Should a HMDI to Micro HMDI Cable Cost $40?

[Whoaru99]

Agreed.

Cables don't necessarily have to be expensive, but there is electrical theory and engineering behind them so they fulfill the necessary requirements of the circuit/system.

It's a matter of getting the appropriate cable for the task at hand.

[delcecchi]

Take it from someone who worked in electrical engineering, specifically with all kinds of cables and cables with integrated circuitry:

Cables should be cheap. Often times, that $5 cable should actually cost pennies. The markup is unbelievable.

Buy cheap HDMI cables online to save your wallet unneeded expenses.

What he said. The price of HDMI cables in stores is verging on criminal. And all of the claims for cables and speaker wire verge on fraud, far exceeding mere advertising puffery.

[upnorth]

If there are those that will pay for the name etc, there are those that will sell it to them.

[delcecchi]

If there are those that will pay for the name etc, there are those that will sell it to them.

Ya Sure you betcha.

That doesn't mean it doesn't endanger their soul.

[Whoaru99]

What he said. The price of HDMI cables in stores is verging on criminal. And all of the claims for cables and speaker wire verge on fraud, far exceeding mere advertising puffery.

I don't spend my money on expensive cables but I do spend more than $2 on them to get nice connectors that don't rip your jacks apart etc., but if someone thinks they do better spending a couple grand on cables, well, it's their dime.

I'd be more concerned about fraud but pretty much every "high end" cable I've seen comes with a money back if not satisfied guarantee. So, if you're satisfied who am I to call foul?

[CAMAN]

The major difference you MAY see between a $5 and $40 cable is the connections made in the plug. The cheap ones may not stand up to abuse and may fail prematurely, whereas the expensive ones should have a bit more engineering behind them and get soldered and supported better to prevent failure (yes I know some expensive ones do fail, but everything manufactured has atleast a tiny failure rate).

If these cables were for a band or DJ who traveled around setting up and taking down the system constantly I would say you may want to invest in the higher quality cables. But if you are a standard user who will set up your system once and let the cords lay in a cabinet or wherever then I'd definitely say go with the cheap stuff.

[Nick Kuhn]

Newer versions of HDMI allow for higher pixel clock rates. For most cables this would never be an issue unless they had large parasitic capacitance or poor shielding. But most will work anyway, even without the higher version. For our current resolution it won't matter, it's future resolutions where which version you use may be a factor.

As far as connectors go, these are plugged in once and left to rot generally. Connectors themselves usually don't go bad, but the strain reliefs near them. Or if you put a sharp bend in the wires and leave them that way a while you may fracture a connection. But as far as anyone should be concerned, buy the cheapest and when it breaks just buy another cheapest one. We had a setup at work where a signal was split to 80 devices: required nearly 100 HDMI cables. We used the cheapest money could buy and ever last one worked in environments beyond what your home will ever see.

[Kyhl]

What he said. The price of HDMI cables in stores is verging on criminal. And all of the claims for cables and speaker wire verge on fraud, far exceeding mere advertising puffery.

I will take issue with this one. With digital that has error checking at both ends, I agree, there is not difference. As in HDMI in this thread.

In analog when resistance and capacitance are combined they make a frequency filter that can also shift phase. Adding resistance and capacitance, however small will be added to the resistance and capacitance of the speaker which will affect the amplifier's output.

Theoretically, the best speaker wire is short and fat, least resistance and least capacitance.

Many high end audio rooms use monoblock amplifiers placed right next to the speakers for this reason.

Does this matter for an HT in a box in an untreated room? No. We are talking about a specially treated room with "resovling" equipment.

Btw, I don't have that stuff in my room. My speakers are connected with standard 10 gauge Belden stranded wire right off the spool and it works just fine for me.

[delcecchi]

Actually if you want that "warm, vacuum tube amplifier sound" that so many of the high end guys seem to crave, some resistance in the speaker wires helps.

But yeah, lamp cord or equivalent is fine for speaker wires. The voice coils in those things aren't wound with oriented crystal oxygen free litz wire after all. 10 Ga is probably overkill at 1 milliohm per foot. 50 feet is only .05 ohms compared to 8 ohm speaker impedence.

16 ga would get be .2 ohms which could start to be perceptible over that distance.

[Whoaru99]

A resistor just doesn't have this sort of sex appeal when the lights are down low, with your favorite tunes playing, and maybe a nice adult beverage of your choosing.

This is a homebrew 6L6 amp, around 25-30wpc, onto which I've installed adapters to use 6BG6 with the top plate connection. I'm not the original builder but I have done my own mods to it.

Here's a lights on, before 6BG6 tubes, picture. Pretty much nothing left of the original Magnavox amp except the chassis, tube sockets, and some of the terminal strips/standoffs underneath. There's a lot of iron there for this size amp.

[Kyhl]

Audio porn. Love it.

I don't have a shot with the lights dimmed. My current KT-88 amp.

This one has been in the system for 8 years now. I tried replacing it a couple of times but the others haven't held up.

This year's project is finishing room treatments. Running lots of frequency sweeps and analyzing graphs. A new calibrated mic is on the way. Just recieved another package from monoprice yesterday to hook up the new mic. (had to tie this back to the original intent somehow )

I recently built a floor to ceiling super chunk but am not happy with the results which sent me back to the drawing board.

I plan to build a new iteration this weekend but haven't decided on the final dimensions or filling yet.

[Whoaru99]

Nice, very nice!

[delcecchi]

Quote:

Don't need resistance with these

That's right. The output transformers have plenty already.

[Whoaru99]

Indeed. The effect is contingent not only on the OPT output impedance but also on the impedance characteristics of the speakers. Not only directly but also as the impedance of the speaker reflected back through the OPT changes the plate loading on tubes. Then there is the mode of operation, triode, pentode, SET, Ultralinear, grid bias vs. fixed bias, amount of feedback, etc. Lots of things to play with in a tube amp. SS too, but usually not nearly as easy to change things around.

[PierBridge]

Who still works on the Old tube amp stuff ... I have an Audio Research Amp, Pre-Amp and Crossover from the late 70's early 80's Vintage if memory serves me, that I have dreamed about getting back in the game with.

Probably not a cost effective angle but life is short ..

[aanderud]

The major difference you MAY see between a $5 and $40 cable is the connections made in the plug.

I think you're being quite generous with this theory. Yeah, someone MIGHT use better connectors, but those generally don't cost 10000% more than the other connectors. More often, and in this case, the difference is the store, not the connectors.

I checked amazon, and one particular model of rocketfish micro HDMI cable (6 foot) was around $5 bucks there (it was 63 cents plus $4.99 shipping), but $29.99 at best buy. So in this case, the difference between the $5 cable and the $30 cable was who was selling it. Not the connectors, not the shielding or anything else fancy. Just the vendor.

[Whoaru99]

There are a lot of people around that are still into vintage gear. Restoration isn't necessarily inexpensive though.

Dried or leaking capacitors are overall the worst enemy on older gear. If you value the gear I'd suggest not powering it up until someone has looked at it. If you insist though, Google "dim bulb tester", make one and use it. At least you'll hopefully limit the potential damage if something has gone South over time.

[CAMAN]

I think you're being quite generous with this theory. Yeah, someone MIGHT use better connectors, but those generally don't cost 10000% more than the other connectors. More often, and in this case, the difference is the store, not the connectors.

I checked amazon, and one particular model of rocketfish micro HDMI cable (6 foot) was around $5 bucks there (it was 63 cents plus $4.99 shipping), but $29.99 at best buy. So in this case, the difference between the $5 cable and the $30 cable was who was selling it. Not the connectors, not the shielding or anything else fancy. Just the vendor.

I wasn't talking about something like Rocketfish(which is actually a discount store brand), and I wasn't justifying the huge mark-up that places like Best Buy has. I was comparing something like Monster cable to the cheap stuff you find online for $1 or $2. I have bought numerous cables online for myself and a couple commercial applications. I have set Monster cables and cheap cables side by side, and the only key difference I can see between the two is where the cable enters the plug. The Monster clearly has more beef and support and doesn't seem as easy to pull out or flex the internal connections. Where as the cheap stuff doesn't have the sometimes necessary support needed to prevent those internal connections from breaking or pulling out. Which is why I said IF the cable will be used for a DJ/Band/hard use situation I would upgrade to a higher quality brand, but if you will 'set it and forget it' then the cheap stuff will be perfectly fine.

[jkrash]

no need to buy more cables just buy one of these for 5 bucks

mini for the tablet and micro for the Go Pro.

[delcecchi]

Hard part would be getting the parts, I would guess. Audio amps and preamps aren't that complicated or tricky. Not much to go wrong. Electrolytic caps in the power supply, dirty or worn pots. Bad tubes.

First thing I would research is the availability of replacement tubes. Turns out many are still available ( I googled a 12ax7 as an example) at only mildly extortionate prices.

Make a list and check all of them for availability. Then look at the big filter caps. Look sort of like miniature beer cans. Look at some online sellers like digikey or mouser to see if they or something similar is available.

Did it work when you put it away? How much are you willing to put into it? Some of the older ham radio guys could handle it. I know a guy who might do it, lives in Rochester.

BTW, this apparently was a Minneapolis built product that was an upgrade to the Dynakit products like ST70 (I looked them up)

BTW Audio Research is still in business in Plymouth.

Which models do you have?

[Whoaru99]

Be advised there is high voltage in tube amps...300-500 volts isn't uncommon and when the caps are at that voltage they pack a big punch.

Audio Research Corp (ARC) is good stuff but many of their power amp designs seem to run the tubes fairly hard so you need to be a bit more choosy about which tubes to get for those. There's quite a bit of info online about tubes and which seem to hold up better.

The concern for firing up an old tube amp is that if something has degraded you could ruin your new tubes or in a really bad case ruin the power transformer or output transformers. That is bad.

Also, while ARC is best known as a tube gear company, they did in the past and still do make some solid state amps as well. I have one of their 100.2 solid state amps that is fairly well-regarded.

Audio by Van Alstine (AVA) did stuff based on using some parts of the ST70 and apparently ARC did as well in a kit form, but ARC has many more models of their own doing. Both are Twin Cities Metro based.

[Kyhl]

Great advice. If you really want to get that ARC gear going, I'd contact ARC directly and see what they say.

As for tubes, yeah, they are still being made. You can even find a few stocked in stores locally, Hi-Fi Sound, and Audio Perfection come to mind. Not sure if Stereoland stocks them.

Audio Perfection sells ARC gear in Richfield. They maybe be able get you contact information for the repair. Warning. Don't look at anything else though. If you have to ask, you can't afford it.

[PierBridge]

First off sorry for going off topic here and for the record I buy all my cabling at Best Buy. The salesmen told me they are far Superior then anything purchased on-line. I usually get the GOLD plated line which is a big plus as a long term investment strategy and for resale value if you are paying close attention to the precise metal market like I do ...

Thanks much for the advice and direction guys!!!!! The Pre-Amp still powered up and worked as of about 7 years ago. The rest hasn't been in action since my brother blew out his Magnaplanar "sp?" speakers back in the late 80's.

Might have to start another thread on this as that is some pretty cool and interesting stuff you guys have going on there...

Thanks again!

[delcecchi]

Audio Research has a web site, and a good sized building. They still have parts and do work on all the old units. The site has an article from some audiophile pub where the writer takes a tour. Pretty interesting.

[Kyhl]

Do you still have the Magneplaners?

For what it's worth, Mangapan is another local company (White Bear Lake) that builds magnaplaner speakers. If those were the ones you had, then they might be fixable locally.

It's actually funny to me that we have so many high end audio manufacturers here in the twin cities area. Bel Canto, ARC, Magnapan, Atmo-sphere, AVA off the top of my head.