The problem is there are probably poor old people actually getting bent over and spending their hard earned money on this...

http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/subclass.asp?catid=25326&mfr=&logon=&langid=EN&sort=0&page=0&list=


NEVER will i purchase a monster product. monoprice all the way

But it's probably keeping Futureshop in business...

Sometimes you pick your poison...

The great thing is that we have a choice as to where to buy cables and other products.
Many AVS forum members know what a rip-off these prices are. They buy their cables from Monoprice, BlueJean, or Tartain which are forum sponsors and save a lot of money.

Thanks for your input rwestley,

I just bought a new 240hz samsung TV and the "specialist" at the retail store tried to get me to buy a $200 HDMI monster cable. he said i needed the >14.9GB bandwidth that only that monster cable provided. Instead I got High Speed HDMI 1.3a Category 2 Certified Cable from monoprice for only $3.56

Same here. I just bought a 50" LG plasma and an LG htib from American TV. The salesman did his darndest to get me to spend $200 on cables but I got high end HDMI cables on Ebay for a fraction of the cost. Btw, I returned the htib and am going with a dedicated receiver, which is what led me to this form. :)

Survival of the fitest. i say let people spend $200 on an HDMI cable if they are that daft to not educate themselves. On the bright side it keeps people employed.

I only wish it was any other company besides monster who benefited.

The real beneficiary are the retailers pushing those overpriced cables - which is why they stock and push them. By the way, in about every store you are likely to find more than one brand, though in case of HDMI, it would usually be a Belkin, Acoustic Research, or some such, only a few $$ less than Monster.

It is often the case of instant gratification. Customer is pcking up a $2k TV, and finds out that for the best picture, he needs an HDMI cable. $60-80 might seem like small change next to the big splurge, and many often can't stand to wait for a mail-order cable to arrive.

Retailer offerings are not likely to change, however, even as consumers get more thrifty and more Internet-savvy. Those already shop primarily on the Internet, and customers walking into a local Best Buy are usually either 'clueless enough to buy a Monster', or 'need this cable NOW, price be damned'.