You buy a new DVD player (one that ‘upconverts’ to 1080i HD, to your, also newly, acquired HD TV). It has (wow) Digital Output through ‘Digital Coax Out’. And even though the manual says you can use a regular RCA cable ($2.15) for that, you run to your local Radio Shack and happily pay $25 for a REAL Coax Digital Audio cable. After all, you want GREAT sound. That’s why you paid BIG money for those THICK speaker cables from ‘Monster Cable’<\/a>. The ones that assured you of\u00c2\u00a0that DEEP VIBRANT Bass that you always wanted.<\/p>\n

I’m an immoral person. I admit it. Especially in the context of this post: if I see an opportunity to get rich off of snobs, I go after it .. that’s why I looked if I can invest in Monster Cable.<\/p>\n

I can’t. It’s a private company. Too bad.<\/p>\n

Why is this company so successful?<\/p>\n

Because it played out a stereotype! Ask someone to describe a singer who sings bass! He\/She will undoubtedly describe him as BIG… as LARGE … as FAT. Nobody would ever suspect my bluddy Rob of being a bass!<\/p>\n

So people fall for the fallacy: “With this HUGE BIG FAT cable… you get an incredible bass sound from you speakers, especially your subwoofer”.<\/p>\n

Nonsense of course! That ‘Bass’ sound comes from the quantity of air moved by the speaker. The ‘wire’ is only there to provide the ‘sound information’ (I’m now speaking of powered sub-woofers). You can actually make that wire VERY thin, and not notice a difference (since there is none). Okay, if you make it TOO thin, it CAN actually melt .. but it will do that\u00c2\u00a0before you notice any loss of ‘bass’. I have preached this (in vain!) for many years, but last week I ran into something similar. VIDEO cables.<\/p>\n

We purchased an HDTV, and I needed to connect it through video cables .. so called ‘Component’ cables. I also needed (well.. wanted!) a new ‘upconverting’ DVD player, for which I paid $42. Because HD video players are still well over $500, and I’m a cheap skate!. Turned out, the cables were MORE expensive than the video player, with all its electronics, firmware (!), moving parts, laser, remote control (batteries included!), manual, shipment from China, etc etc…<\/p>\n

INSANE!<\/p>\n

So I looked around for cables….<\/p>\n

I found them. On BOTH sides of the spectrum. Here they are … see the links… remember… there is NO WAY IN HELL (or heaven) that ANYONE, for simple reasons, can actually ‘SEE’ a difference in picture quality between these cables.<\/p>\n

The ‘not-so-cheap’ ones: link<\/a><\/p>\n

The ‘cheaper’ ones: link<\/a><\/p>\n

Yes! That’s $5.95 for common sense ($3.89 if you buy a 1oo of them, at which price they STILL make a hefty profit!), to $299 for easy-to-fall-for-hype.<\/p>\n

(As for the not-so-cheap ones… I have actually found a cable for $399, but granted, that was quite ‘lengthy’ (not sure who needs 150 Ft of this crap anyway!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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