Home > Consumer Reviews > HDMI (2 meter) 6 foot cable HQ 1080P 1.3b

[Anyone remembers the old "I am not going to spend a lot for this muffler" commercial?]

[NOTE: I bought TWO Premium Gold Series cables and I actually took home one Monster cable at one time so maybe I know what I am talking about :)]

Just in case someone may feel guilty for not paying a lot more for, basically the same thing, let's look at our top of the line offer, Monster HDMI 1000HD Ultra-High Speed HDMI Cable (2 meters) and do a quick comparison.

The Gold Series item supports the HDMI 1.3 standard. Any HDMI 1.3 cable can carry up to 10.2 Gbit/s. Hmmm... I suppose the Monster is much better, right? Well... it "guarantees a certified cable bandwidth of 10.2" Okay, but the Monster also supports "x.v.Color, and Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD". It turns out that, all of the above, and more, are part of the HDMI 1.3 specs and they are fully supported by every cable that complies to the standard and can be had for about 95% less in the Premium Gold. The expensive brand presentation simply enumerates the HDMI 1.3 specs as if it being HDMI 1.3 compliant was a really big deal. It is not a big deal. Even a cable that costs 95% less is HDMI 1.3 compliant.

My suggestion: if you think that the proponents of the expensive brand have a point when they claim that their product is a lot more durable, buy TWO Premium Gold wires and still pay almost 90% less than you would pay for one of the expensive ones.

My personal experience: I've never paid 'a lot' for an HDMI cable because it makes no sense to pay more. I took home one of the 'expensive' ones once because the salesman promised to take it back if I wasn't amazed by the difference. It made zero difference and I returned it.
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The following are the HDMI 1.3 specs and any certified HDMI 1.3 cable is going to support them.

Maximum signal bandwidth (MHz) 340
Maximum TMDS bandwidth (Gbit/s) 10.2
Maximum video bandwidth (Gbit/s) 8.16
Maximum audio bandwidth (Mbit/s) 36.86
Maximum Color Depth (bit/px) 48

Maximum resolution over single link at 24-bit/px 2560×1600p75
Maximum resolution over single link at 30-bit/px 2560×1600p60
Maximum resolution over single link at 36-bit/px 1920x1200p75
Maximum resolution over single link at 48-bit/px 1920×1200p60

sRGB
YCbCr
8 channel LPCM/192 kHz/24-bit audio capability
Blu-ray Disc video and audio at full resolution
Consumer Electronic Control (CEC)
DVD-Audio support
Super Audio CD (DSD) support
Deep Color
xvYCC
Auto lip-sync
Dolby TrueHD bitstream capable
DTS-HD Master Audio bitstream capable
Updated list of CEC commands (only on HDMI 1.3a,b,c)

These cables work just fine, but one problem, which might just be user-related.

I bought two of them, one for my PS3 and one for my DVR. My TV gave a "No Signal" error for both when I first plugged them in. I tried everything I could think of and almost gave up in frustration, accepting my failure in hoping $5 HDMI cables would function as well as the $50+ ones. Then I thought maybe to try reversing the cable, and putting the plugs in the opposite device. All of a sudden my TV dings and says 1080p. Both ends of the cable look exactly the same, but for some reason, each end has to be plugged into the correct system. Or maybe it's just me and this is common sense, I don't know...

I picked this HDMI cable up because it was the cheapest of the 1.3 certified cables. It didn't disappoint one bit. The picture from my PS3 is simply stunning. The seller, Eforcity, shipped very quickly (arrived in three days).

I was tempted by the price and since I was purchasing a PS3, i wanted to get the most out of my system. I figured, what the heck, the price makes it worth a shot. How wrong I was. Just a few months ago I spent a pretty penny on a 50" 1080p plasma. I wanted my new PS3 to look the best it could with HDMI. However, the problem I ran into was when I tried to display 1080p signal. The cable displayed 480p, 720p, and 1080i just fine. Im sure I cant even tell the difference between the 1080p/i, but I wanted the best. There was noise and signal loss when using 1080p, so be warned. If your TV doesnt display 1080p, no worries, but if it does, pay a little more for what its worth. It was delivered promptly and neatly packaged, if that counts for anything.

I had this cable and a 3' Phillips cable ($30) that I used to hook my laptop to my old TV (only 760). New TV came in (Samsung LN46A650), so I just unhooked the PS3 that had the cheap cable and put it into the new TV. Also got new digital cable, so used the shorter Phillips cable for that since the 3' was too short to reach the PS3. With the cheap cable, the PS3 to TV would only get 1080i... I looked online to find solutions, and nothing worked until I re-arranged my setup so the 3' Phillips cable would reach the PS3.. and 1080p worked first time. Cheap cable works fine with the cable box that only gets 1080i anyway. Only rated it two stars becuase it didn't work for the intended purpose. Works fine though as a 1080i cable (for me).