Monster Cables vs. "PS3 HDMI" cables

I originally bought 100 dollar monster cables for my TV and PS3. I am already familiar with people who swear buy cheap mono--whatever cables, please do not reply if you are going to tell me to buy the cheap cables. I went to best buy and saw a new addition of "PS3 specific" hdmi cables, and asked the clerk about them. He said Monster cables dont "format the picture right". There were several cables made by React and Nyko (60 bucks) and Cyclone or something (99 bucks) The Cyclone had a more damage resistant cable but all were hdmi 1.3. I bought the Nyko cablebased on the clerks recommendation and compared it to my monster cables, and could not tell the difference with my eyeballs. HDMI cables are not graphics cards I was not sure what differences to look for (not that I could see any). I tried both cables with The Darkness, Ninja Gaiden Sigma, and Super Stardust HD. Are there any games where I would see a noticeable difference with the "PS3 specific" HDMI cable, or should I just return it to the store?

With HDMI, there is no one cable that is better than another. DO NOT buy a cable for $100. Buy the cheapest one you can find.

I'm not sure about the whole 1.3 and different versions of HDMI, but I think the 1.3 is the latest version. As for HDMI cable, I think most of them are the same, with minor differences like gold connector pins, length, and stuff. But with digital cables, it sends information as either 0's or 1's and theres is little or no image degradation through interference as there is with analoge cables. So what I've heard is that HDMI cables either work or they don't with no inbetweens. I think Monster is just trying to rip off consumers because this is considered New tech and they are easily fooled into spending more money on them.

WongB

Preach on. My dad bought a Monster Cable for his Blu-Ray player. I made him take it back and I bought an $8 cable. He even got me a game for saving him so much money.

The signs of a bad HDMI cable. You will see white sparkles, or breaking up picture, or nothing at all. It's either working right, or it's not. No in betweens like old analog cables.

So it was obvious there was not going to be a difference between the two cables you bought, especially overpriced like that. There's no such thing as the Monster Cable not formatting the picture right, etc, the cable doesn't have processing and if something was wrong it would be a bad cable. It's a digital signal, if it gets to the other end of the cable with no signal loss, aka sparkles, (nearly impossible with 6 foot ones) then it will look 100% the way it's intended. No better (expensive) cable will have better color or clarity, as the cable itself can not magically add 1s and 0s to the digital stream to make it look better, and not like a cheap cable is losing 1s and 0s. There's basically HDMI cables and Bad cables with the the main sign is white sparks or not working at all. They can advertise better shielding for interfience, but that's even less of an issue with HDMI too.

It just doesn't matter. I mean do you see the computer area at the stores trying to sell $100 DVI and VGA cables to buyers for their PC monitor and not to use the ones it comes with? If I bought a $100 DVI cable from the theater area to use on my PC it would look no better than the cheap $5 cable that came with the monitor.

Times to pay more. Construction can be an issue if you plan to diconnect and reconnect it all the time. Longer runs of 25ft-50ft+, but even then a equalizer might be needed on 50+ runs on the best cable.

HDMI 1.3 Caterory 2 cables, that just means they passed the tougest tests of its capabilities. Wether Deep Color at the highest range and/or 7.1 uncompressed sound (not sure what the tests are). It mainly means a thicker gauge wire for less signal resistance. And a lot of regular HDMI cables can pass HDMI 1.3 Category 1.

Honestly though. Why not give a $5 cable at Monoprice a chance, not like the price is going to kill you if it has problems, and your in a unique position with all these other expensive cables on hand to compare it against.

Dang, on sale for $2.84 right now, can't go wrong with that:
http://monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10240&cs_id=1024004&p_id=2412

Their more premium, thicker gauge, weaved jacket cable (honestly not needed, the thickness gets in the way more)
[url]http://monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10240&cs_id=1024002&p_id=2219/url]

It's just silly really. This isn't analog, it's digital. You don't need tons of fancy metals and shielding and construction, you're going to get perfect picture unless it's bad and it's well known monoprice is not bad. I mean I got $4 10ft USB cables from newegg and worked perfectly fine with my new scanner/printer. Glad I didn't pay $32 for a 6ft USB cable at the stores.

With HDMI, there is no one cable that is better than another. DO NOT buy a cable for $100. Buy the cheapest one you can find.

RoyTheViking

What he said.

Don't belive all the BS companies are trying to sell to you.

OK the shorter the better and remember when has a clerk know anything. cable needs to be short and no folds or bends. but the only-way you can tell is by the tv unless your running DLP 1080 or a new brava / Mitsubishi wd-52327 sony or samsung. 720p any hdmi but to eliminate ghosting and to have that picture you want its gotta be big brand sort cable. Two best after testing all the TVs my self at the burbank frys and my place of work were i get to order the TVs is the mitsubishi 52 (wd-52327)" DLP projection and the you would never even guess the Dell 1920*1200 24inch at 1080i . both have zero ghosting and both use hdmi ps3 with a monster hdmi female to DVI Male. Believe what you want but the shorter the better and use the fiber audio or component audio. separates the audio from the video cpu.

Lack of 720p on the mitsubishi sucks but the 1080 still bets the 1080 from the one that do support it.

That is what i have learned and I'm satisfied.

Any findings that you have made which work better I want to know and if its true I will try.

peace out and use a ps3/psp/pc blue-tooth it and wifi it fun to do when at work lol

With HDMI, there is no one cable that is better than another. DO NOT buy a cable for $100. Buy the cheapest one you can find.

RoyTheViking

I'm not sure about the whole 1.3 and different versions of HDMI, but I think the 1.3 is the latest version. As for HDMI cable, I think most of them are the same, with minor differences like gold connector pins, length, and stuff. But with digital cables, it sends information as either 0's or 1's and theres is little or no image degradation through interference as there is with analoge cables. So what I've heard is that HDMI cables either work or they don't with no inbetweens. I think Monster is just trying to rip off consumers because this is considered New tech and they are easily fooled into spending more money on them.

WongB

exactly...a digital connection is a digital conenction. with analog cables, its might be a little different.

*amnit.

I would like to buy that new $2000 50" and a 5 dollar cable. hahahaha its not the price its the condition its in.:lol:UnReal-4-Life

Well imagine this before the new HD players. Say a person buys a $3000 TV, so the store then shows them the DVD upscalers that need to use DVI or HDMI to upscale. The buyer is convinced to get a new player, some crappy $100 upscaler, then from there they are probably taken to the cable area and talked into a $100+ HDMI with the idea it's the only way to get the best quality out of the $3000 tv.

Who knows what happened at the PS3 launch, were there any reports of stores trying to convince buyers to get $100 cables.

When the first HD-DVD player came out I had an experience like that. It just came off the truck, this $500 player, it even included a HDMI cable. I walked around after a while to see if the employee came out from the back with it. I finally spot him and I see a manger talking to him. I could hear what he was saying and blatantly telling him to make sure the customer does not leave the store without the most expensive HDMI cable. I jump in an say I wasn't going to pay so much for an HDMI cable with it being digital, it works 100% or it doesn't, no inbetweens like analog. He just responded with the same sales talk with analog, talking about better metals and shielding for better picture. I mention the player already has a HDMI cable, which of course he says you should never ever use. Well, that free HDMI cable is connected to the PS3 right now and it works at 1080p perfectly fine.

I mean even the audio/videophiles at AVSForum.com that have $20,000 front projectors would use Monoprice cables, that's where I first heard of their site, it's well known among a/v enthusiasts.

With a ton of money already invested in my living room, I'm not going to skimp out when it comes to wires. I want pristine picture and audio.dru26

Fine, that's understandable, especially with analog. But really, it's different with HDMI or any digital. a $5 cable that works from the well known place like Monoprice will look 100% exactly the same as a $4000 HDMI cable, there wouldn't be one pixel different. The money you saved could be better put into a ISF proffesional callibration, a bias light, Digtial Video Essential calibration DVD, battery power backup, power fitler, etc, there are just so many ways to spend money to improve your new setup than wasting it on overpriced HDMI cables.

Paying more for Monster HDMI would as pointless as Monster selling their own line of forks for 50 times as much with claims of special materials that make your food taste better and more colorful.

Monster cable are very expensive but alot of the expense is window dressing. I've check the internet for answers. Monster gave me a bunch of charts and figures. but it didn't show me one simple split screen video. Something practical showing me the difference. On the web site I found one small picture of a bad cable . Now if you want to spend the same thing as a handheld system on cables get monster cable. Me? I would suggest you get Sony's own cable made for the PS3 the Sony DLC-HD20P HDMI . I mean who better to supply the cable than Sony? They run about $45.00 so they are cheaper than monster cables. And you know they will work with the PS3.

With HDMI, there is no one cable that is better than another. DO NOT buy a cable for $100. Buy the cheapest one you can find.

RoyTheViking

He's right, you only need specialist HDMI cables from, I believe it's from50 feet(length) up, so get the cheapest HDMI cable you can find, you should have no problems whatsoever, with the quality of your picture.

I got my Monster Cable 4 Feet Cable for 25$ though.

but it looks the same as the one I got from Monoprice for 1.50$ :?

But my PS3 is still hooked up via the Monster cable HDMI. :)

I originally bought 100 dollar monster cables for my TV and PS3. I am already familiar with people who swear buy cheap mono--whatever cables, please do not reply if you are going to tell me to buy the cheap cables. I went to best buy and saw a new addition of "PS3 specific" hdmi cables, and asked the clerk about them. He said Monster cables dont "format the picture right". There were several cables made by React and Nyko (60 bucks) and Cyclone or something (99 bucks) The Cyclone had a more damage resistant cable but all were hdmi 1.3. I bought the Nyko cablebased on the clerks recommendation and compared it to my monster cables, and could not tell the difference with my eyeballs. HDMI cables are not graphics cards I was not sure what differences to look for (not that I could see any). I tried both cables with The Darkness, Ninja Gaiden Sigma, and Super Stardust HD. Are there any games where I would see a noticeable difference with the "PS3 specific" HDMI cable, or should I just return it to the store?

aeskinaz

If you just go to radio shack and get a decently cheap cable, your eyeballs still can't tell the difference. What's the point of buyin gthe expensive cables?

i use qed qunix-p the purple cables and for my ps3 i use official ps3 cable

if your gona get above 2 meters get a good brand

With HDMI, there is no one cable that is better than another. DO NOT buy a cable for $100. Buy the cheapest one you can find.

RoyTheViking

he would be correct, got mine for 15$

You only need to worry about a higher quality cable if you are running long cable runs (100ft+) where digital gitter can become an issue.

Monster is over priced crap. I have taken apart a monster cable, a mono price cable and a radio shack HDMI cable...the build quality in the mono price cable far exceeded the monster cable, Radio shack was in the middle, but don't buy monster. "High end" cables are one of the biggest rip off's in the industry. Do some research before wasting your money...the PS3 cable is over priced crap also.

I am trying to hook up my ps3 to a nec monitor. I have purchase 2 different hdmi to dvi cables(RCA and Phillips) neither will work. Do you have any suggestions??

I am trying to hook up my ps3 to a nec monitor. I have purchase 2 different hdmi to dvi cables(RCA and Phillips) neither will work. Do you have any suggestions??

I am trying to hook up my ps3 to a nec monitor. I have purchase 2 different hdmi to dvi cables(RCA and Phillips) neither will work. Do you have any suggestions??

well acctualy there is a difference, but its so small its almost impossible to see, and if u got a tv that supports 1080p, it is no difference at all...

at least they told me that when i bought my tv :p (and strongly adviced me to take the cheapest they had)

if you know everyone is going to tell you to go to monoprice and you arent gonna change your mind why are you asking here?

Both those cables are ripoffs, I used to work at a circuit city and the markup on cables all around are rediculous especially HDMI. When I used my employee discount I usually only paid around 10% of the normal price thats how bad it is. In fact, it was corporate policy for all sales associates to ALWAYS push cables and extended warranty programs with every sale because both are pure profit.

The cables on monoprice are all 1.3 compliant are gold plated and work great. If you still buy monster cables etc after knowing all this , well then... i dont know what to say. You must have money to burn. Theres no visual difference between them.

Monster is over priced crap.

creekfan_basic

nyko is never the right choice for any accessorie.i you are set on spending more than 10$ for an hdmi cable than get the phillips cables for 30$ at walmart or buy the sony cables for 40$.Anything more than that is collossal watse of money and wont give you better picture or sound.

First of all I have to take my hats down to TimothyB's knowledge on the subject. I only wish I was able to find such accurate and understandable answers before I spent few days and hours of research before I got my PS3.

I indeed spent 25$ on HDMI cable and it's been almost a year now. I can guarantee you the picture quality, and audio are all superb. Contrary to many beliefs you really do not need to spend 100$ for HDMI cables regardless of how expensive your setup is.

Unless, it makes you "feel" better and you're a person who has money to spend easily. Even then, it's hard to believe people don't want to save money..

Rest assured, inexpensive HDMI cable are the way to go. Shop smart. :)

I would never recommend buying the cheapest HDMI cable but I wouldn't recommend buying the most expensive one either. Since the HDMI cable is using a digital signal, the quality will not vary from brand. What is important is the durability of the HDMI cable because if it can be easily damaged than that will mess up the quality of the digital signal.

The only time I would suggest getting an expensive HDMI cable is when your cable length is going pass 6ft. Since you would want a thick cable that is unlikely to bend. With my experience I prefer Rocket-fish HDMI cables. They are not too expensive, gold plated and besides having 3 HDMI cables that have been working perfectly they also make PS3 specific cables as well.

Congrats. You just overpaid $92 for a cable. Monster thanks you for your business.crck

:lol: