Is Monster Cable the Best HDMI cable to buy? - Page 4

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ya, um.. I bought an uber Cat6 network cable the other day for my laptop and it made my monitor more bright!!!

Great...we have a troll in our midsts.

Digital is digital. As someone said it either works perfectly or it doesn't work at all. If you are going to be pulling cables on and off frequently buy a cable with what you feel has better connectors on it. If it's going on once buy nearly the least expensive cable you can get. Under no circumstances should you be wasting money on cables like Monster or cables which claim to be "high-speed", etc. There's no difference. It's just like the scam "high speed, gold plated" USB cables that go for like $30 when a $2 cable performs identically.

Now, where the cables are performing properly, there is no difference for that task. However, that doesn't mean that there isn't differences in the cables for other tasks or that cables with higher bandwidth and performance parameters may be necessary in some situations.

There certainly are cases where there aren't differences, and if they are performing properly for your task, that's one of them. You can't improve that.

However, where you need enormous bandwidth and need to maintain that over distance, cabling differences are much more crucial.

That isn't really in Monster Cable's favor, but I just wanted to clarify that it's a little misleading to say that there are "no circumstances" where higher bandwidth or higher performance cable isn't required.

It's like the difference between Cat5 and Cat5e/Cat6. It often doesn't matter at all, but indeed sometimes it does. Cat5e or Cat6 won't give you more performance if Cat5 is giving you all the performance you require, but sometimes it won't, and the improvements in cabling can become relevant in those situations.

Excellent post Chris. As you stated "That isn't really in Monster Cable's favor." The buyer must be aware of the limitation of HDMI for very long runs and should get a cable with higher bandwith. This does not mean that one must buy the Monster brand. Monoprice, BlueJean and others sell cables that have higher bandwith specs for longer runs. The good thing about HDMI cables is that the usually will or will not work. You can also see if there are issues with sparkles. I would also make another suggestion go for a little extra if you are using 1080P and have a long cable run.

Yes, one of the major problems I have with not only Monster, but many other common 'premium' cable brands, is the total or near total absence of specifications or certifications for cabling performance. It may be excellent cabling, it may be terrible cabling, but we don't have any good way of knowing when buying the product or researching its sufficiency for our needs.

Many of these brands are like buying Cat ? cable. It's a mystery cable. We don't know if it's good or bad. I would only feel comfortable using that cabling in situations where high performance isn't really even an issue, and any decent basic cable will work fine.

On the other hand, in critical applications or when you're handling sensitive high-bandwidth signals and you know you need high quality cabling, choosing a cable of unknown performance is a bad choice.

This is why I don't buy many of these cable brands (and not at all singling out Monster), because their entire premise is based on higher performance (thus higher cost), but in reality that performance is a complete unknown to the consumer (me). Since I only feel comfortable using a cable of unknown performance in non-critical applications, where prudence dictates that I assume the worst of the cable (since there are no data or certifications to tell me its level of performance), why should I pay dramatically higher prices for cabling in that situation? It's a non-critical application, go with cheap basic cabling.

On the other hand, where performance is crucial, I most certainly am not going to go with an unknown cable, since I have no way of knowing whether it meets my needs or not. That is a surefire way of designing a system to fail, by using a bunch of components that may or may not be sufficient. And that you're paying a whole lot MORE money for those components which may or may not even be sufficient, is an ecomonic disincentive as well.

I started a new thread linking to the most ROFL page ever about overpriced cables. Go to:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1040043

As the CNet reviewer stated in his article, digital signal transmission (HDMI et al) is a high/low voltage response. So either the DSP can process or not process based on its ability differentiating the two states. Completely binary.
Where cable quality does come into play significantly is in analog signal transmission. In these cases, millivolts of signal attenuation can degrade signal quality significantly. This was where Monster came on the scene a few years back. Example might be speaker wire. The longer the wire and the smaller the diameter, the greater the resistance.
A sales person recently suggested the 1000 series Moster cable would be the only cable to utilize the full potential of 120 Hz LCD TV technology. What he did not seem to know is there are currently no consumer level sources (DVD, Sat, etc.) that output a 120Hz data stream and that the 120 Hz implementation of horizontal refresh is done within the TV's processor. But it clearly states on the $129 Monster 4' HDMI cable that it is 120 Hz certified.

Thanks all.....

I read the reviews and messages all over the internet regarding HDMI cables. The clear winner seems to be monoprice.com. I needed 3 (qty) 6ft cables for my new Samsung LN52a750 tv and another Samsung. The BB salesman told me I needed the monster 1000 (ultra high speed) cables. I decided to wait on the cables and do some research (since my tv's won't be delievered for a few days).

I am so glad I did. I don't know much about this stuff....HOWEVER, The consistent info is too overwhelming to ignore. Monoprice seems to have MANY very technical people very HAPPY....

for 34.00 (for 3 cables) vs about 400.00...how can you go wrong? I will follow up after all is connected. I'm sure i will be happy.

Thanks again

yeah price is good with a no name brand even a local small store $15 is great as long as the built quality physical appearance is good everything should be fine. tho if you must have a monsterip off go with ebay for 30 or less it should be sweet then lol

Im just wondering about this Monster Cable M1000 Series 4' HDMI A/V Cable ??? I know everyone says it's pricey .....But if i can get this cable at cost do you still think its worth it (aka about 60 bucks) Would love to hear some comments

I am using this cable to hook up a ps3 to a Samsung LN-T4069

Thanks
Chad

$60 for a 4ft HDMI cable? This cable will work just as well: http://www.monoprice.com/products/pr...seq=1&format=2 Although you won't be able to brag to your friends that you have Monster cables.

larry

I have a samsung LN-T4069f 120hz hooking up to PS3

Thanks for the help Larry

larry it doesnt matter what type of tv you have or as bb says its 120hz or this much in gb transfer rate and this speed etc etc lol

a cable is a cable. Now monster is a good cable but not worth over 30 bucks which is about twice as much as the average cable in store for being branded i woud say so.... look for it on ebay if you must have monster..... when i bought my monster cable i went to ebay

i bought it for the built contructive the way it looks firm but thats it.

just picked up this beautiful cable from ebay,
very very nice HDMI cable and highly recommended, you'll love it.
it's called Rix HDMI cable.

how much?

very interesting, and i was thinking about buying a $100 hdmi monster cable.I also have a rocketfish hdmi cord in the storage room that i will use instead since they have the same signal according to this video. thanks

sorry,this video.

10ft, $25, free shipping

I needed a Firewire cable for capturing my home videos so as usual I hit monoprice and ordered one with micro connections on both sides for $1.50. You spend a $1.50 on a cable like this that you see at a store for $50 ($100 for Monster in the day) and you really wonder if its crap. Got it in the mail today, the quality of this cable is amazing. Ripped 4 home videos already flawlessly. Got to love Monoprice.

are hdmi cables with a higher bandwith necessary for the transmission of dts hd dolbyhd master audio ?
right now ive got 6160 yammaha reciever to a 1080p lcd tv and will add a ps3 and all will be connected through hdmi cables of up to 5gbs 3 and 6 feet each... should i upgrade to something thats up to 10gbs bandwith?
any thoughts?

no. you don't need new cables.

and what the heck is "dts hd dolbyhd master audio"?

I disagree. I've seen digitized static while watching TV in a rainstorm. Lord knows, I have had cut-outs while talking on my digital cell phone. While I still was able to make out a picture and figure out what the other person was staying, it was (IMHO) somewhere between working perfectly and not at all.

BTW, I have 4 HDMI cables on order from Monoprice.

BTW, will someone please whisper into Blur Jeans Cable's metaphorical ear and ask them to start making colored HDMI cables?

thanks for the info
btw i meant HD lossless audio.. pardon the mistake
what's the point of having cables with bandwith of 10gbs then?

Cuz Monster thinks they need a bigger pipe to flush their turds down than most people.

Imagine it is like the pipes your toilet is connected to.... As long as the pipe isn't plugged, your turds will go down just fine. But Monster feels the need to have a pipe that is 3 feet in diameter, claiming it will make your turd flush better or something. Just stick with the 3 inch pipe (monoprice).

that's a very interesting way of putting things and does put my question into prospective
if possible i'd like to know more detailed information if anyone knows, how much information IS actually beeing transmitted between source and output?
there's got to be a difference in information sent when displaying at full
1080p and HD audio no?

Depends what the signal is. 480i over HDMI is nothing. 1080p60 at 10 or 12 bit is a whole lot. HDMI can push 10gig, which is 10-fold gig ethernet. That's very hard to do over any distance unless you go to fiber. So the bandwidth depends.

This is why you should ALWAYS try to pull conduit if you're running HDMI in the wall, so you can pull new cable if necessary. A cable that works fine at lower bandwidth application may not work when you upgrade equipment and suddenly demand a lot more from it. Pushing 1080i or 720p may be no problem, but add Bluray and try to push 1080p60 and suddenly you run into mediocre cabling problems and get no picture where at a lower bandwidth it was fine. Twisted pair is not all created the same.

We may get there, sooner or later; right now we do offer both black and white. However, we have to order cable 25,000 feet at a time, so we have to be able to justify it by reference to projected sales. What's strange, in our experience, is that while white is a very popular jacket color (the most popular, after black) in almost every cable type, in HDMI it doesn't sell very well at all, and that leads me to think that red, blue, et cetera, would sell even less well.

What colors would you want?

Kurt
Blue Jeans Cable

wow. roughly 5 miles of cable at a time. my curiosity is piqued. how many rolls IS that?

hdmi just doesn't look "right" in white... i have NO idea why... but it just doesn't...

as far as "what colors?"... the purple ones i have are pretty sporty...