Why Sony is going to hell

[Evan]

well there is signal loss in digital cables, glass(plastic) quality in optical cables, etc, but overall I dont think Monster makes the best cables by any stretch. AR cable is superior for less money and easily available, and kimber cable isnt much more and is very good stuff.

i know from when i worked at circuit city that monster cable was the most marked up thing in the store. I bought a bunch of their 'THX' cables just because it was so damn cheap at cost.

[Mike]

dont buy Monster anything Lee, a decent HDMI cable can be had for under $20

agreed. It's digital. The only time a "high quality" cable has any sort of justification is when you're talking about an analog signal. It's laughable that they sell that, it'd be like buying a pure gold/platinum, vacuum sealed, antigravity ethernet cable.

true, their copper cables are quite nice.

and i do believe copper conducts better than gold or platinum... no?

[ViPER1313]

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such a waste of cash

[HAULN-SS]

Im pretty sure gold is a better conductor than copper, could be wrong though.

[D_Eclipse9916]

gold is a better conductor, however copper is so much cheaper..

[CaptainHenreh]

Im pretty sure gold is a better conductor than copper, could be wrong though.

Conductor materials

Of the metals commonly used for conductors, copper, has a high conductivity. Silver is more conductive, but due to cost it is not practical in most cases. However, it is used in specialized equipment, such as satellites, and as a thin plating to mitigate skin effect losses at high frequencies. Because of its ease of connection by soldering or clamping, copper is still the most common choice for most light-gauge wires.

Compared to copper, aluminium has worse conductivity per unit volume, but better conductivity per unit weight. In many cases, weight is more important than volume making aluminium the 'best' conductor material for certain applications. For example, it is commonly used for large-scale power distribution conductors such as overhead power lines. In many such cases, aluminium is used over a steel core that provides much greater tensile strength than would the aluminium alone [1][2].

Gold is occasionally used for very fine wires such as those used to wire bond integrated circuits to their lead frames. The contacts in electrical connectors are also commonly gold plated or gold flashed (over nickel). Contrary to popular belief, this is not done because gold is a better conductor; it is not. Instead, it is done because gold is very resistant to the surface corrosion that is commonly suffered by copper, silver, or tin/lead alloys. This corrosion would have a very detrimental effect on connection quality over time; gold plating avoids that.

[HAULN-SS]

ah...corrosion, that was my 2nd guess.