Are so called top quality hdmi,scart ,optical cables etc, really worth it.?

Question

Ive tried all different grades and prices,ive paid nearly 100 quid for a top hdmi cable and then ive paid 20 quid and the difference is hard to see if any,same with so called premium scart leads cant see much difference ,i am not saying if you buy the really cheap and nasty 3 pound cable ,but these so called super cables at super money and medium priced cables look the same to me,but the price difference is massive,is it a load of hype by the industry saying you need this super cable or am i wrong?you see for that price difference say 25 p0und to 100 pounds i expect to see at least 10% jump in quality ,please tell me.

Answer 1

There is a good arguement for an against expensive cabling..it is all very subjective...

Cables are like cars. You can buy a car for £5,000 pounds that will get you around from A to B. Or you could buy a car for £500,000 that will have better performance, but is still only cabale of the same basic function of getting you between two points. That is all a cable does...join two points.

This is a vast simpilifaction of the situation though. As the source and destination are more important then the actual cable.

On entry level equipment the cable you use will make no difference. So if you buy a DVD player for £50 pounds for example, a £50 scart cable is a pointless purchase because the DVD player output won't be good enough.
There is of course the arguement between a £50 and £500 pound DVD player...although without question the performance difference between hardware is easier to measure and appreciate.
Similarly if you are using an expensive cable to connect to a cheap TV then you are wasting money. So the bottom line of the story is to match your cable to your equipment.

The other interesting point is the amazing power of your brain. It makes up an awful lot of data that is often lost. Probably the best example of this is the mp3. mp3's miss several key frequency bands, but your brain is able to work this out from the information next to these missing areas.The same thing also happens with sight...

The improvements may be almost invisible, and I can see why people call expensive cables and equipment pointless. But technology is like a shark. If it stops moving it dies...

Answer 2

A lot depends on the signal standards and the quality of the equipment you're connecting to. The most expensive cables have ultra low noise copper cable and gold plated connectors. You might be able to measure a difference in signal quality, but that doesn't mean you can actually see or hear a difference.

Scart (peritel) cables are a 20 year old standard. The connector was originally designed for Minitel monitors. The connectors tend to work loose and no amount of gold plating is going to give you a good signal across a loose connection. The sockets on the equipment are unlikely to be gold plated so you're gaining nothing.

Low noise copper can prevent the signal from degrading, but over the short distances involved, the positioning of the cable is likely to have more benefit than what it's made of.

My scart leads are from the pound shop. Most of the signals they carry start life as Freeview which is so full of compression artefacts, a better quality cable is a waste of money. The audio leads I use, on the other hand, are ones I made up myself using high quality components and I can hear the difference compared to the ones supplied with the kit.

Answer 3

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Answer 4

Is a £100 pair of jeans better than a £9 pair of jeans?

Is a £50,000 car better than a £10,000 car?

Is a £1,000 LCD television better than a £300 LCD television?

Is a £60 seat at a concert better than an £8 seat at a concert?

Is a £40 bottle of wine better than a £2.99 bottle of wine?


Some people will answer 'Yes' to all those questions. Some people will answer 'No'. Some people will be undecided.

Does spending more money improve the product? In MOST cases, yes. However, when it comes to audio and a/v cables, the general public isn't tuned in enough to hear or appreciate the differences.

Answer 5

I have heard that a rich man has challenged a high end interconnect maker to prove to him that their interconnects, (£200 per metre) are any better than ones costing £20 per metre. He will give away 1 million sterling to anyone who can demonstrate this to him and prove him wrong, there has not been any takers. The law of diminishing returns applies very well to hifi, there is a lot of snobbery and elitism in it, the manufactures play up to this by issuing overpriced poncy goods. Would you buy a £200 T shirt? The people who buy these interconnects don't like music much, they are more interested in colouration and transparency than enjoying music.

Answer 6

i agree with what you said. Mid price cable is good, but at least half the benefit is because it is mechanically more sound than the three quid cable, so will survive more furniture-moving.

The top price cable is for talking about boringly at parties ("yes i've got a XYZ999 double platinum bla bla...")