SacCityBear;841909040 said:

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I have experience with Apple products even if I don't buy them. If a person does not use advanced art software, there is literally not a single objective reason to use Apple computers.

Buying them is paying a premium for baseless hype. That's exactly like Monster cables. Hell, Monster cables might be better because they are not an inferior product.


Apple as a company might have the most delusional fanbase of any company in the world.

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Honestly, I really don't care. I'm not an investor in Apple, and I am not one of those fanboys. I've yet to purchase a single Apple product, although I have received Apple products as gifts in the past. Having said that, your contention that Apple products are overpriced junk is unfounded. Apple products tend to run more smoothly than Android products based on my experience. Also, the iPhone and iPad are comparably priced to Android products like the Samsung Galaxy phones and Galaxy Tabs.

MrGPAC;841909003 said:

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The only possible difference between the cables is the connectors. Sometimes cheaper cables will have poorly soldered connections that will wear out/break over time. Since its digital, when they do go, they are gone completely.

That said I go as cheap as possible. I'd rather spend 2.50 twice than 30 bucks once.

~MrGPAC

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I would only be concerned with that if I was in the habit of constantly connecting and disconnecting my HDMI connections - especially if I did so by pulling the cable instead of holding the connector itself. However, since once my AV system is setup it stays that way, I'm not too worried. I bought my first HDMI cable from monoprice probably 5+ years ago and it's still working just as well as it did the day I got it in the mail.

Tedhead03;841909121 said:

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Honestly, I really don't care. I'm not an investor in Apple, and I am not one of those fanboys. I've yet to purchase a single Apple product, although I have received Apple products as gifts in the past. Having said that, your contention that Apple products are overpriced junk is unfounded. Apple products tend to run more smoothly than Android products based on my experience. Also, the iPhone and iPad are comparably priced to Android products like the Samsung Galaxy phones and Galaxy Tabs.

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You see the overpricing especially on Macbooks and their desktop line. For comparable specs they charge outrageously more and they also lock down their products so you can't swap out things yourself or do things like upgrade memory yourself.

When you buy a Macbook you're basically paying a couple hundred extra to use the Mac OS.

SacCityBear;841909073 said:

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Yes, Bose products are crazy overpriced, the problem with the comparison is that they are actually usually high quality products. (ok, their speakers and headphones are. I know nothing about any bose tvs) Not worth the price charged certainly, but still very good products.

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Their speakers are generally not high quality. No highs, no lows, must be Bose. Bose stands for Better Off with Something Else. Sister's first husband back in the day had some top-of-the-line expensive Bose Series 901 direct/reflected speakers. What crap they were. Sounded like lousy old Infinity speakers, with towels draped over them. When I was researching speakers (finally bought a/d/s CM7s in 1988, replaced them with Paradigm Studio 60s in 2004) the guys at the high-end stores (anybody remember The Sounding Board on Shattuck?) would tell me that those special Bose speakers might sound good under the perfect conditions (speaker placement, listener placement, room shape, and furniture arrangement), but under normal listening conditions they would always sound muddy.

You want something compact, stay away from Bose and see what Cambridge SoundWorks has to offer.

StillNoStanfurdium;841909134 said:

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You see the overpricing especially on Macbooks and their desktop line. For comparable specs they charge outrageously more and they also lock down their products so you can't swap out things yourself or do things like upgrade memory yourself.

When you buy a Macbook you're basically paying a couple hundred extra to use the Mac OS.

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I don't use many Apple products (iPhone only), but I am generally appalled by the crappyness of consumer electronics. They assume you replace them every 2-3 years, so forget about reliability. And the user interfaces and special features can be awful. I actually applaud the user interface on my iPhone, because the multi-level decision trees on many products had become impossible to use. A zoom feature burried 3 sub-menus deep is not usable. The pinch feature is. And don't get me started on the useless software some companies think they have to include with their hardware.

ducktilldeath;841909084 said:

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Only the ignorant and the too rich to care buy monster cables.

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Ignorance in America=no short supply.

Sebastabear;841908857 said:

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Just got a new LCD/LED from Best Buy. Their top end 6 foot HDMI cable is over $700. I felt very smart for avoiding that. It did however suck me into buying a $200 one (what a bargain) which subsequently made me feel stupid.

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Wow, I didn't know BestBuy pull that shady crap. $700 for some cable???

Normally I do all my shopping online, but this is good to know. I'm not doing any business with them for good.

SacCityBear;841908922 said:

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Hell no. I also don't buy Apple products. It is called not being retarded and not wasting your money on overpriced junk.

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Show of hands: How many Apple product-owning retards do we have on this board?

SacCityBear;841909169 said:

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Interesting. The people I know who have Bose speakers and headphones (more headphones than speakers) have all said they like them, but maybe they are embarrassed to admit buying overpriced shlock.

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I have Bose headphones and I think they are pretty darn good.

okaydo;841909158 said:

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Show of hands: How many Apple product-owning retards do we have on this board?

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iPhone. User interface is simple enough even my wife will use it. I won't touch her phone. Even hanging up is ambiguous. Family tries to have me set up their electronics because I have an engineering degree. I hand the product back and tell them next time to look at the user interface before buying crap you can't hook up. I absolutely hate having to watch their $1000 TV where everyone looks fat because they can't get the aspect ratio right.

I bought the $5 cable and tore up a $20 bill. Came out way ahead

running bear;841909221 said:

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iPhone. User interface is simple enough even my wife will use it. I won't touch her phone. Even hanging up is ambiguous. Family tries to have me set up their electronics because I have an engineering degree. I hand the product back and tell them next time to look at the user interface before buying crap you can't hook up. I absolutely hate having to watch their $1000 TV where everyone looks fat because they can't get the aspect ratio right.

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The android UI is actually rather crappy (and un-uniform I should add). Android made themselves so customizable that they allowed manufacturers to rape them and leave them as useless hunks of crap. They basically did to themselves what windows did for a while letting manufacturers install a bunch of spyware on their computers before selling them (only difference is you could in theory uninstall the windows spyware, you can't really on the android).

Android is a great theory, but until it becomes easy enough for the average user to wipe their phone and put generic builds of android on their phone its going to be junk.

Since I refuse to buy apple products for a variety of reasons, and gave up on android after some terrible experience with them, I've actually moved onto Windows Phone. It may not be sexy. It may not have a bajillion apps. But its functional. Anyone can pick it up and do what they want and put it away and be done with it.

In fact...some times I get angry at how easy my phone is to use when I want to kill time. I check 20 emails on 2 accounts and facebook status updates and 90 seconds later I'm looking for something else to do.

~MrGPAC

dupdadee;841909150 said:

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Wow, I didn't know BestBuy pull that shady crap. $700 for some cable???

Normally I do all my shopping online, but this is good to know. I'm not doing any business with them for good.

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Now please keep in mind, that things like UMRP make it where brick and mortar stores have to charge the same price for stuff and in some cases cannot even do open box. Samsung recently did this with their TVs.
It sucks, but that's the nature of it. And let's not pretend like it hasn't been this way for years.

MrGPAC;841909248 said:

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The android UI is actually rather crappy (and un-uniform I should add). Android made themselves so customizable that they allowed manufacturers to rape them and leave them as useless hunks of crap. They basically did to themselves what windows did for a while letting manufacturers install a bunch of spyware on their computers before selling them (only difference is you could in theory uninstall the windows spyware, you can't really on the android).

Android is a great theory, but until it becomes easy enough for the average user to wipe their phone and put generic builds of android on their phone its going to be junk.

Since I refuse to buy apple products for a variety of reasons, and gave up on android after some terrible experience with them, I've actually moved onto Windows Phone. It may not be sexy. It may not have a bajillion apps. But its functional. Anyone can pick it up and do what they want and put it away and be done with it.

In fact...some times I get angry at how easy my phone is to use when I want to kill time. I check 20 emails on 2 accounts and facebook status updates and 90 seconds later I'm looking for something else to do.

~MrGPAC

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I use very few apps. Sexy doesn't appeal to me (I avoid it). The ease of use it critical. I use enough complex systems for work that I don't care to spend my extra time using them at home.

No to Monster Cables. As a one time PC only guy, I find the Apple iMac and iPhone to be well worth the money I spent on them.

Hmmm. I just bought a Mac Pro and am quite happy with it. However, as soon as I bought it, I was wondering if I was better off just buying an iPad for playing around and also a crappy PC laptop for $400 to do Office work. Would have been cheaper.

Android UI is perfectly fine on its own. It's very similar to the iOS style of grid icons too if you look at installed apps. Only difference is that it imparts more functionality.

SkyBear;841909152 said:

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The only time "quality" of an HDMI really comes into play is when you're running like 50+ ft of cable. At that length, there can be interference that might mess with the signal. But at the normal household lengths of 6ft or so? No reason to buy anything other than monoprice cables.

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If you plug it and your television has a picture, that's all the quality cable you need. Remember the signal is digital. There's a signal processor (SP) in your tv that converts it. While there may be attenuation of the signal in a 50 ft cable, if the signal is strong enough for the SP in your tv to pick it up and interpret it, then its fine. There's no such thing as interference or poorer signals that negatively impact the picture or "degrade" it in anyway. It's very binary. Either the SP can read the signal or it can't. So that's your test for whether you need a better quality cable or not: if it gets a picture then its fine - pretty simple.

They pulled this crap for digital audio cables (spdif) for a while too. Only I'm afraid more people fell for it than the hdmi cable scam.

okaydo;841909158 said:

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Show of hands: How many Apple product-owning retards do we have on this board?

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Our household historical apple purchases:

MacPro book
MacBook
IMac
TiBook
Powermac
2 Ipads
3 Itouches
2 INanos
2 Ipods
1 Ishuffle
2 Mac SE's(back in the day)
1 Apple 2+(WAY back in the day)
No Iphone for the record.

So I'm a macretard to the nth degree.

FingeroftheBear;841909164 said:

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I go both ways. Own a iMac, iPod but have a PC desktop and a couple of laptops in the house. (We call them all "devices" now, as in someone give a device to veg on!) Back in the olden days I would have never bought an Apple product because they were significantly pricier but now they're close to PCs so why not.

:newnana:

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Really?


:facepalm

burritos;841909382 said:

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Our household historical apple purchases:

MacPro book
MacBook
IMac
TiBook
Powermac
2 Ipads
3 Itouches
2 INanos
2 Ipods
1 Ishuffle
2 Mac SE's(back in the day)
1 Apple 2+(WAY back in the day)
No Iphone for the record.

So I'm a macretard to the nth degree.

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I own a 27-inch iMac (I've previously had a 24-inch, which my 86-year-old dad currently uses. I also had an eMac and a 1st generation iMac and a 2nd generation iMac.) I went from a Compaq to an iMac.

I have a 13-inch MacBook Pro, which I'm typing this on now.

I have a yellow iPod Nano, my 3rd iPod Nano and I have 2 iPod Shuffles.

But no iPhones or iPads. Not yet at least.

I have never felt I've bought junk, or that I've been ripped off. (But most of the above-mentioned purchases were Apple refurbished.)

This thread inspired me to return the two HDMI cables I recently bought from BestBuy. Otherwise probably wouldn't have gotten around to it, even though I quickly realized I'd just wasted my money. I owe you all $400 worth of beer.

I haven't stepped into Best Buy in years. Only thing they got going is the hawt chicks they hire.

Sebastabear;841909765 said:

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This thread inspired me to return the two HDMI cables I recently bought from BestBuy. Otherwise probably wouldn't have gotten around to it, even though I quickly realized I'd just wasted my money. I owe you all $400 worth of beer.

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I have $200 hdmi that work like $1000 hdmi and look like $2000 hdmi that I'm selling at $150 sale price if you are interested

tommie317;841909809 said:

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I have $200 hdmi that work like $1000 hdmi and look like $2000 hdmi that I'm selling at $150 sale price if you are interested

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There were a lot of numbers in this reply and I'm obviously easily confused - so I say sold!!! Tell me where to send the check.

okaydo;841909158 said:

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Show of hands: How many Apple product-owning retards do we have on this board?

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Think different. Support open-source efforts! Use Linux!




I do own an iPad. I didn't pay for it. I won it in a raffle.

LethalFang;841909838 said:

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Think different. Support open-source efforts! Use Linux!




I do own an iPad. I didn't pay for it. I won it in a raffle.

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I agree! How do I use Linux on my iPhone?

tommie317;841909841 said:

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I agree! How do I use Linux on my iPhone?

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If you asking whether it is possible, yes it is:
http://www.idroidproject.org/wiki/Bootlace
http://www.idroidproject.org/

SoCalBear323;841909769 said:

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I haven't stepped into Best Buy in years. Only thing they got going is the hawt chicks they hire.

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Best Buy is a good store, their margins on items like computers and TVs are razor-thin. I bought an I5 Acer laptop with 750GB drive for $600 two years ago, less than half what an Apple laptop with much lower specs would have cost. If it breaks down next year, I can get a better product for around $400. I bought an HDMI cable for $9 at a mom and pop store (that was two years ago, today you can get it for $1.50 at the dollar store) instead of the $60 cable they suggested I get along with the laptop.

Basically, you have your HDMI cable and other overpriced peripheral buyers subsidizing main items at Best Buy. If they can get away with selling a 20-cent wire for $200, why blame them.

SacCityBear;841909169 said:

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Interesting. The people I know who have Bose speakers and headphones (more headphones than speakers) have all said they like them, but maybe they are embarrassed to admit buying overpriced shlock.

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They're also probably listening to 128kbps MP3's... I don't mean that insultingly, most people do and don't care that the quality is so poor. There's a reason audiophile formats like SACD and DVD-A failed so miserably. Portability, and ability to cram the largest number of songs possible are more important to the vast majority of people.

You'll find most of the people that use these devices for a living (e.g. musicians) won't touch Bose; there are plenty of brands that provide far superior performance (e.g. Audio-Technica) at comparable prices.

Bottom line... I am sure they like the sound of their speakers just fine and are not being dishonest. Some of them might be surprised if they auditioned other brands and compared, and some might simply not notice the difference.

Monster is very overpriced relative to other cables. I bought Audioquest, which is available at Best Buy / Magnolia. Similar quality cables are available online for MUCH cheaper than the thieves at Monster.

Are you really that ignorant? Really? Selling a high priced cable to fulfill the needs of people in that market ($100K+ theater rooms, etc.), while also selling much lower priced cables to fulfill the needs of those that focus on cost over function, seems like a bad plan to you? Time for a class in business...

I think I will only post a couple more times in this thread because I feel like the stupidity by those capping on Best Buy is giving me a headache. But how much do you think the company that is producing these expensive cables is charging Best Buy? Don't you think that is really more of the issue than what Best Buy is charging? If someone is finding the same cable, made by the same company, somewhere else for MUCH less than that, then it's Best Buy's margins, advertising, salaries and rent that is driving up the price. But Best Buy does offer much cheaper cables! Audioquest cables (and their overpriced competitor, Monster) are expensive everywhere, and they're nowhere near the most expensive.

Most of the people are bagging on Monster, not Best Buy.

And frankly, if I am in the $100k market, I want equipment that is better, not just the same thing priced higher. If I buy a Ferrari I don't want a Mustang with red paint priced at $250k. Defending a $700 cable makes me think you are either in on the scam or ignorant of what it is that is being sold.

Not entirely true. Someone else in this thread posted a good summary. The "it's just 1s and 0's" argument is not correct.