Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: of spoken word entertainment. For a free audio book of
Speaker 1: your voice, go to audible podcast dot com slash tech Stuff. Hello, everybody,
Speaker 1: welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Polette. I'm
Speaker 1: an editor at how stuff Works dot com and sitting
Speaker 1: next to me as usual as senior writer Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and uh, I think we're going to uh
Speaker 1: talk some cable today. Yeah, we're gonna talk cable kind
Speaker 1: of the way we talked megapixels. And you know, it's
Speaker 1: funny because all this WiFi we've been talking over the
Speaker 1: past few months, and now we're talking cables. Cables. We're
Speaker 1: not we're not necessarily talking cable television or cable modems.
Speaker 1: We're talking about the actual physical cables that tether one
Speaker 1: device to another. And if you're not familiar with cables,
Speaker 1: ha ha, they're basically long strings of copper wire that
Speaker 1: you plug one thing into another thing to connect them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: to allow electrons to pass okay, jokes aside from one
Speaker 1: to another. Um. The question has been posed by many
Speaker 1: people over the centuries that we've had electronic equipment. Yes,
Speaker 1: I remember Shakespeare himself wondering about this question. You know
Speaker 1: we're gonna get an email saying you don'ts no, seriously, Um,
Speaker 1: there have been people who have asked for a long time,
Speaker 1: you know, because they are all kinds of cables you
Speaker 1: can get in the store. Some of them are really cheap,
Speaker 1: some of them are really expensive, some of them are short,
Speaker 1: some of them along and people go, what the heck
Speaker 1: is the difference? Does it really matter what cable I get?
Speaker 1: And the answer to that is, well, answer is no,
Speaker 1: it's not No. Answer is more or less no, Okay,
Speaker 1: more or less no, I will accept. Okay, there, but
Speaker 1: actually there's some there's some gray area in there, all right, Yeah, again,
Speaker 1: there's some gray area. Okay. So what we're talking about
Speaker 1: here are let's say that you just bought a really,
Speaker 1: really nice sound system and you want to hook your
Speaker 1: sound system up, and you know, you don't want to
Speaker 1: just use the cables that came with it. You want,
Speaker 1: you want some nice cables. Um, you don't wanna you know,
Speaker 1: full around, because I mean, if you spent this much
Speaker 1: on a on a sound system, you don't want something
Speaker 1: as simple as cables making it sound crappy. Right, Actually
Speaker 1: that sounds a lot like what a salesperson would ask
Speaker 1: you in the store. I know, this is why I'm
Speaker 1: going this way. So then you go down to the
Speaker 1: audio aisle and you look at all the different cables
Speaker 1: and you see some they're they're you know, fifteen dollars,
Speaker 1: and you see some of they're twenty dollars. And then
Speaker 1: you look and you see some that are a hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty dollars and they're the same length as the
Speaker 1: twenty dollar ones, And you think, huh, the d and
Speaker 1: twenty dollar ones must provide a much better sound than
Speaker 1: the twenty dollar ones. I've spent all this money on
Speaker 1: my uh stereo. I'm going to go ahead and get
Speaker 1: the top of the line. And you take them home
Speaker 1: and you look so and you think I've got the
Speaker 1: best there is. Well, would you have had the same
Speaker 1: experience of you about the twenty ones? Would it really
Speaker 1: have sounded that much different or would it sound different
Speaker 1: at all? Would you even be able to detect it?
Speaker 1: Perhaps the most sensitive sound detecting equipment could pick it up,
Speaker 1: but would your ear pick it up? And that's the question.
Speaker 1: I mean. I wasn't long ago that I uh, that
Speaker 1: I edited Dave Russ article how do I know which
Speaker 1: cables use? And it doesn't really talk about this, at
Speaker 1: least not mostly. But he did put a sidebar in
Speaker 1: there about an experiment that was held not too long ago.
Speaker 1: They got picked up and it made headlines, well sort
Speaker 1: of headlines, blog headlines all over the internet about these
Speaker 1: people who substituted coat hangers for Monster cables. Let's see
Speaker 1: if they can tell the difference. Actually, no, they couldn't,
Speaker 1: yeh um. And let's just say this. We're not talking
Speaker 1: about a double blind study held in um a lab
Speaker 1: and the results were published in a peer review journal.
Speaker 1: But um, the original of this appeared in an audio
Speaker 1: file um uh message board. It's the audio Holics Home
Speaker 1: theater forum and basically, um, some serious serious listeners decided
Speaker 1: to do a test on two different kinds of cable,
Speaker 1: basically trying to figure out because Monster has a reputation
Speaker 1: for making really good cables or at least really expensive
Speaker 1: or at least really expensive, wasn't And and uh, if
Speaker 1: anybody's name is thrown around with are these really expensive
Speaker 1: cables worth it, it's theirs. Um. So they said, okay,
Speaker 1: well let's do let's do a taste test, if you will,
Speaker 1: And they plugged in some really nice monster cables and
Speaker 1: they also put in some fourteen gauge oxygen free Belden
Speaker 1: copper wire and tested them and basically, um, all this
Speaker 1: wasn't a scientific, scientific test. It was pretty scientific. They
Speaker 1: picked a band that none of them were familiar with
Speaker 1: so that nobody would have a personal biased that they
Speaker 1: used the exact same length of wire and said, okay,
Speaker 1: they hooked it up to an eight B box so
Speaker 1: they could just throw a switch and uh. Basically they
Speaker 1: exposed five people. Again not a giant scientific example, but
Speaker 1: two of the five could accurately identify the monster cable
Speaker 1: out of the two as sounding different. And then they
Speaker 1: threw him a loop and pulled out the belden wire
Speaker 1: and swapped it for coat hanger that had been rigged
Speaker 1: into speaker wires, and uh, and ran the A B
Speaker 1: test again, and not one of them could tell the
Speaker 1: difference in Monster cable or the the coat hangers. Not
Speaker 1: that we recommend you going out and replacing all of
Speaker 1: your wires with coat hangers. No, No, that could potentially
Speaker 1: cause you a little bit of a shock, exactly. And um,
Speaker 1: not to disparage the work of the audio holics who
Speaker 1: have who have done this study. It's it's certainly um
Speaker 1: uh you know, somewhat scientific. Um. But they you know,
Speaker 1: people have been really excited about this because you know,
Speaker 1: people like to pick on Monster. Let's face Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: they're They're an easy target because their products are very
Speaker 1: very much in the you know, the limelight, and they
Speaker 1: are very expensive or for the high end ones anyway,
Speaker 1: And uh, I just want to really quickly go into
Speaker 1: what a double blind study is in case you're not
Speaker 1: aware of what that is. Double blind is a methodology,
Speaker 1: and it's one in which both the person administering the
Speaker 1: tests and the person undergoing the test have no idea
Speaker 1: which of the two or more UH scenarios they are
Speaker 1: encountering at any one time. So, in other words, the
Speaker 1: person who is pushing play on the stereo U doesn't
Speaker 1: know which wires are being used, and the person listening
Speaker 1: doesn't know which wires are being used. Now, ideally you're
Speaker 1: using the exact same equipment apart from the wires, and
Speaker 1: you're using the exact same recording in all these cases,
Speaker 1: so that you know, no, you don't have any other
Speaker 1: variation there. The only variation you should get are from
Speaker 1: the wires. And the reason you do these double blind
Speaker 1: tests is to avoid a kind of almost like a well,
Speaker 1: it's really a psychological effect. If you go in expecting
Speaker 1: to hear a better sound, you might be convinced that
Speaker 1: you are hearing a better sound, even if on any
Speaker 1: other day, if no one had told you that, you
Speaker 1: wouldn't have that expectation. So, I mean, someone could tell you, oh, well,
Speaker 1: these are the high high end speaker wires, and and
Speaker 1: be pulling your leg, and you might convince yourself, wow,
Speaker 1: those really do sound great, and then it turns out
Speaker 1: that you know another the cheap little fifteen dollar ones
Speaker 1: you can get on the aisle um. That's why double
Speaker 1: blind tests are important. It takes that kind of bias out. Actually,
Speaker 1: James Randy, do you have you do you know who
Speaker 1: James Randy is? I've heard his name, James Randy. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's a professional magician UM and also a noted skeptic,
Speaker 1: and he has the one million dollar Chi Lenge, which
Speaker 1: really is open to various claims of um of abilities
Speaker 1: that fall into the paranormal range. But he opened it
Speaker 1: up the one million dollar challenge to anyone who could
Speaker 1: reliably tell the difference between I think it was a
Speaker 1: seven thousand, five hundred dollar cable and a I think
Speaker 1: a two hundred dollar cable. So we're still talking about
Speaker 1: high end cables on both ends, but one that's incredibly
Speaker 1: expensive versus one that's just expensive. And his argument was
Speaker 1: that the human ear would be unable to detect the
Speaker 1: the difference between these two cables, even if the two
Speaker 1: cables performed exactly the way they were supposed to perform
Speaker 1: according to advertisements and packaging. UM. As of right now,
Speaker 1: no one has uh that they have not done any
Speaker 1: of these tests. I think because the company that was
Speaker 1: going to supply the cables backed out in the last second. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe they just didn't want anyone to find how that
Speaker 1: their product may or may not be distinguishable from significantly
Speaker 1: cheaper products. I think that might be it. That that
Speaker 1: could be it. Yeah, we don't know. We can't say
Speaker 1: it may be a totally different reason. Um Wilson Rothman
Speaker 1: UH from Gizmodo has done a series of articles about
Speaker 1: Monster cables and whether they're worth it UM and worth
Speaker 1: worth the price. And you know, he actually met with
Speaker 1: some some folks at Monster and they explained to him
Speaker 1: some of the reasons why they feel UM their cables
Speaker 1: are worth it. And I should point out that UM.
Speaker 1: According to one of his posts, uh it talks about
Speaker 1: the the consumer blog Consumerist, UM, they got an inventorialist
Speaker 1: from radio radio shack employee and there was a a
Speaker 1: cable that had a markup of actually UM and nineteen
Speaker 1: h d M I d v I digital cable was
Speaker 1: a hundred wholesale was which is a profit of eighty
Speaker 1: dollars and fifty four cents, which is actually, as Monster
Speaker 1: points out, a margin of which is just a little
Speaker 1: higher than their normal margin, which is thirty seven. That's
Speaker 1: according to Monster them, you know, the company itself. UM,
Speaker 1: but there are a lot of things that Monster says
Speaker 1: makes a difference for them. Um. They make heavier duty cables,
Speaker 1: which UH, in the long run will save one wear
Speaker 1: and tear. They showed Um Wilson Rothman and an X
Speaker 1: ray of a monster cable and a less expensive cable,
Speaker 1: and they showed the difference in wear and tear just
Speaker 1: at the point where the connector touches the cable and
Speaker 1: just bending it back and forth can can damage the
Speaker 1: cable where the Monster cables were more robust. Also, they're
Speaker 1: certified for things like h technologies like h d M I,
Speaker 1: and they're saying, you know, basically, when you pay for us,
Speaker 1: you're getting a higher quality copper cable. You're getting, you know,
Speaker 1: a more robust cable that will last longer. The connectors
Speaker 1: tend to be made out of pretty expensive material as well,
Speaker 1: with the idea that you know, this is the part
Speaker 1: that actually you insert into whatever equipment you're going to
Speaker 1: plug the cable into and for it exactly and that
Speaker 1: therefore it does make a difference which material you use.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, to his credit, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: Rothman was really sort of skeptical about the whole thing
Speaker 1: going in, but he said, you know, these things honestly
Speaker 1: do play a part in whether or not the cable,
Speaker 1: um you know, is worth more to the to the consumer.
Speaker 1: But he also advocates trying a cheaper cable to start
Speaker 1: out with because he said, you know, for the most part,
Speaker 1: most people can't tell the difference, UM, and for shorter lengths, um,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter as much. He said. What's really funny
Speaker 1: is the cables that seem to be the most overpriced
Speaker 1: are the mid range cables, because you sort of get
Speaker 1: what you pay for when you buy an inexpensive cable
Speaker 1: or the monster cable. But the mid range cables really
Speaker 1: aren't that much better than the cheap ones, and you're
Speaker 1: paying a premium for that in between, and you're not
Speaker 1: really getting that much more for your money. And when
Speaker 1: you're talking about longer cables, that's when you're getting into
Speaker 1: situations where you may have to, you know, move the
Speaker 1: cable around corners and things like that, and this is
Speaker 1: stuff that can produce wear and tear, or you may
Speaker 1: have to if you're if you're wiring through the walls,
Speaker 1: that may also play a factor. If you you know,
Speaker 1: there may be a point where you have to kink
Speaker 1: the wire a little bit in order to get around
Speaker 1: a certain point um. And of course the heavier duty
Speaker 1: ones can take that better than the cheap ones. So
Speaker 1: in that case, yeah, if you're using a long cable, uh,
Speaker 1: you may need to look into one of the more
Speaker 1: expensive ones if if a cheaper one just isn't giving
Speaker 1: you the quality of picture that you really want. And uh,
Speaker 1: and it is true that there are times where you'll
Speaker 1: look at an image on a TV and you'll think,
Speaker 1: this is a high definite definition television. Why don't I
Speaker 1: have a better picture? And sometimes it is the cable.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the connectors not not quite sitting right, or uh,
Speaker 1: the cable itself has a weak spot. Um, if the
Speaker 1: fielding around the cable isn't very strong, there could be
Speaker 1: interference from other cables. Keep in mind that you know,
Speaker 1: cables that don't have any shielding are essentially emitting radio waves.
Speaker 1: So if there if you have a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: these together, there is chance of interference. If you've ever had, um,
Speaker 1: for instance, a a cell phone near cheap set of speakers,
Speaker 1: and the cell phone updates and then you start hearing
Speaker 1: this did it? Did it? Did it? Did it? Sound?
Speaker 1: That's because the the uh, the speakers are picking up
Speaker 1: the interference from the phone. Actually the speaker wires are
Speaker 1: picking it up and sending it to the speakers. I
Speaker 1: always thought that was the ghost of Porky Pig could
Speaker 1: also be that. So the we miss you mel blank
Speaker 1: the but no, the shielding around the wires is very important.
Speaker 1: So if you have a lot of if it's gonna
Speaker 1: be laying around a lot of other cables, I mean
Speaker 1: my house, that's the case behind any entertainment system. But yeah,
Speaker 1: if there are a lot of cables there and they
Speaker 1: have poor shielding, then you can have interference and that
Speaker 1: can affect your pictures. So in that case, you may
Speaker 1: need to look at a better, better set of cables.
Speaker 1: But in general, like like s net, c net reviews
Speaker 1: lots of products, and one of the things they review,
Speaker 1: among many others, are home entertainment systems, and they have
Speaker 1: the people have seen it, have gone on record saying,
Speaker 1: you know what, there's a two h d M I
Speaker 1: cable that we could get, and there's a twenty dollar
Speaker 1: h d M I cable we can get. We stuck
Speaker 1: with the twenty one. We can't tell the difference. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we compared the two. We've used the twenty
Speaker 1: dollar one for all of our tests from that point forward,
Speaker 1: and that's what we're gonna stick with because for the
Speaker 1: purposes of our tests, it's exactly what we need and
Speaker 1: you're talking about, you know, testing really high end systems.
Speaker 1: So again they're using you know, an average length of cable.
Speaker 1: I think I think two meters is like the longest
Speaker 1: one they use. Um. And so they they say straight
Speaker 1: out like, don't bother buying the really expensive ones because
Speaker 1: you're just wasting money. Um yeah, and that's uh yeah.
Speaker 1: Rothman sort of tempered his his message after having met
Speaker 1: with the Monster folks. Basically he said, we're not saying
Speaker 1: that Monster cables aren't the best. That's not what we're
Speaker 1: saying at all. We're saying you may not need, you know,
Speaker 1: to buy a really expensive cable unless you're using it
Speaker 1: for specific applications where you need an extra long cable
Speaker 1: or you know you're going to need heavy duty cable
Speaker 1: to to run through the walls, you know, things like that,
Speaker 1: if you need you know, if you don't use that
Speaker 1: for for that, then it's it's seriously unlikely that you
Speaker 1: need to spend the extra money on a Monster cable
Speaker 1: because you know, after all, they did do some lab
Speaker 1: testing and the Monster cables tested very very well. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, so you know, sure you can you can
Speaker 1: buy that if you really want to. And they you'll
Speaker 1: get an excellent product, but you know you may not
Speaker 1: need require it, maybe more than what you need exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: audio files and video files will often tell you they
Speaker 1: want the absolute best in order to get the best,
Speaker 1: and that they can tell the difference. I can tell
Speaker 1: you as someone who has looked at a lot of
Speaker 1: these things personally. Um, there was a time actually at
Speaker 1: the last consumer Electronics show where I was walking around
Speaker 1: and I was walking into a booth. This is the
Speaker 1: first day of the show, and they had not yet
Speaker 1: put up the signs for which TV was which for
Speaker 1: certain things, and I couldn't tell the difference. And I
Speaker 1: came back to that booth later and then I saw
Speaker 1: which one was supposed to look better than the others,
Speaker 1: and I thought, you know, I still can't tell the difference.
Speaker 1: But if I had walked into this the first time
Speaker 1: and saw those signs, I probably would have thought to myself, hey,
Speaker 1: that that picture does look better than this other one.
Speaker 1: But without the without that information, there there was no
Speaker 1: way for me to tell. So no, not granted, perhaps
Speaker 1: that's a fault that lies on yours, truly, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe I'm incapable of seeing those differences and that's my
Speaker 1: my burden to bear in life. But I'm just saying
Speaker 1: I couldn't tell. Yeah, And I'm sure that if I
Speaker 1: had been there for the audio Holics testing procedures, I
Speaker 1: would not have been able to tell the difference in
Speaker 1: speaker wire versus uh, you know, code hangers either, um,
Speaker 1: you know. And they're a lot more highly developed ears
Speaker 1: than mine, certainly, And this just n yes, the j
Speaker 1: REF challenge I was talking about earlier, it was seven
Speaker 1: speaker cables versus eighty dollar speaker cables. So I just
Speaker 1: want to get that straight before we started getting emails
Speaker 1: about it, all right, I hope people didn't pause the
Speaker 1: podcast and type out an angry email and then started
Speaker 1: up again. If it makes you feel better, I'll send
Speaker 1: you an angry email. It always makes me feel better. Well.
Speaker 1: I think now's a good time to thank our sponsor,
Speaker 1: audible dot com. And hey guys, if you go to
Speaker 1: www dot audible podcast dot com slash tech stuff and
Speaker 1: sign up there, your first download is free, and we
Speaker 1: have a couple of suggestions for what that first download
Speaker 1: could be. If you like Chris, what what suggestions do
Speaker 1: you come up with? We'll see this was obvious for me,
Speaker 1: I chose Nick Hornby's High Fidelity right. Well, of course,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't think there were any code hangers
Speaker 1: in it. Anyway. It's narrated by David by David Kale,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's an excellent it's an excellent book,
Speaker 1: so it's an excellent one for their free download. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a good one. Okay, Well, well mine, Uh, mine
Speaker 1: takes a little explanation, but I'll go out and say
Speaker 1: what it is. First. It's Love is a mixtape Life
Speaker 1: and Love one song at a time, and that's by
Speaker 1: Rob Sheffield, who also narrates it. Now, this is a
Speaker 1: story about Rob and it's it's autobiographical. Um. He he
Speaker 1: describes himself as a shy, skinning Irish Catholic geek from Boston,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of about his love affair with a
Speaker 1: young woman named Renee, who he describes as an Appalachian
Speaker 1: punk rock girl from nor across Georgia. I feel a
Speaker 1: certain kinship with both of these people, being both a
Speaker 1: geek and a punk rock fan. And uh, it's a
Speaker 1: great story. It's very funny, it's very very sad um
Speaker 1: and he narrates it. So that's my recommendation excellent, and
Speaker 1: remember you can get that or one of fifty other
Speaker 1: audio books for free as your first download if you
Speaker 1: sign up at www dot audible, podcast dot com slash
Speaker 1: tech stuff. And now you know what time it is,
Speaker 1: don't you. Yes, that's right, it's listener mail. So this
Speaker 1: is from Catherine from Philly. Hey Katherine, and uh, I've
Speaker 1: expurgated your email slightly. It's I just took out the
Speaker 1: middle part. Hey guys. As a lifelong geek girl, I'm
Speaker 1: quite enjoying the podcast and hope you keep up the
Speaker 1: good geeky work. Well, we don't have a choice in
Speaker 1: the matter, so thanks Katherine. But she also says also
Speaker 1: in your podcast where you talked about which platform is better,
Speaker 1: a harry topic to say the least. Kidding, she's not
Speaker 1: reading the other emails that you mentioned that if you're
Speaker 1: doing web development, it really doesn't matter which platform you use.
Speaker 1: This is true, but it's important for any web developer
Speaker 1: to be sure to test their website on both platforms.
Speaker 1: I developed sites on my PC, but I'm always sure
Speaker 1: to check them on a Macan Safari browser has around
Speaker 1: a ten percent share of the browser usage at the moment,
Speaker 1: so let's not forget about our Mac friends. When we
Speaker 1: PC users build our sites. Keep on seeking. Katherine from Philly,
Speaker 1: who was incidentally saddened to report that tagging web pages
Speaker 1: with HTML does not technically count as programming. Sorry, guys,
Speaker 1: it's well, you know, and we we did say coding.
Speaker 1: We said that wasn't programming, it was coding, and we
Speaker 1: were we were kind of weakling out of that one. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that was a great point, Katherine. Um, and a lot
Speaker 1: of web developers do have to check on multiple not
Speaker 1: just multiple platforms, but multiple browsers to make sure that
Speaker 1: a website looks correct in every single one. So you
Speaker 1: might have to, you know, check your website and Chrome
Speaker 1: and Safari and Opera and what's that big one, uh Firefox,
Speaker 1: that's it. No, of course, we mean Internet Explorer. I
Speaker 1: meant Firefox. Okay, when you meant Firefox. We do have
Speaker 1: some Firefox fans out there who are very adamant about
Speaker 1: us talking about Firefox. And I mean, if you're going
Speaker 1: to get into the whole extra browsers thing, we could
Speaker 1: get into Flock and Camino and anyway, right, So anyway, yes,
Speaker 1: you do have to take that into considerations. Um, and
Speaker 1: the same thing goes for people who are developing programs
Speaker 1: you know that they want to run on both platforms.
Speaker 1: Obviously that that's a lot more work you have to
Speaker 1: you know, and you often have to build from the
Speaker 1: ground up on both versions. So and then you have
Speaker 1: to take into other other stuff into account, like the
Speaker 1: colors are different on Windows versus a Mac. The actually
Speaker 1: display different colors slightly, one darker, one finer. It's kind
Speaker 1: of weird. Actually. Yeah, anyway, thank you for actually taking
Speaker 1: the time to take that into account, because a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't. Yes, we greatly appreciate that. And if
Speaker 1: any of you want to write in and talk to us,
Speaker 1: give us any suggestions or comments or corrections and anything
Speaker 1: like that, you can do so at tech stuff at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Remember we have blogs at
Speaker 1: blogs dot how stuff works dot com slash category slash
Speaker 1: tech stuff and of course you can find lots of
Speaker 1: information at our homesite, how stuff works dot com. And
Speaker 1: we'll talk to you again really soon for more on
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