Do you buy premium cables for your entertainment center?

[yoda313]

So do you?

I usually just buy anything off the shelf. I typically stay away from the more expensive cables. Though I will admit to buying a moderately expensive surge protector strip. Not a ups but just a little beefier strip for the main entertainment center.

[NiteLite]

I buy premium cables but at an inexpensive cost. How's that.
I dont do over-priced such as mass marketed "Monster" brand. And dont do the "we set in a climate controlled environment and make every wire by hand" and all for under a thousand dollars per meter thing either.
So far mine produce premium sound for a lot less than one would think.

The choice: Yes - money is no object for the best picture and sound on my system is a fallacy . More money does not equal "the best pic and sound on a system."
Regards,
NL

[redwudz]

I usually buy midrange cables from a good manufacturer. And it depends on the length. Shorter, such as 3ft (1M), just about anything will work. 6ft (2M) or a little more, then I may go a little higher on quality. But I won't buy gold plated, oxygen free or any other cable that is ridiculously overpriced. I have said it before, It's just a piece of wire.

[Epicurus8a]

Midrange. The cheap stuff falls apart easily.

[MJA]

monoprice.com

[Marvingj]

I typically buy premium cables but maybe not name brand. The cheap stuff just won't do it for me.

[gadgetguy]

I use dollar store cables. Sometimes I have to buy 2 or 3 to find a good one, but hey, they're only a buck.

[josetjr]

I buy rocketfish cables. My friend at Best Buy gets them really cheap

[louthewiz]

monoprice.com

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[nwo]

Premium cables are a con, maybe 10 years ago when VHS rules you needed good cables, but
today seeing as most stuff is digital, Premium cables to $1 cables it not gonna make a damn think better because your still getting the seen digital output.

[yoda313]

I would agree with most that the expensive cables would generally be overkill. Though I would admit that if I need a really long lenght for video I would tend to want the more upscale cables to keep it from degrading too much.

[Constant Gardener]

I buy the cheapest cables that will do the job, usually from surplus outlets. No complaints.

[TheFamilyMan]

I use a variety of cable qualities. Very good quality ($50 to $100+) for my speakers and CD player. Good quality ($20 to $50) for everything else. Here's a very good site on audio equipment myths, from someone who knows his stuff:http://www.roger-russell.com/

[oldandinthe way]

I buy premum cables for a commodity price. When they turn up in my favorite liquidator I buy monster cables for $5-$10. I always have spares on the shelf for new equipment.

I don;t really feel they are better but for the same money why not.

[dadrab]

Well, there are a couple of things to establish first. Primarily, not all wire is created equal. Hence, the fact that there are differing guages of wire. Radio Shack has inexpensive cables with good guage wire. I have some of those.

That being said, if you jockey your equipment around from time to time, there's really no need to buy gold plated cables. However, if you're like me, and set it up one time and don't move it for years, gold plating will eliminate the corrosion that comes with power flowing through a connector.

So, I have a mixed bag. My A/V computer system uses good guage wire with standard connectors except for the VCR to PVR-350 - those are gold plated. My stereo system in our great room - all gold. My truck stereo - all gold.

That does not mean I buy Monster Cable or any of that other overpriced rubbish. I look for gold plated connectors and heavy guage wire.

I've even been known to build sets of cables if I couldn't find what I wanted at a reasonable price. I do have one set of 6-ft. Monster Cables purchased when they first came out. Apparently, at that time, Monster Cable didn't realize they could get sillystupid amounts of money for their product. My hometown must have been a test market because I got them cheap.

[mpiper]

You don't list my answer in the poll option.

I don't buy based on price, name or anything. I buy based on distance vs. wire guage.

Digital = any cable works is NOT true. The signal is still carried via electrical current and poor cables = poor signal.

Digital means computer processing, instead of analog projection. Unlike VHS/analog, computers have a frame buffer and reconstruction filter. This means if a signal loss occurs, the computer uses previous frames to reconstruct the missing data. This means it LOOKS like the wire quality/size doesn't matter, but you are still losing signal quality and data. This can also be the cause of macroblocks or banding in your video, since only pre-existing data can be used to reconstruct the images.

I use the largest guage wire available for the distance I can get, but do not care what brand or quality they are. (Smaller numbers = thicker wire) Yes, I know that a 12 guage low quality copper wire is not as good as a 14 guage pure copper wire (conductivity vs. resistance), but if I stay with 8 to 10 guage for everything, I don't care. I also use gold tips if possible, but if the wire is thick enough, the gold isn't a deal-breaker.

Mike

[solarfox]

I, too, tend to buy midrange cables. I see no particular need to spend hundreds of dollars on oxygen-free triple-thickness monster cables, but neither am I going to waste my time going through piles of the shoddy Everything's-A-Dollar-Store cables trying to find a good one, either.

(Besides, I try to avoid buying things made in China if there's a non-Chinese alternative available, just on the principle of the thing.)

One thing I do take into account, though, is the intended environment and application -- which is why I did use gold-tipped, higher-than-average quality cables when installing the CD changer in my car. I only want to have to run those cables once!