	Agent_24 (57)
1360992	2013-11-28 03:08:00	LOL. And similar test have been done on bottled water, posh wines, all sorts of things. I get comments about my apparently lacking TV too....	pctek (84)
1360993	2013-11-28 03:10:00	I posted another response but it got lost somewhere, I'm sure it must have been the greatest post in the world but I can't remember, so this is just a tribute... I suspect really cheap cables don't necesarily conform to the HDMI standards with regards to bandwidth, they have enough for common real world applications today and that's about it. There is a bit of headroom in the standard, 1080P doesn't use all the available bandwidth. Anyway, Yes Chill plenty of bandwidth in theory. The issue is many cables can't supply that bandwidth past a certain length and so I guess can't be said to actually conform to the standard if supplied at those lengths. The signal doesn't simply degrade and get slower like say an ADSL signal would where it adjusts dynamically to suit the line, it transmits at whatever speed the source signal is regardless but if the cable isn't good enough for that signal the pulses get degraded to the point where they can't reliably be detected and then errors start to happen, the higher the resolution (and therefore frequency/bandwidth used) the shorter the distance the signal can travel before this happens. HDMI 2 in preparation for 4K has upped the bandwidth to 18Gbps. In any case I have about 7 cheap cables varying in length from 1.5 - 5M and costs between $10 - $30 and all work perfectly. It's only when you try to run long distances or pump high bandwidth signals through them that any limitations might show up. Using them for freeview for example they should all be fine because it's only 1080i or 720P at most. Push 4k Signal through them which should in theory work and you may find not all cheap cables are up to it. I agree with Agent_24 regarding the robustness but I still buy the $10 ones from Jaycar and PBtech over any name brand ones and find them perfectly adequate.	dugimodo (138)
1360994	2013-11-28 03:16:00	I've found the digitus cables Dove sell to be awesome. So cheap too. Dynamix from PB are probably as good too. Have had one situation where a cheapie cable (cleaply made, not priced) from powerstore caused white spots all over the screen. Three of these cables caused the same issues, tried a digitus one, no issues. it could have been a bad batch, but I reckon there are dodgy cables out there, and they aren't necessarily the cheap ones.	wratterus (105)
1360995	2013-11-28 03:32:00	I used to sell plenty of Monster cables when I worked at Harvey Norman a lifetime ago. Felt bad for suckers but it was a commission-based role what do you expect me to do. Anyhoo, the sales rep came to our store one night and I said to him: "I looked online and the price we sell these cables for is literally twice the price Harvey Norman Australia sells them, which is literally twice the price American stores sell them for. Why do NZ customers have to pay 4x times the price for already over-priced cables?" The answer: "Are they selling? ... Then what's the problem?" @$$hole.	pablo d (15490)
1360996	2013-11-28 03:57:00	Duly noted, thanks dugimodo. pablo d, he raises a valid point though :p	Chilling_Silence (9)
1360997	2013-11-28 09:37:00	I posted another response but it got lost somewhere, I'm sure it must have been the greatest post in the world but I can't remember, so this is just a tribute... I suspect really cheap cables don't necesarily conform to the HDMI standards with regards to bandwidth, they have enough for common real world applications today and that's about it. There is a bit of headroom in the standard, 1080P doesn't use all the available bandwidth. Anyway, Yes Chill plenty of bandwidth in theory. The issue is many cables can't supply that bandwidth past a certain length and so I guess can't be said to actually conform to the standard if supplied at those lengths. The signal doesn't simply degrade and get slower like say an ADSL signal would where it adjusts dynamically to suit the line, it transmits at whatever speed the source signal is regardless but if the cable isn't good enough for that signal the pulses get degraded to the point where they can't reliably be detected and then errors start to happen, the higher the resolution (and therefore frequency/bandwidth used) the shorter the distance the signal can travel before this happens. HDMI 2 in preparation for 4K has upped the bandwidth to 18Gbps. In any case I have about 7 cheap cables varying in length from 1.5 - 5M and costs between $10 - $30 and all work perfectly. It's only when you try to run long distances or pump high bandwidth signals through them that any limitations might show up. Using them for freeview for example they should all be fine because it's only 1080i or 720P at most. Push 4k Signal through them which should in theory work and you may find not all cheap cables are up to it. I agree with Agent_24 regarding the robustness but I still buy the $10 ones from Jaycar and PBtech over any name brand ones and find them perfectly adequate. I too have found that the 1.5M cables are pretty hopeless over longer distances, they just don't measure up. :(	R2x1 (4628)
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