A buddy of mine worked at one of the large electronics chains and talks of the incredible markup on cables and connectors. So stay away from the Consumer Electronics stores for those items. I've always found Canada Computer to be reasonably priced and got some HDMI cables at the local Dollarama that seem to be fine quality - for a fraction of the cost of the Big Box stores. At one point, Canada Computers had some nice outlet strip units (yellow, in a square, with 7 outlets and a pilot light and switch), for something like $10. I bought as many as I could carry. They later showed up at Canadian Tire 'on sale' for about double that. However, Canadian Tire sometimes has reasonable deals. They had a nice little battery tester meter that actually loads the battery, which leads to a more accurate assessment of the state of the battery than just measuring with a voltmeter. (An aside: some local entrepreneur registered the URL 'Crappy Tire'. Canadian Tire then went to court and had to argue that Crappy Tire was actually their trademark. They lost, and had to settle with the owner.) Peter
On 03/13/2016 03:34 PM, phiscock@ee.ryerson.ca wrote:
The theory says there shouldn't be any improvement with the very expensive Monster Cables et al, and indeed, there was no observable difference in double blind listening tests.
The problem is audiofools don't accept double blind tests. They have "golden ears" and can always tell the difference, even when listening in different environments and at different times. They *KNOW* those Monster cables are better! ;-)
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