Premium AV cables
Surely the number 1 crap gadget.

As a victim of this in my early naive years, the cash I put down on gold-plated, shielded, extra long cables still makes my blood boil.

They are the ultimate emperor's clothes item, causing you to coo and fawn over an audio or visual performance that usually doesn't actually exist.

Premium HDMI cable manufacturers should all just fuck right off, especially those charging more than £50 per cable. Chancers!
(BinDipper, Wed 5 Oct 2011, 13:52, 25 replies)

The best two audiophile rip-off items I ever saw were
little shaped stones to put on your CDs to balance them, and LED lights that you attached to your speaker cables, so that the lights would use up the extra electricity that cause hissing noise to come through your speakers. I guess the LED's just magically KNOW what is good and bad electric.
(Kitty Fantastico "Dwarf, Anorexic and In a Fight ", Wed 5 Oct 2011, 13:59, closed)

Little triangular pieces of self adhesive foil.
You were supposed to put them on your pickup arm, cartridge, amp and speakers. The 'inventor' claimed all sorts of wondrous bollocks would happen to the sound, he wanted a small fortune to come to your house to apply these magic bits of foil.
One magazine gave away a set on its front cover and asked readers to write in describing their hi-fi and what difference they noted in the sound.
Oddly enough, those who had spent many thousands on each component proclaimed greater clarity in the sound. The more their hi-fi cost, the greater the improvement.
Everyone else claimed it was utter bollocks and wondered how to get the adhesive off.

www.johnmorrish.com/wordpress/?page_id=8
( moonbadger Doesn't judge a fish by its ability to climb trees, Wed 5 Oct 2011, 21:56, closed)

More lunacy of that sort can be found here:
www.belt.demon.co.uk/index.html

No need to waste any money, though - they have some free tips! www.belt.demon.co.uk/Free_Techniques/Free_Techniques.html
( benryves Now I'm radioactive! That can't be good!, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 1:18, closed)

Good grief.
I took part in the trial, and heard no difference. I still have the triangles on my tonearm, cartridge and turntable body because I can't be arsed removing them.
I read a lot of that site, and chuckled out loud a few times. The piece about the gravitational effects of balloons was a cracker.
Still, I -must- spend £180 on a croc clip with a bit of wire soldered to it, a brass hex nut soldered to the other end of that so that I can clip it to my speaker cables ( Maplins bell wire ).
The £17 for a piece of self adhesive 'space blanket' seems an utter bargain in comparison.
( moonbadger Doesn't judge a fish by its ability to climb trees, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 8:32, closed)

My sisters ex husband
spent a stoopid amount of money on some phono cables. I baulked at this but he maintained that they would make a significant difference. So being a pedant I chalenged him to a blind test.

Needless to say he picked his old leads as sounding best
(sittingduck Attention seeking, bullshitting fuck-knuckle, Wed 5 Oct 2011, 14:02, closed)

The winner of the best cable goes to:
A mate of mine worked at a HiFi show, and while setting up the equipment they realised that they'd forgotten to bring the ultra-expensive, de-ionised copper speaker cables. No time to get proper replacements, so they nipped into a nearby DIY store and bought a reel of that three-core orange mains cable that you get on lawnmowers, hedgetrimmers etc. Cost about £1 a metre, if I remember correctly -- compared to about £80 a foot or whatever the "real" stuff was.

In the entire four-day show, with some of the country's most obsessive audiophiles visiting their demo room, they got nothing but compliments for the sound quality.
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Wed 5 Oct 2011, 14:24, closed)

excellent
anyone who discribes themselves as an audiophile is going to be a bit of a tit
(sittingduck Attention seeking, bullshitting fuck-knuckle, Wed 5 Oct 2011, 14:59, closed)

Genius.
On the plus side: lots of pretty, blinking lights!
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Wed 5 Oct 2011, 17:18, closed)

Bollocks,
You might not be able to tell the difference, but I can. You need trained ears to be able to - nah, I'm just pulling your leg.
(leviticus no longer likes the cut of your gib on, Wed 5 Oct 2011, 14:51, closed)

Just as an extra to this, I didn't have a friend who didn't run a film website and he definitely wasn't paid a healthy sum of cash to not write a review saying picture quality was much improved with a £40 HDMI cable.
(BinDipper, Wed 5 Oct 2011, 15:15, closed)

£50? pah!
www.amazon.co.uk/SatConn-High-Speed-cable-SC001-1/dp/B003E6J1H0/ref=sr_1_66?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1317824138&sr=1-66
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Wed 5 Oct 2011, 15:16, closed)

'kin 'ell.

No user reviews for that cable. Quell Surprise.
(BinDipper, Wed 5 Oct 2011, 17:12, closed)

It's a typo
Looking at their other cables my guess is its supposed to be £8.90

That's not to say that there are some wackyly priced HDMIs out there.
(karnuvap, Wed 5 Oct 2011, 17:16, closed)

well
www.amazon.co.uk/NORDOST-FREY-SPEAKER-CABLE-PAIR/dp/B002AP11KQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1317833130&sr=1-1

then....
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Wed 5 Oct 2011, 17:46, closed)

Bloody hell.
Hype and hyperbole mixed with pseudo-science to create a fine new suit for the emperor.
( moonbadger Doesn't judge a fish by its ability to climb trees, Wed 5 Oct 2011, 21:41, closed)

Only 2 left in stock--order soon.

I have to admit, I have some gold plated, b-wired speaker cables, but they came with the speakers.
( mediocre ha ha ha, you're reading this, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 5:12, closed)

Best one I've seen so far is gold plated plugs on optical cables.
( jagwap, Wed 5 Oct 2011, 16:17, closed)

haha HAHA hahaha
That's brilliant... I thought "Digital Headphones" was the all-time winner, but you've beaten that.
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Wed 5 Oct 2011, 16:32, closed)

coat hangers do the trick
consumerist.com/2008/03/do-coat-hangers-sound-as-good-monster-cables.html
( enoughblueskyforsailorstrousers, Wed 5 Oct 2011, 20:19, closed)

Absolute classic
and a wonderful example of how the simplest of tests can destroy the bollocksiest of bollocks claims.
( Amish Information Systems hates misplaced, commas, Wed 5 Oct 2011, 21:53, closed)

They said this on the gadget show the other week
They connected 2 identical tv's up. One with a £5 HDMI cable and the other with a £50 one. They concluded there was no discernable difference
(wehttamman via B3ta for microwave, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 3:10, closed)

hint
Always allow the salesman in comet to sell you the fifty quid ones in return for a discount on the main item, next day return and replace with cheap cable from amazon. You retain the discounty goodness all for the sake of looking like a buffoon briefly.
(badgermonkey007, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 7:29, closed)

But then I'd be denying myself the fun of arguing with the numpty in Comet and watching his poor little face drop as he quickly realizes he won''t be earning his accessory commission for the day.
(BinDipper, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 10:51, closed)

Two core ribbon cable
Another rip-off. Apparently the separation stops the left and right channels interfering with each other.

Except that you have one for each speaker.
(all my scars face forward possesses 2.5% of a hyperalloy combat chassis, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 9:05, closed)

In my experience
the only difference is build quality, and the cheapo ones may not last as long.

I bought a £35 HDMI when I got my first LCD TV about 5 years ago.
It's still going strong, but I'm replacing the poundshop ones about once a year.

It's still much better value for money to get the cheapo ones though
( Joe Scaramanga with a G-double-O-D vibration, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 10:19, closed)