Hmm?!ÿ What a long mess here!
Cables.ÿ Cables sold to the consumer (us humans) are simply the only real bread and butter left in the industry.ÿ Without cables I honestly believe much of the electronics industry would disappear.
I'll pick on Belkin for a moment, as they know me and they also know I hate them.ÿ Belkin simply sell over-priced stolen ideas and/or over-priced cabling (like Monster cables). They usually mug the Apple owners out there, as most Apple owners really don't care about money and are happy to spend double or even three times the money for anything that will do the same job for a lot less.ÿ Belkin knows this very well (like all Apple retailers, repairers etc) and has taken this opportunity to build a company upon.ÿ They have been abusing this for over 8 years now and sadly most Apple users still buy their products as they don't know better!
OK, so Belkin have grown over the years, but not on the wealth of hardware but what goes in-between. Cables. Do you honestly believe their 40cm copper based cable with 3.5 to phono jack for an iPod is really worth £40 GBP?ÿ The iPod is low-quality, compressed audio!! How on Bill Gates planet will any this make good audio, even after spending hundreds or hard earned money?
iPod. Dodgy bit of hardware started off by Toshiba, made for whatever money and sold at 30% more to retailers whom have a fixed rate of about 10% (which is why it's always the same price unless they get a one-off-special deal with Apple). Anywho, the profit to them is pretty good and retailers are OK about 10%, but then factor in how much of the 30% Apple gets and what is used up by (many) returned iPods due to crappy HDD or dodgy screens and their incredible environmentally unfriendly packaging. well that eats up a lot of their profit, but I know, they still make millions.
Now look at cables again. Cables cost pennies to manufacture.ÿ This isn't my opinion, this is pretty much a known fact.ÿ Example. USB (version 1) cables cost about 16p each for the nice fancy looking ones at around 80cm. Remember, that's 16p each to a retailer.ÿ Of course they will buy in huge bulks and sell them with or without products.ÿ Again, most of these cables will be white labelled and may say something random, like gold tip-plated and nothing else.ÿ The cable will look KooL and has something on it, that marketing can add to and suggest it will improve whatever. your love life. whatever. but most of the time, it's just clever marketing (like Apple, whom are best at this).
OK, so now, you have this 16p worth of cabling in boxes of a 1000, you have pretty bags for them or possible pre-bagged already with logo's and specs.ÿ That's £10 please.ÿ That's £15 please.ÿ That's £20 please!ÿ These prices are normal to us all, because it's the sole of the industry.ÿ Why do you think cables are thrown in for free to close a deal so often?
The retailer may sway at the thought and break at the last minute, but if they get you to buy that (old-tech) Mac at the fixed price with some other random bits that makes up for the cost of him/her selling to you, you get the cable discounted or free to make you feel that you got great deal.
This only happens usually in a decent large enough sale, so most of the time, you will have to buy it. When Epson started to churn out cheap printers (£40-£100) they made printers dirt cheap in both quality and build, made ink cartridges near enough the same price as the printer you bought and made a killing for ages.ÿ AND.what did you need to get this printer to talk to your computer. a 16p USB cable at £10 at least.ÿ Did you know that there is NO physical difference between a USB 1.1 cable and a USB 2.ÿ USB 2 can handle more date of course, but through the same cabling.ÿ Even with modern SATA 1 and now 2, it's the same cable.ÿ BUT, when you buy it, you'll choose the newer and more expensive version, right?
BTW manufactures love to confuse us all and did well with the USB rubbish, such as USB I/II, Full-speed, High Speed and USB I/II compatible.ÿ USB 3 will probably be the same story.ÿ It's all welcomed of course, but without the confusion!
Back on the data being steamed by a HDMi compliant cable.ÿ Image, the internet is filled with compressed images, such as Jpeg being the most common.ÿ If you were to take 100's of images, in both RAW and Jpeg. flash them past you even as low as 15fps (frames per second) would you notice a huge quality loss?ÿ OK, so this has many factors, but my point is data bitrates and bandwidths have become HUGE!!!ÿ If the Jpeg images we're saved at its highest (scale level 12 in PhotoShop) and you compare this to a RAW image on screen, you would only begin to notice the difference when you start to zoom in at about 400% and above.
If a 'digital' cable was losing some data in its transference, you will probably not see it.ÿ As someone mentioned before, if there was an issue, you would really see it in an obvious way and consistently.
The other side of this, if a digital cable is only partially inserted, it's most likely not going to give you ANY output.ÿ HDMi cabling is based on the same idea as SATA cabling, which started from USB and Firewire.
If it's not plugged in (fully) it's not plugged in.ÿ The reason I'm saying this, if the computer (whether it be an actual computer or computer inside your TV, DVD, BluRay, A/V amp etc) does not calculate the signal 100%, it won't do anything with it and say, no signal or whatever.ÿ Image, you plug a USB device in halfway and it only half works!ÿ This is not analogue days, which is why signals are becoming more pure and clearer.
If you had an HDMi based VHS player connected to a HD screen with no software interpolation or filtering, you would see some serious s**t.
To me, decent cables are ones that can carry the right amount of voltage and data through the cables at the distance you want it to go, this is usual called 'a regulated cable' such as a regulated standard like iEEE (which was also mentioned before by someone).ÿ Speaker cables are always neglected and need cables as pure as can be!ÿ Why?ÿ Because they are analogue and not beaming out 1's and 0's for our brains to interpretive into audio (that's such a freaky thought. LoL).
However, cables between digital equipment simply needs to be good enough to the do the job and if it says it's something particular (USB, HDMi, Firewire etc) my guess is, it will do what it says on the tin and if doesn't, it was really what it said it was (which is what unbranded rubbish will often do).
Lastly, cable shielding. THiS is probably the most important and MORE so these days!ÿ Quality shielding is where the money SHOULD be spent, always.ÿ We live on a planet surrounded by radio waves that are increasing day by day from Radio itself, WiFi, Bluetooth, Microwaves and the noise of modern girl/boy bands.ÿ They 'MAY' not affect us humans so much, but you will get strange results (hum, hiss, distortion etc) without good shielding.
For years it was typical of computers giving a hum or hiss via its analogue audio link up with a Hi-Fi.ÿ This issue has slowly died with dawn of good on-boards DAC's, better thought-out usage of power running through the PCB boards, proper shielding on internal cables, optical SP-DiF out and HDMi audio out (which is just fantastic).
Since Guillemot started making good PC audio cards for home users about 9 years ago, it's grown hugely since and the BOB (Break-out Box) they supplied with the card some years ago when they were about, had cable shielding so dense, you needed to warm up the cable a little so you could bend it.
Your electrical equipment all deserves GOOD cabling for both optimal output and safety.
Spend the money where it counts and is required, sensibly.
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