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It's no secret that most brick-and-mortar stores jack up the price of cables, but we still did a double-take when we saw Best Buy's listing for a $2,200.99 AudioQuest Coffee HDMI cable.
To be fair, it's 39.4 feet long, so you're only paying around $55.86 per foot, or about $4.65 per inch. And as one user points out, "the best part is that it qualified for 36 months no interest financing!" Sold!
Here's a protip: If you need an extra long HDMI cable and can make do without the additional 9.4 feet, Monoprice.com sells a 30ft HDMI cable for $27 plus shipping.
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Up Early
January 13, 2011 at 4:33am
Better yet, I went to the Best Buy website and they show a 4.7 Star rating out of 5 with 21 reviews. You can't read the reviews though; when you click on "read reveiws" they don't show.
I wanted to see who the 21 numbskulls were........
Anyway, check out this catalog of cables and you'll see a lot more in the way of mind-boggling cable deals:
http://www.audioquest.com/pdfs/RetailPriceBook_v2010-May-Web.pdf
hunster26
January 12, 2011 at 12:44pm
I wanna reach out to all those consumer n00bs and tell them the TRUTH about HDMI. This is like one of the biggest marketing wins of all time...MonsterCable must be rich as fudge.
Monoprice is good but if you're looking for a 40foot HDMI for $40 go to BlueJeansCable.youknowwhat. These guys have HDMI down to a science.
krngq81
January 11, 2011 at 12:16pm
While a $2,200.99 price tag is definitely outrageous, this is not Best Buy 's pricing. I'm seeing a bunch of you mad at Best Buy for this price. The product is actually from AudioQuest. I checked out their cables and while they don't post any prices for their products, there IS a PDF file with the MSRP's listed.
http://www.audioquest.com/pdfs/RetailPriceBook_v2010-May-web.pdf
You'll see that the actual price of this cable is $2,200. Best Buy added the extra .99 so they can buy a soda after they make this sale.
If you check it out, you can see that the Coffee Brown HDMI cable isn't even their most expensive HDMI cable. If you really decide to splurge, go for the Diamond HDMI 39'5" cable for $9,800. But hey, you're paying for Solid 100% PSS Silver.
Anyways. I'm not protecting Best Buy, just want to make sure you all knew that the price of this cable isn't their idea.
Either way, WTF?!
ShyLinuxGuy
January 11, 2011 at 11:57am
Whoever spends more on a cable than the average TV or devices themselves are really in need of serious mental evaluations. This is totally ridiculous--lose about 9 feet, and you only spend probably less than $40 altogether, like the post said. There are 60-inch HDTVs (plasma and LCD) that don't even go near the price of this cable! I would expect this cable to have encrusted diamonds and real gold for anything metallic. Maybe throw in a 40-inch LCD and perhaps a mid-grade home theater system and maybe an HTPC.
It's probably an error in pricing, and probalbly really only $50 or $60, at least that's what it looks like it is worth. It would be really silly of Best Buy to actually sell this for $2200 and expect people to buy this. I bet even Bill Gates would think this is maybe a little too high for a cable!
arkarkwin
January 11, 2011 at 11:50am
I had felled for similar Best Buy scheme before. I purchased 46"inches Sharp HDTV with PS3 back in 2008. Best Buy gave me 24 months free financing and I was so happy with it that I didn't realized that they sold me 3 (3 feet) long HDMI cable for around $98 a piece. Sharp costs $1400, PS3 was $299 or $399 ( I don't remember). Overall, I paid a little bit over $2300. I even paid them extra $50 or $80 for installation. And all these Geek Squad did was to drop my TV to my house (a week later). Tear up the packages and put the TV on the shelf.I couldn't still forgave myself for paying nearly $300 for 3x 3feet long HDMI calbe.
chart2006
January 11, 2011 at 8:57am
A couple of years ago I purchased a 50ft HDMI 1.3a cable off ebay for around $50. It worked perfectly and still does. As it is quite a heavy duty cable ( ~.5 inch in diameter) it's a pain to work with at times BUT there is no noticeable difference in video or audio quality to me between a $100+ Monster cable and this one. I use it to run from my desktop PC in the office to my HDTV in the living room. I'm happy with it so to spend over two grand on a cable is simply like buying hurricane insurance when you live in Illinois (not to list the inland hurricane that came through in 2008).
Hg Dragon
January 11, 2011 at 12:02pm
At the 6-10' range that most people use, it doesn't really matter what cable you buy. You'll be serverd just as well with the iKable brand from WalMart for 6'-$15 as you are the 6'-$50 one from Monster. There is no appreciable signal loss at that length unless the cable is physically bad or damaged. Just like, at some shorter lengths, you can push a GBBaseT signal over Cat5, even though it's only rated for 100BaseT.
I overheard a sales person trying ot persuade a customer to buy a more expesive cable simply because the plog end was gold-plated, which obviously meant it was better. It doesn't matter what the shield is plated with, as it doesn't carry any kind of signal. But the customer was convinced and talked out of and extra $30.
Don't even get me started on what I think about Monster cables...
Blaze589
January 11, 2011 at 8:49am
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Delectronics&field-keywords=20ft+hdmi&x=0&y=0&ih=5_3_0_0_1_0_0_0_0_1.188_132&fsc=-1#/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Delectronics&field-keywords=30ft+hdmi&rh=n%3A172282%2Ck%3A30ft+hdmi
Amazon sells 30ft HDMI cables for about $20 with shipping.
Hg Dragon
January 11, 2011 at 8:28am
Looks like some of the "seedier" sides of the Internet found out about this and have started taking the piss out of it.
Good for them!
I Jedi
January 11, 2011 at 6:59am
Dear god, Best Buy, do you consider your customers to be so dumb, that you purposely scheme to rob them of all dignity and money?
D00dlavy
January 11, 2011 at 12:17pm
....Yes.
Then again, if you shop at Best Buy instead of online (Pricewatch, Amazon, NewEgg, ZipZoomFly) you pretty much deserve what you get.
I shop at Best Buy from time to time, but only when they're running an attractive deal and I can rape them or somebody purchased a gift card for me.
roleki
January 11, 2011 at 6:44am
You can throw HDMI over Cat6 a hell of a lot farther than 39.4 feet for a literal fraction of that cost.
avenger48
January 11, 2011 at 6:37am
We got one for around $5 shipped for 6 ft on Amazon, and that was the expensive HDMI 1.3 certified cable. Also, this one doesn't even have gold-plated connectors!
Scootiep
January 11, 2011 at 7:54am
Two things here chief. First off. HDMI is a digital signal. The gold plating doesn't matter one iota, it's not an analog signal. Secondly, while I'm not going to knock you for you buy on amazon, you really need to do what the guys who wrote this article suggested and check out monoprice.com. Seriously, you can get professional grade cabling for ridiculously cheap prices. (10ft HDMI cable for $4 in any color or the higher quality stuff for $9). And there's bulk discounts. It's an awesome sight for all cabling needs. Basically, monoprice is to cabling what newegg.com is to computer components.
avenger48
January 11, 2011 at 11:21am
1. I realized the gold plating doesn't matter. I was simply stating it since these companies (like Monster) usually do something to justify costing 20-40 times the price. I was wondering just how they pretended to justify the ridiculous price.
2. I bought the cables with an HDTV, which was cheaper on Amazon than Newegg. It was simpler to just do it all through one place, rather than deal with another website to save $3. The price seemed somewhat insignificant in the wake of the $2,000+ TV.
3. And, finally, that $5 included shipping. 6' Black HDMI cables cost $6.21 each at monoprice once shipping is factored in, assuming you buy 2-9 of them.
I also realized, the 52" Samsung I bought actually cost less than one of these cables, and it was pretty high-end at the time.
Scootiep
January 11, 2011 at 12:25pm
"I also realized, the 52" Samsung I bought actually cost less than one of these cables, and it was pretty high-end at the time."
That right there is hilarious. Also I'm curious, which Samsung did you go with? Been looking at a few myself.
avenger48
January 11, 2011 at 5:20pm
It was a few years ago (I want to say two...?), but I got an LN52-A650. Interestingly, the 750 was actually cheaper on Amazon at the time, but it had reliability issues.
In any case, I highly recommend Samsung's TV's. Mine is still working beautifully (knock on wood), and looks as good as the day I set it up. I did have to update the firmware to fix a common issue, but it took less than 5 minutes, so no big whoop. The menu system is fabulous, the picture is fantastic, and it still looks as good as any LCD you can see in a store, short of the new LED models.
Are you going from HD to HD, or do you have SD right now? If you don't already have surround sound and want it, I definitely advise getting a receiver with HDMI passthrough, it makes everything MUCH easier.
