Can someone tell me why anybody would buy a monster hdmi cable?

A person may be ignorant as to what an HDMI cable should cost. When they are at the store buying a TV, they may just pick the Monster cable off the shelf because often times more expensive = better. They may not understand that in this instance, more expensive != better.

Ok - Let's not contribute to the 'dumbing' down of the world. The inexpensive HDMI cables like Media Bridge and Blue Rigger ($9-$20) work quite well but are NOT as good build quality and do not go through the QA process that Monster does. It IS true that the prices are high. But you can walk into any Sears, Best Buy, Radio Shack, etc. and pick up various length cables and have them home in an hour. The economics behind stocking 100+ cables of different sizes, hoping they will sell within 90 days, taking out loans to pay for the cables while they slowly dwindle, etc. is part of Retail Economics. The retail markup on cables is 50% for this reason. You do not pay this markup with Amazon/internet brands. QA: Cables are labor intensive to build and one step nearly doubles the cost of building an HDMI cable is testing. Basically - Monster pays people to plug HDMI cables into manufacturing test equipment which then tests each cable to look for broken solder joints, loose connections and cross-talk, etc. The testing gear costs between $50,000-150,000 per station. Monster pays for this and tests every cable. Companies like GenRad, HP, Teradyne, etc. make this gear. The internet brands - are made in sweat-shops, clamped together and perhaps 1 cable out of 100 are plugged into a bluray player to see if it works. That counts as "QA". Don't mis-understand me: I am not a fan of overpriced copper in a fancy sheath or "junk science" used to sell cables. Proper manufacturing, assembly, and test is expensive but produces a better product. Monster pays for this and their cables are more expensive because of these manufacturing costs. With the cheap cables - you are going to get a few duds right out of the package. The lifespan is also going to be reduced. I am a big fan of the $9-$20 HDMI cable. But I did just have my first failure on one of these budget cables. I believe the cable lasted two years and cost about $15. I replaced it with an identical cheap cable and everything is now perfect. I checked the calibration and the new cable did not alter anything. In all honesty - the budget cables are NOT the same quality as the name brand. But I am happy to buy a new $15 cable every few years rather than a bunch of $120 cables.

I think you answered your own question! They only want to show off how much money they have! Stupid idiots!

Get a amazon basic hdmi cable. They have decent quality and good price. Your tv receives 1's and 0's from the hdmi cable also known as a digital signal. The tv either sees the 1 or 0 or doesn't. That's all there is to it a 200$ cable doesn't make the 1 or 0 "sharper" or "cleaner". It can't add additional 1's or 0's to improve upon the picture. It seems to me that people buy a $150 cable because they don't know this than they justify the purchase by saying the picture is better. A 1 is a 1 and 0 is a zero. I do agree that the expensive cables have nicer connectors and insulation.

Short answer? An HDMI cable either works, or it doesn't. You don't get a "better" quality picture with a higher priced cable. However, cost certainly influences the quality of materials used and how durable the cable may be in the long term. Cables like Monster and Platinum Starlight are often prohibitively expensive, so if cost is an issue, you probably want to stick with a moderately priced cable that works and will last a good long while. More info: http://www.cableorganizer.com/hdmi-cable/learn-about-hdmi-cable/

First you would be wrong if you think (like many others though) that there is no difference in the performance of cables. There is a difference in performance with ALL cables, but it depends on the quality of the system or in this case that quality of the TV your putting them on, it must also be well properly calibrated. There is however cables being sold that market themselves as being better, use thicker cables maybe, or gold connectors etc, but really don't offer much if any improvement over generic cables. These are typically the brands sold in chain stores. As for Monster cables, people think they are the best brand, but are far from it. They are marginally better than generic brands, they do make better cables than the generic brands you see, but with very small improvements in performance. You can only really purchase the better brands of cables at your small independent high end audio video stores, who carry brands that are significantly better. People think because its digital it will make no difference. That again would be wrong, there is a performance difference in digital cables, as there are many things that effect the quality of the digital transmission, hence the quality of the image or sound you can get. So sorry you would be wrong about cables as many are, but if your happy with the cheap cables good for you. But for those wanting the very best picture and sound, better cables can make a huge difference. Kevin 40 years high end audio video specialist

To get technical, they are stronger, last longer, and they use three wire audio cable instead of two with better insulation as well, which makes sound quality so much better. Oh. And they look cool