Tech Sessions: Don’t get duped by overpriced cable

I hate cables; I wish everything were wireless. I spend hours trying to find ways to hide wires at my home and office. I went so far as to build a faux wall in my office to hide all the television cable (it is hard to explain to contractors why you want a wall that doesn’t do anything).

Besides being unsightly, cables are often overpriced. Retail stores typically carry only expensive ones, blaming the price on quality.

A few weeks back, right before the second digital transition, I went to pick up a couple digital converter boxes with my government coupons. With the $40 coupons, I grabbed two different converter boxes from the shelf - one costing $29, the other $55. As I began to walk toward the checkout, an employee asked me if I needed any cables. I tried to blow him off, inching my way towards the door. But he strongly suggested I get a $74 indoor antenna and a $24 Dynex six-foot Composite Video/Stereo Audio Cable because I would need a quality connection.

I also dislike big box stores, so I usually make an effort to avoid eye contact with employees to avoid theses types of situations. So in my defensive state, I wasn’t sure how to respond to the suggestion of buying $100 in accessories for a $30 device I planned to keep under glass for emergency purposes and knowing I could get an equivalent six-foot composite cable online for $3. After a pause, I asked him how well it worked at his home. As he began to brag about his HD satellite setup, I slipped away.

Retail stores make money off consumers’ accessory and cable purchases. Their margin on the Blu-Ray Player you just bought isn’t great, but the margin on the $100 HDMI cable they helped you pick is. Sure, they sell a $13 HDMI cable if you check on line, but good luck finding a store that has the $13 model in stock.

Cables are nothing more than bands of metal (usually copper) soldered to a connector at each end to make sure they are plugged into the right port. They are used to transfer data via an analog or digital connection. Analog uses a series of electronic pulses and digitally breaks data down into binary 1s and 0s. Yes, the quality of a cable does matter, but not as much as sales associates would have you think.

The big concern with analog cables is interference from other devices, especially power sources, which can create buzzing and hissing in audio, and snow, distortions in color, and rolling in video transmissions. In digital transmission, it’s important to have the bandwidth to clearly transmit all the 1s and 0s for the receiving device to decode the message.

Most of the time I read or listen to arguments about cable quality and cost, it comes down to a lot about hearing or seeing a difference. And most of the studies have been sponsored by companies trying to market their products.

A self-proclaimed audiophile on audioholics.com posted a home experiment that needs to be recreated under controlled conditions. He and four audiophile friends did a blind experiment to see if they could hear the difference between high-end name-brand speaker wire and some much more affordable, but still high-quality, speaker wire. They were unaware the person conducting the experiment had replaced the standard speaker wire with wire coat hangers. “After 5 tests, none could determine which was the Monster 1000 cable or the coat hanger wire,” the audiophile wrote.

One quasi independent study (http://tinyurl.com/26rj8k) of digital transmission from Gizmodo and Monster demonstrated that almost any cable that is two to three meters long (the length most of us use) can do the trick when transmitting 1080p video. The study also showed that while more expensive cables did stand up better during long-distance transmissions of current standards (1080p), they could not handle future standards (1440p).

Don’t think spending a lot now will guarantee the cable will last a lifetime. Even if it does, by the time you upgrade your TV or stereo, the technology will have changed, possibly making that cable obsolete. Even when planning ahead, future standards of 1080p (12-bit) and 1440p will require much more bandwidth than even the most expensive cables currently offer.

When purchasing cables, know the technical specs of your components. If your TV has a top resolution of 720p, there isn’t any reason to drop $100 on a cable to connect your Blu-ray player. If you upgrade your TV later, you can always upgrade from a $5-10 cable. If you plan to connect a projector to the ceiling to run an HDMI cable through the wall, it would be a good call to invest in a higher-quality cable. You don’t want to pull cable through a wall more than once.

Sometimes more expensive cable is not necessary, sometimes it is, and sometimes it’s not worth it. Whatever the case, be aware of the upsell at the big box stores. Be prepared to only have the top-of-the-line cable as an option as you check out.

If the purchase is planned, figure out what cables are needed, and order them online, where you can get a better deal. Plan ahead and shop within your budget. If a cheaper cable doesn’t cut it, you can always return it for something better. When all is said and done, it comes down to how it looks and sounds to you and how much you are willing to pay for that look or sound.