Page 1 of Where`s the best place to buy high-quality cables these days?

It used to be at Beyond-Hifi.net, but where now? I need a couple of high-quality SCART cables.

Thanks!

When you say `high quality`, do you mean needlessly expensive without any perceivable benefit? Not being funny, but I can`t imagine spending £40-£50+ on a cable that really doesn`t give any better real-world performance than a £10 cable.

What happened to Beyondhifi ?
I used to like them.
Top notch service.
Several times I ordered a cable which was out of stock, so they sent me more expensive ones FOC.

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When you say `high quality`, do you mean needlessly expensive without any perceivable benefit? Not being funny, but I can`t imagine spending £40-£50+ on a cable that really doesn`t give any better real-world performance than a £10 cable.
Nope, I mean ones that are better than the rubbish you get with the average £20 DVD player. :P

I`d settle for paying £15 or so per lead. We just got a new 42" plasma in, and I want to make sure I have the best cables for it.

When it comes to digital signals, if it gets through it gets through. What`s the difference between a £5 coax cable and a £50 one if all they`re transmitting is zeros and ones? A £10 HDMI lead will do fine. Play are selling an HDMI 1.3 1080p compatible cable for that sort of money, but you might be able to get them for even less.

All this cable malarkey is a bit `Emperor`s new clothes`. I once bought a gold-plated, super turbo ninja ribbon SCART from, funnily enough, beyond high-fi, and the image looked no different to the £2 cable I got from the local shop... Last time I ever spent silly money on interconnects.

Quote:
When you say `high quality`, do you mean needlessly expensive without any perceivable benefit? Not being funny, but I can`t imagine spending £40-£50+ on a cable that really doesn`t give any better real-world performance than a £10 cable.

I will have to disagree with there. A few moons ago a rep came in with an Audioquest X scart. It retailed at £85. We were dubious that we would make that much difference over a £30 QED lead. So we swapped the lead over. The difference was marked. We ordered a box there and then and had to re order on a regular basis. Then the distribution went to marantz and they f***ed it up.

Dr 42%er


Care in the football community is proved not to work.


It`s not easy being different. It`s not easy being cool....but somehow I manage....

Don`t Richer Sounds let you borrow/hire an attache case of various cables, so you can see the difference, with your own equipment.

I`m not expert but I have noticed that with cheaper cables I can get s get shadowing. I think the most expensive scart-scart I have is 30quid to connect my Panny dvd recorder to my ntl box, then i think the others are around 20, the backroom tv has 2 quid scart cables connecting the vcr and dvd player to it, but since the dvd player was a cheapo one, and is hardly used seemed pointless spending more than the machine cost on cables.

I think a lot of us have come to the conclusion, if you`re connecting lots of cheap stuff, then cheapo leads are fine, but if you`ve got expensive things, then you want more expensive leads(within reason) to get the most of out of it.

Saying that, when I got my pc monitor, i got a cheap DVI lead, as I can`t understand how a more expensive lead will make that better since as Chris says it`s digital, so surely it`s wither sending, or not? . I can see it`s better than using normal D-SUB, so that`s good :)

Al

This item was edited on Saturday, 10th November 2007, 13:43

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I will have to disagree with there. A few moons ago a rep came in with an Audioquest X scart. It retailed at £85. We were dubious that we would make that much difference over a £30 QED lead. So we swapped the lead over. The difference was marked. We ordered a box there and then and had to re order on a regular basis. Then the distribution went to marantz and they f***ed it up.

But did it make £55 worth of difference, and would it be perceivable on the kind of equipment most people have in their homes? That`s kind what I was getting at. Anyway, SCART is analogue, surely digital signals over HDMI either get through or they don`t? It`s like people arguing over which is better: coax or optical. Arguably coax because there`s no signal conversion, but can anyone really even tell?

I`m sceptical about fancy HDMI leads, but I can definitely tell you fancy scart leads make a marked difference, even on run of the mill equipment.
I used to buy Beyondhifi`s ribbon scarts, they weren`t that dear at all.

That`s what I have, and I couldn`t see anything different from the SCART I used previously. It was a bit easier to fit behind the TV though :)