Next time a pimple-faced teenaged Best Buy employee tries to sell you a $50 Monster Cable HDMI cable because of “a clearer picture,” just know that you’re being fed a load of crap. No one needs to buy Monster Cable ever again.
Bravo, Monster Cable. Allow me to clarify: bravo Monster Cable’s marketing department. It really is amazing what you’ve done. You’ve managed to exploit the general population’s ignorance and cheat them out of their hard-earned money. I hope you can sleep at night!
I’m not saying that Monster Cable doesn’t make quality products. They absolutely do. They, along with many other manufacturers, just charge twice as much as they should (and even more than that in a retail store). They're not even the only ones that do this, they're just the most well-known culprit.
But really people, we’re talking about a digital signal here. By and large, a digital signal either works perfectly or doesn’t work at all. As long as it is properly shielded and is capable of a high enough bandwidth, it will do the job just fine.
In the days of analog signals (heck, just a few years ago), shielding and quality of cable really did matter. Colors could be shifted, static could be introduced and sound could be distorted. But now we’re dealing with 1s and 0s. They either reach your TV in sequence or they don’t. 1s aren’t magically changing to 0s.
At the time of writing this, Best Buy is selling a 4’ Monster Cable for $50. It supports screen refresh rates up to 120hz, 3D signals and has a lifetime warranty. Amazon has a 6’ Mediabridge for $10. It supports every screen refresh rate currently in the market, does 3D and also has a lifetime warranty.
You go ahead and make your own decision. I feel like it’s an easy one.
