HDMI Cable 2M (6 Feet)by DVI Gear
Sweet bargain, great performance: I got this HDMI cable for under $10 with shipping just to see whether it will work as well as the expensive ones and it was well worth the risk. I tested it with my upconverting LG DVD player on 1080i resolution on my 42" 1080p Westinghouse LCD TV (update 2009: now used for Blu-ray from PS3 to 46" Sony LCD TV) and it works just like any other HDMI cable, including those loud names who charge you ten-fold for "golden plated extra special micro gravity nanotechnology space age wireless high conductivity low noise extra gauge supercalafragilisticexpialidocious" cables with no difference in performance. By buying this cable I avoided the huge "naive citizen tax" included in these products. Considering its price, this is an amazingly good cable
AmazonBasics High-Speed HDMI Cable (6.5 Feet/2.0 Meters)[Supports 3D + Audio Return Channel][OLD MODEL]
Sweet bargain, great performance: It is a relief to find HDMI cables that are inexpensive and deliver high quality video. I paid $40 for a 4ft cable at Circuit City a year ago, and less than half that price for the 10ft cable from Amazon. As an electrical engineer I can tell you copper is copper. Unless Monster cable has coaxial wire for each signal line, which they don't because then the cable would be 10x larger than it is, then it's just copper wire inside a shield. There's still going to be crosstalk and capacitive coupling and all that stuff. All that "gas filled" stuff doesn't matter either. If you look at the mathematical equasions for the frequency response of an unshielded wire, you'd know none of this stuff makes any major difference. The biggest thing to avoid, if you can, are ferrite cores on a cable. Ferrite cores are those black blob things that overmold the cable near one or both of the connectors. Ferrite cores act as high frequency filters and may cause signal degradation. They are typically used to comply with FCC laws and other regulatory bodies' radiated emissions laws. They add cost to the cable and typically degrade performance. Regarding expensive cables, HDMI or otherwise, what no one asks is the most fundamental question - Why? Let's assume Monster cable isn't lying and they can provide 300 GHz bandwidth or whatever they claim. Why do you need a cable that outperforms so much? It's like owning a car that can go 1000 MPH but the speed limit is 55MPH. In my field, that's called "over-engineering" which equates to unnecessary additional cost, which is exactly the problem Amazon has solved by sourcing this simple low cost HDMI cable. While I'm soapboxing, gold plating isn't necessary either. Silver is the best conductor, followed by Copper, and then Gold (third best). Stainless Steel isn't far behind. The only reason gold plating is "better" is Gold does not corrode (but neither does stainless steel... they actually gold plate the stainless steel, how dumb is that?). If you are using your cables in a house where the humidity & temp is relatively constant, you should never need gold. As far as I can tell, Gold is just a gimmick to charge more for cables.
Mediabridge Ultra Series - High Speed HDMI Cable With Ethernet - Category 2 Certified - Supports 3D & Audio Return Channel - (6 Feet)
Does what's expected, honest pricing : I purchased these cables recently to hook up my HDTV's to the HD boxes I have from my cable provider. I was amazed to find out that the quality of the picture and sound is similar to, if not the same as, the $100 cable I purchased from Best Buy a few years ago. I wish I knew then what I know now regarding these cables. I do not use them for any gaming systems, just HD cable. I am completely satisfied with the product I received and was convinced of purchasing this product after reading the on-line reviews that were submitted by other individuals.
