Many people equate price with quality. Their mental equation must be something like, “higher price = better product.” I have been a skeptic about this equation for as long as I can remember.
A recent Consumerist.com post Do Coat Hangers Sound as Good as Monster Cables? highlighted how absurd this calculus is. An audiophile hooked up a blind test comparing Monster cables to straightened coat hangers used as speaker cables.
The audiophile subjects could not tell the difference.
Unbent clothes hangers performed just as well as expensive Monster products. If you scavenge your closet you will lose nothing in the sound reproduction but you will save a bundle of money.
Speaker wire transmits analog signals, so it may be possible that in some configurations upper end products matter in faithfully transmitting the signal.
Most video and audio signals transmitted between electronic components (not speakers) are digital signals. Either the bit, a 1 or 0, is decoded or it is not. This means that there is no benefit to you in paying for premium digital cables. Most retail outlets sell HDMI cables that cost a lot. Don’t fall for this. Digital cables do not have to be expensive.
Today, a 6-ft gold plated HDMI cable costs $8.37 at MonoPrice.com and a similar product at BestBuy.com costs $39.99.
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