HDMI Cable Questions

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Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 12, 2009
Messages
489
So, I am planning on rewiring all of my home theater stuff to HDMI cables (long overdue) and I have a question.

I saw this thread in the Hot Deals section for Monster HDMI cables at remarkably low prices.
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1571647

My question, as posted in that thread (but I figured this was the more appropriate location to ask):

Is a "Monster" "B grade" hdmi cable for $6.95 in any way superior / inferior to a $3 hdmi cable from www.monoprice.com ?

Or, is a cable a cable and I should just buy monoprice and not support monster, even on super sale?

Thanks.
 
a cable is a cable.

the only reason I can think of that a cable would be considered "poor" is the it didn't fit in to the mating conection.

please, if possible do not support monster. They are a very unethicial company, if you want a "high end cable", google blue jeans cable.

mono price works JUST FINE.

Kev
 
If you buy Monster cables you support their bogus "lets sue everyone!!!111" money making schemes.

I wouldn't buy their $30 cables even if they were on sale for $1.
 
had the same discussion with some moron sales guy at BB trying to tell me that using a 6ft Monster HDMI cable that cost almost $60 was "far superior" to the generic 6ft HDMI cable they sold for $30. i just told him i as gonna go 2 blocks down to a computer shop and pick up a 10ft cable for 24.99 and he said it wasnt going to be a good cable. LOL actually its better construction that the generic cable BB had, 2 times the length and half the cost of the Monster cable. i made a point of going back to the store and showing him the cable, and telling him and his boss that they should know what the hell they're talking about before they start spreading all the bullshit.
 
thegamer36 said:
I use monorprice cables and never had an issue with any of them.
Click to expand...

CrimandEvil said:
If you buy Monster cables you support their bogus "lets sue everyone!!!111" money making schemes.

I wouldn't buy their $30 cables even if they were on sale for $1.
Click to expand...

Ditto.

I've actually gotten a bad HDMI cable from Monoprice. They sent me another one to replace it, no questions asked. They told me to just throw away the other one. Great customer service. Monoprice is pretty much the only place I get cables these days.
 
I've bought a few cheap ones from Amazon/eBay, and I've only had a problem with one having a bit loose connection to my TV, so every few weeks, I may need to just bump the connector a tiny bit, and it is good as new.
 
Rogue71 said:
had the same discussion with some moron sales guy at BB trying to tell me that using a 6ft Monster HDMI cable that cost almost $60 was "far superior" to the generic 6ft HDMI cable they sold for $30. i just told him i as gonna go 2 blocks down to a computer shop and pick up a 10ft cable for 24.99 and he said it wasnt going to be a good cable. LOL actually its better construction that the generic cable BB had, 2 times the length and half the cost of the Monster cable. i made a point of going back to the store and showing him the cable, and telling him and his boss that they should know what the hell they're talking about before they start spreading all the bullshit.
Click to expand...

Right on! They need to be told just how BS monster cables are.
 
because a hdmi signal is pure digital without error correction, any old cable should be fine.
I will caveat this point sometimes poor cables especially at longer length can struggle to do 1080p.
Especially for 10+ metres i would spend a bit more bit monster are way overpriced and over sold.
You cannot get a different type picture/sounds depending on the HDMI cable, you may find devices fail to negotiate at 1080p data rates due to signal loss, and you may find you have picture with missing pixels.
But you cannot get a cleaner or warmer or lounder etc picture/sound from the cable.
For sub 5 metres any cheap cable should be fine if not the cables at fault, but i will caveat to say yesterday i plugged in my Dad's new amp to his TV and it failed to get a 1080p signal but 720p worked fine.
 
I always go with monoprice but I did recently receive a couple of 1.5 foot cables that don't work with my ps3 at 1080p. I have to use 1080i which doesn't look any different. I swapped them out for a 3ft cable and it's fine now. Now I linked two 25ft cables together and there were no problems with any of my devices syncing at 1080p. Those were from monoprice as well.
 
Just like everyone else said, just get the monoprice cables. theyre a good company selling a decent product at a great price. monster is bs, and so is best buy. just like Rogue71, I went ahead and argued with the people there about the quality of their cables vs cheaper ones. Hell, I went as far as pulling up http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/tests/4235717 on my phone and telling him that, not only could I get 6 cables from monoprice for what he was offering 1 for, i would get equal picture quality, and i could throw out 5 of them if they had been bad...

I think i really pissed em off when I came back the next day to pick up my tv, went up to a display, yanked their monster hdmi cable and replaced it with one of my cheap monoprice ones I got for $10 for 12 feet or some such and it worked fine. the part they were pissed about was that I was standing there (i was in nice slacks and a polo as I'm a manager where i work) and asked the people looking at tv's if they could see the difference in quality. they all said no, it looks great. I said "good, now dont support best buys 80% profit margin on monster cables. buy from Monoprice.com and youll get the cable on the right for 1/10th of the money).

I was kicked out XD
 
Rogue71 said:
had the same discussion with some moron sales guy at BB trying to tell me that using a 6ft Monster HDMI cable that cost almost $60 was "far superior" to the generic 6ft HDMI cable they sold for $30. i just told him i as gonna go 2 blocks down to a computer shop and pick up a 10ft cable for 24.99 and he said it wasnt going to be a good cable. LOL actually its better construction that the generic cable BB had, 2 times the length and half the cost of the Monster cable. i made a point of going back to the store and showing him the cable, and telling him and his boss that they should know what the hell they're talking about before they start spreading all the bullshit.
Click to expand...

Meh. I wouldn't have wasted my time explaining why Monster cables are a god damned ripoff.

Liars gonna lie.
 
You seem to prove the point that there can be differences in cables. I'm not suggesting anyone buy the most expensive cables around, but as you note, there can in some instances be the need for a better cable. It might be more important where you buy it. Get the less expensive ones from a place with a good return policy.

calliusmaximus said:
because a hdmi signal is pure digital without error correction, any old cable should be fine.
I will caveat this point sometimes poor cables especially at longer length can struggle to do 1080p.
Especially for 10+ metres i would spend a bit more bit monster are way overpriced and over sold.
You cannot get a different type picture/sounds depending on the HDMI cable, you may find devices fail to negotiate at 1080p data rates due to signal loss, and you may find you have picture with missing pixels.
But you cannot get a cleaner or warmer or lounder etc picture/sound from the cable.
For sub 5 metres any cheap cable should be fine if not the cables at fault, but i will caveat to say yesterday i plugged in my Dad's new amp to his TV and it failed to get a 1080p signal but 720p worked fine.
Click to expand...
 
oh there are differences but they key thing is it pretty much works at 720p/1080i or 1080p or it doesnt.
There is no picture difference and cannot physically be a better picture because its a pure digital non error corrected signal.
If you need long HDMI cables you really need to buy them from a reputable source, lots of reasonably priced cables that guarantee 1080p.
Now it seems the cable my dad was using was a freebie from the cable company, as Cable/Satellite is sent in 720p/1080i which both push the same approx ammount of data im guessing they found the cheapest cable they could possibly get made that supported 720p/1080i as they must ships tens of thounsands of them.
That being said this is the first short HDMI cable i have ever seen not making 1080p aka 2 metres or so.
Oh and dont get me started on the sales pitch for HDMI 1.4 cables for 3D etc
 
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