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[–] 259 points 10 months ago (47 children)

Is that an optical cable with gold plating to improve the electrical connection?

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  • [–] 175 points 10 months ago (8 children)
  • [–] 77 points 10 months ago (4 children)
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  • [–] 52 points 10 months ago (18 children)

    Yes.

    It's also for digital signals, so interference doesn't matter (up to the point it stops everything).

    But hey, it also has a silver ABS grip.

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  • [–] 29 points 10 months ago (16 children)

    I do kinda see some point in gold plating electrical cables. Gold doesn't tarnish so much and is also often used on computer edge connectors.

    The issue has always been "audiophiles" telling you they can tell the difference with a gold or gold plated digital connector. Of course you cannot, you either are getting bit errors or not with digital audio. But they do generally provide a more reliable connection overall.

    Now don't ask me about my opinion, you're talking to the guy that makes radio antennas with speaker wire. I am truly uncultured in terms of electrical connectivity.

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  • [–] 25 points 10 months ago* (7 children)

    Giving them the benefit of the doubt, I would think it’s to resist corrosion, but there are plenty of cheaper metals to plate with that don’t corrode, so even that’s a stretch.

    Or, you know, plastic.

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    [–] 188 points 10 months ago (9 children)

    I once had a Best Buy sales person tell me "the improved shielding helps with magnetism". I stared at him for a sec and said "if there is enough magnetism in my house to bend light, how my stereo sound really won't be one of my main concerns"

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  • [–] 27 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    I used to sell TVs for Best Buy back in the day. The Video Department manager, my boss, set up a display side by side to show the difference between $40 Monster cables and the normal cables that came with a DVD player.

    When there was no noticable difference, he went into the TV settings and adjusted the settings for the normal cables to make the picture look like shit. Not all customers are that gullible though, so usually one of the more savvy ones would fix the settings. So my boss would have to go in and fuck the settings up again once or twice a shift.

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    [–] 147 points 10 months ago (23 children)

    My favorite story along these lines...

    Someone compared Monster cables to un-bent coat hangers.

    https://gizmodo.com/audiophile-deathmatch-monster-cables-vs-a-coat-hanger-363154

    "Seven songs were played while the group was blindfolded and the cables swapped back and forth. Not only “after 5 tests, none could determine which was the Monster 1000 cable or the coat hanger wire,” but no one knew a coat hanger was used in the first place."

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  • [–] 28 points 9 months ago (14 children)

    That's a classic and I am glad it see it passed around again. The best part is the people that start delving into the snake oil absurdity that is "audiophile cables" before, you know, getting better actual speakers/headphones. Like for fucks sake, your $200 fancy cable isn't going to make your bullshit bargain bookshelf speaker into the voice of god. Just get some half way decent equipment and listen to your actual music.

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  • [–] 27 points 9 months ago (6 children)

    Yup, there is a lot of snake oil in the audiophile world. The worst instance I saw was someone posting about an intermittent buzz in their system. Multiple people were recommending a full rebuild, (which would cost thousands of dollars). From what they described, it was pretty obvious that OP just needed a ~10¢ ferrite bead on a power cable, to make it stop acting as an antenna.

    I was like “okay, you could try rebuilding your entire system like everyone else is suggesting… But maybe start with a ferrite bead. Here is a link for a multipack on Amazon. Worst case scenario, you’re only out like $5. And even if it doesn’t fix this specific case, the multipack is handy to have around anyways, because manufacturers often cheap out and skip adding them when their devices really do need them.” Like three days later, I got a “holy shit this actually worked. You just saved me thousands of dollars (and a ton of time) on a complete rebuild.”

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  • [–] 18 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Installing cable TV at a man's house, ripped his Monster coax connector off. He was appalled! (I was appalled!) Showed him what I was replacing it with. Parts guide.

    "The shield is quad-woven steel. Yours was 1x of angel hair copper. The dielectric is solid, not a noodle. See? (bendy, bendy) Foil shield? Uh, did yours have one? Oh, I see the shredded bit right there!"

    Bent the center conductor on his Monster cable with my pinky. "Try that with mine." Stopped him before he hypodermic-needled himself.

    tl;dr: Whatever the cable guy cuts for you is miles above Monster grade.

    It's like Yeti gear. "So you paid $35 for a cup that's simply a vacuum sealed canister? I got a 6-pack off Amazon for $25. Cute colors too!"

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  • [–] 11 points 9 months ago

    Been 15-years ago, but I bet an audiophile coworker, who had a physics degree, he couldn't tell the difference in a coat hanger and proper wires.

    "Well, yeah, but, bla, bla, bla..."

    Now I wish I could shove that article up his butt! 😈

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    [–] 95 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    Ah yeah, you know the gold plated connections make all the difference for the fiber optic connection

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    [–] 91 points 10 months ago* (11 children)

    Those 128kbps are going to be well delivered, that's for sure.

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  • [–] 26 points 10 months ago (9 children)

    FWIW toslink supports up to 125mbps theoretically

    Much lower in practice of course, but it's a bit better than 128k

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  • [–] 66 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (5 children)

    Yeah but my mp3's from Kazaa are all 128. I want to hear them perfectly as the original ripper intended without distortion from the cables. The gold connector adds warmth to the sound.

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    [–] 72 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    ABS Silver Shell

    silver-colored plastic

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    [–] 54 points 10 months ago (6 children)

    You can sell aluminum free baking soda and convince someone baking soda contains aluminum. Fads and marketing are becoming an epidemic

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  • [–] 39 points 10 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 18 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    I'm so glad this is illegal where I'm from

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  • [–] 16 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Not sure if that's the case elsewhere, but here truthful statements that aren't exclusive to your brand also must have a warning. For instance, if I want to add "rich in calcium!" to my yogurt's packaging, I must also add right next to it "like all other yogurt"

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    [–] 44 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    So regardless of the fact that it's about an optical connector here, and hence completely nonsensical, gold is actually a worse conductor of electricity than copper or silver. The point of gold plated connectors is not so much to improve the immediate audio quality, but to prevent oxidation of the connector over time, which can degrade quality and lead to bad contact. Gold is a noble metal, so doesn't oxidize. I would think most audiophiles know this?

    I used to have to replace the cable of my electric guitar every few years because the sound would get crackly or drop out intermittently, I eventually got one with gold plated 6.35mm plug and I'm still using that same cable 15 years later.

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  • [–] 13 points 9 months ago

    You are correct; the point of gold plated contacts is anti-corrosion and long service life not for absolute highest conductivity.

    I'm a ham radio operator; I have some silver-plated antenna connectors, because antenna feedlines are dealing with extremely weak signals on receive, so any loss you can eliminate in the connector the better. Problem is they corrode to hell everywhere they aren't tightly screwed together. For consumer AV equipment the signals are basically never weak enough to bother with that.

    I would think most audiophiles know this?

    They're not marketing to audiophiles. They're marketing to dudes and dads. They aren't trying to get the guy hooking a manual turntable up to a tube amplifier, they're trying to get the guy attaching a PS5 to an LG TV to a Sonos soundbar. They're going for the guy who is spending middle class money on AV equipment without bothering to understand it.

    Wish I'd thought of it.

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    [–] 39 points 10 months ago

    Making no difference to sound is a very expensive addiction.

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  • [–] 37 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (5 children)

    Audiophiles are the stupidest conceited fools who have ever been parted from their money.

    Don't forget your Audiophile grade cat5e cables for your NAS! Plug them in the right way though so the arrows point away from the NAS!

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    [–] 32 points 10 months ago

    This is even funnier considering the fiber element in toslink is actually plastic which was chosen to make it really cheap since the distance was not of concern like a proper multimode fiber cable made with glass.

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  • [–] 29 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    But it's Monster and costs 17x as much as Monoprice, it has to be better!

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  • [–] 17 points 9 months ago

    The biggest impact I ever saw was an electrical filter for advanced audio systems. It’s basically an alternator. And it was the most impressive piece of any audio system I sold.

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  • [–] 14 points 10 months ago

    I once had a guy try to sell me one of these to my face. I asked him to explain why it was better than the one I got in the box with my DVD player, and he carried on about better conductivity and improved sound.

    Called him out on his bullshit and never returned.

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  • [–] 13 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    I miss when being an audiophile was just using vintage equipment and/or opting for lossless formats over compressed mp3s.

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