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"Better cable, better image"

Flint

Flint

Prodigal Son
Superstar
That's right! I read it this week in an email advertisement from Best Buy.

"Better cable, better image" written over the photo of a woman's lovely hand delicately handling a high end HDMI cable as if she were fluffing the TV.

They don't need to explain why when they make claims like that. We will all believe it unconsciously, even though we know better intellectually. Much like the myth I just read on this forum that cassette tape formulations which were "darker" were somehow better.

Kinda like knocking on wood, tossing salt over our shoulders, using 4 gauge speaker wire for a 4 foot cable, we instinctively don't want to make any mistakes even when we know better.

So, go buy that $500 HDMI cable for your new UHD television and experience a better image than if you had just used the cable that came with the PS4.
 
Best Buy knows what's good for us. Ignore their advise at your peril.

PS: darker tape formulations can well be "better" depending on application. Darker oxides and metal formulations tend to have better retentivity.
 
Oh shit... I forgot what I was going to post. Gimme a minute and I'm sure it'll come back to me.
 
Oh, yeah...

Now I remember. Had something to do with dimes.

I heard that stacking dimes onto the corners of any speaker will make them sound better.

A dime is all it takes.

Now that wasn't worth it was it? Agreed.
 
Oooh, I can hardly wait until my next payday! :banana-dance:
 
Dumb question: I always used to fluff my TV until I got a flat-screen; not necessary then, right? :think:
 
Have you seen the commercial for the "My Pillow"? It's the official pillow of the National Sleep Foundation. (Not making it up, though they probably did!). Anyway... I just make sure to watch that commercial at least once a week... On my flat-screen, of course... And, thus, consider it fluffed.

Pretty sure it isn't technically required to do this, but I personally think the fluffing results in a better overall picture. I think it has something to do with a fluffed tv screen being able to absorb stray UV rays so that only the HD frequencies are seen.
 
I have the Official Pillow of the AAS*; maybe it's time for a change.


* - American Anvil Society
 
Best Buy: The guys who once tried to sell me a $40 "high speed" phone cord to connect my computer's modem to a wall jack connected to the street by a good hundred feet of shit phone cord and a punch panel. Yeah. That's gonna help.
 
Best Try is my bible. When they say shit, I drop my pants and ask how much?

Rope
 
I once got into an argument with a Best Buy guy over him trying to sell me expensive HDMI cables and him trying to convince me that Monster HDMI cables shielded the interference better than regular cheap cables. I asked him how that could possibly change 1's and 0's in anyway and waited for his response.
 
There is some merit regarding cable shielding and noise-rejection, even for digital cables, but those benefits are only realized in rather specific and unusual circumstances. I gave-up on debating the salesmen about the technical merits of cables a long time ago. But it's no different at Best Buy than any other retail shop selling other stuff. Try asking the salespeople at Williams Sonoma or Sur La Table about why pan X is $30 and pan Y is $300.
 
When I was designing large 84" touch monitors for TouchShare (before they went out of business), I found that with 4K especially, poor quality HDMI cables produced visible noise and "speckles" in the video. Good cables which were not outrageously expensive did not have these issues. None of this was magic, but it does show that good quality cables for video were warranted. We never used the hyper expensive stuff though.
 
rammisframmis said:
When I was designing large 84" touch monitors for TouchShare (before they went out of business), I found that with 4K especially, poor quality HDMI cables produced visible noise and "speckles" in the video. Good cables which were not outrageously expensive did not have these issues. None of this was magic, but it does show that good quality cables for video were warranted. We never used the hyper expensive stuff though.
Click to expand...
It might be a moot point, but my assumption is that this is not a "cable" issue but rather a difference in "connector" quality.

Not the same, but perhaps an illustrative example, I've had the occasional problem with USB cable connections with my office computer. I connect a ton of hubs and devices etc and occasionally I'll get a device, or chain of devices, drop off or misbehave. If I wiggle the connectors attached to the computer things start working again. So it was likely not a problem with ones and zeroes flowing through cable, but them intermittently failing at the connector - and this could be with either the PC or the cable's connector.

And I realize that cheap cable can usually mean cheap connector. My point is that, over any reasonable distance it's hard to imagine the cable interfering with the signal.

Just my guess.

Jeff
 
After four decades of drunks, bass players, waitresses and handcarts running over my mic and instrument cable runs, I can also say, "It's always the connector". (yes I realize I'm speaking strictly analog signals here)
 
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