Customers Gleefully Mock Best Buy's $1,095.99 HDMI 369
First time accepted submitter Forthan Red writes "It may be a pricing bot run amok, or a ridiculously over-inflated sense of worth, but Best Buy has been offering an HDMI cable for a whopping $1,095.99 (currently sold out!). While Best Buy seems to be oblivious to the absurdity of this price for a digital cable, those posting customer reviews are not. Enjoy the mockery!" One of my favorites is: "saved a ton of money on a new TV on black Friday and decided to use the extra cash to get the best cable available. At a whopping 3.3 feet in length, this cable is no joke. When all my friends come over to watch football, they always say 'WOW what kind of HDMI cable do you have?' I proudly tell them about my audioquest diamond and its advanced features such as its Dark Gray/Black finish. It is a great conversation piece! Not to mention it fits into my dvd player and tv perfectly."
Not a typo??? (Score:4, Interesting)
$23 million dollar book on Amazon (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:They may be mocking the price but (Score:3, Interesting)
When it comes to transmitting analog information, there is a difference in many cables. Even speaker wire (which is analog) makes a difference, depending on quality of copper, gauges used, etc.
This is the most incorrect drivel I've ever seen +4 Informative. "Quality of Copper"? People haven't been able to tell the difference between solid silver wire and coathangers in double blind testing.
Audio frequencies are very low in the grand scheme of things. There's no magical design that needs to go into this like say an antenna feeder cable. There's only two things that matter for the analogue side of a hifi. Can you pick up interference, and is the resistance low enough to not impact power transfer?
For the connection between hifi components there is no power transfer. You can use a 36 gauge magnet wire and still get a perfect signal through. The only thing you risk is that you pick up interference (especially in the phono stages of a turntable) by running long cables next to some interference emitter (parallel to power cables). In areas where long cable runs are relevant (think studio / concerts) they use balanced connections to cancel this interference. In the home it's mostly irrelevant.
For the connection between the amp and the speaker you need power transfer. The output impedance of the amp is matched to that of the speaker. Any significant resistance in the cable becomes an issue. That does NOT mean you need a fancy cable, a coat hanger will still do fine here. It just means you need to have a low resistance which can be achieved by simply using a big cable. The lower the characteristic impedance of the speaker the bigger the cable needs to be.
Everything else is just marketing fluff to sell you cables.
Now for digital on the other hand the cable matters a lot. But that is a design issue. Any cable complying with the HDMI spec will work, but that doesn't mean a coat hanger will do the job either.