# Monster Cables Overpriced



## da_jonesy (Jun 26, 2003)

How is it the Monster can charge about $150 for an DVI to HDMI cable when you can buy them off eBay for $20?

Am I missing something? A digital signal is a digital signal... there should be no difference from one cable to another in terms of quality. If it were an analog signal then yeah I could imagine there might be a difference because of the shielding.

What am I missing?


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## ShawnKing (Mar 21, 2005)

da_jonesy said:


> What am I missing?


That Monster plays off its reputation for higher quality cables than anyone else.

Sometimes that rep is deserved, other times...not so much....


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## PosterBoy (Jan 22, 2002)

Monster Cables are not the best cables in the world. In fact, a lot of their product is cheap crap. Thing is, their cheap crap is often better than all the other cheap crap you can buy in stores.


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## Kosh (May 27, 2002)

Wouldn't a digital signal need shielding just as much as an analog signal? You're still sending electrons across a wire. I can see an optical signal not needing shielding as much.


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## kloan (Feb 22, 2002)

I never even heard of Monster cables until I saw how overpriced they were in Futureshop a few years back... now it's all I hear about. I think they're waaaaaay overpriced. They're just cables!


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## PosterBoy (Jan 22, 2002)

FWIW, I notice a quality difference between Monster and the cheap ****e that comes with DVD players/VCRs/etc or the cheap ****e you can get at places like Radio Shack or Future Shop or London Drugs. 

But then again, I am picky as hell about things like that.


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## ShawnKing (Mar 21, 2005)

kloan said:


> They're just cables!


Well, "just cables' overstates things. High quality cables can and do make a difference in audio, video and gaming.


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## Ants (May 6, 2003)

Monster have done such an excellent job in marketing their product lines that every big electronics store (a la Best Buy & FS) have their cables in stock. Yes, they are overpriced and not great quality but brand awareness is high with consumers. If all you want is entry to mid level quality, Monster is not a bad option. As PosterBoy states, it's the lesser of two evils. I bought UltraLink cables for my AV system, somewhat less expensive than Monster...

However, there are better cables out there and yes, there IS a difference from one cable to another in terms of quality. The best cables should not change the signal traveling through it in ANY way regardless of whether it's an audio or video.

One option my be to stop into a hi fi shop, they can often times offer you good quality at a decent price. if you want a few suggestions of places to try, let me know...


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## UsedToLoveWindows (Mar 5, 2005)

Monster Cables are way overpriced. It's just a way for Futureshop to make huge margins on upselling. I've actually had them switch products on me from what they showed me to a more expensive model hoping I wouldn't notice! (and expecting me to pay that) I had them for the HD setup and then tried another set of "lower quality". Difference, NONE! So I took the Monster ones back. $450.00 vs. $125.00!

Regs,

CJM


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## kloan (Feb 22, 2002)

ShawnKing said:


> Well, "just cables' overstates things. High quality cables can and do make a difference in audio, video and gaming.


I know there's a difference between quality cables and cheap crap, but they're still just cables and aren't worth the price they charge for them.


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## Gizmo (Nov 18, 2003)

http://www.ehmac.ca/showthread.php?t=22361


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## anal-log (Feb 22, 2003)

All hype and marketing. Yes they are better that the really cheap stuff. But the compared to mid quality cable and connectors there pretty much the same. 

Its for suckers that fall for this crap. SUCKERS


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## Bosco (Apr 29, 2004)

anal-log said:


> \
> 
> Its for suckers that fall for this crap. SUCKERS


Thanks, I lost the link to that site. It's hilarious. At first I thought it was a joke but when I realized it was for real I found it even funnier.


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## ender78 (Jan 23, 2005)

da_jonesy said:


> How is it the Monster can charge about $150 for an DVI to HDMI cable when you can buy them off eBay for $20?
> 
> Am I missing something? A digital signal is a digital signal... there should be no difference from one cable to another in terms of quality. If it were an analog signal then yeah I could imagine there might be a difference because of the shielding.
> 
> What am I missing?



I have a bit of Monster's stuff for my HT (component and RCA as well as optical cables). For HD, I used the cable that came with the player.

Monster is very popular with the retailers due to their markup. I was in FS one day and saw a sales guy try to sell a $120 cable with a $60 DVD player. I pulled the customer aside and advised him that there is no sense in him buying that cable for his setup (it was going into a $300 TV).

Monster forces their retailers to keep certain prices. Dealers are FORBIDDEN to openly discount the product (they can packagage it with other gear but cannot for example sell the $100 cable for $64.99)


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## ShawnKing (Mar 21, 2005)

Ants said:


> Monster have done such an excellent job in marketing their product lines that every big electronics store (a la Best Buy & FS) have their cables in stock.


Well, if you replaced "excellent job in marketing" with "Paid Best Buy & FS for placement", you'd be even more right.


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## gordguide (Jan 13, 2001)

*A long post, skip it if you don't care about what to look for in a reasonably priced properly made cable.*

" ... A digital signal is a digital signal... there should be no difference from one cable to another in terms of quality. ..."

I'm don't know what being digital has to do with it. Although the signal is digital, the transmission through a cable is a stubbornly analog situation. Otherwise it wouldn't work at all.

" electrons through wire"

If we had to rely on electrons moving through wire for electronics, it would take years to send a signal through a cable. The electrons are excited, and create an electromagnetic filed that moves at very near the speed of light to transmit signals. Although there is electron movement in a kind of buddy to buddy fashion, it's not the way the signal actually travels; it's just the mechanism that allows the signal to travel by another means. This field surrounds the wire. All cable transmission works this way; from the power lines around your home to the digital signals inside your computer.

When multiple wires are used the fields can and do interact, and they also interact with all the other HF energy around them (otherwise radio would not work).

Whether one cable or another is suitable for a signal depends on how it's physically constructed. Thus, there is a cost associated with better materials and construction methods, and at a certain price point you can be quite confident the item does not use them, but substitutes less effective material to save money.

Cable is quite simple fundamentally; a material that likes electricity and a dielectric to block electromagnetic interference from whatever may be around, whether that be nearby wires or radio waves.

Air is the best dielectric by far. No material we can make comes close. However it's difficult to make cable with air spaces around the wire and still be able to use it by bending it and routing it here and there. The wire doesn't stay where it's supposed to be without something constraining it's movement, leading to shorts, or perhaps the wire touching the jacket rather than being surrounded by air.

Teflon is next best. It's performance is significantly better than most materials (some others are also near Teflon, but are not generally less expensive); it is costly however. Foamed material is also good; it incorporates air (like the white Foamed Polyethelene found in RG6 cable for your sat dish).

Still, Teflon is not so expensive that we can't afford it; certainly Monster prices their cables in the range where you could and should find Teflon everywhere, but alas if you open the cable you generally find it nowhere. PVC, a mediocre dielectric that also gasses off formaldehyde as it ages, corroding the metal wire it envelopes, is what you find usually. It is nice and cheap; the cheapest, actually. 

Thus, I'm not a fan of their products. They are consistent however, so for that reason you might consider them if you simply don't know what to buy.

Cat5 Ethernet cable has Teflon coated high purity solid copper wires; do you suppose they would voluntarily spec a dielectric that triples the cost per foot for no reason? After all, it's just a digital signal. Think about it. Still, it's a comparatively exotic construction for a buck a foot. Good cable does not have to break the bank.

Termination (the connectors) are the most expensive part, usually. Machine-terminated connectors like virtually all store-bought cable uses is not terribly expensive but probably cost more than the cable itself. An electrically sound connector (Teflon, copper rather than the PVC/Brass Monster uses) with handmade connections is usually better, but costs quite a bit more. It takes me half a hour to build a cable, and I'm no rookie at soldering or working with electronic components.

Gold plating is effective at reducing or eliminating corrosion but is not really much better at the grunt work of electric current than good quality copper. Since about a few penny's worth of gold is used, it's not really a factor in pricing by itself; however people will pay more for it so there you go. Use it if you can, but don't fret over it if it's not there. Avoiding brass or copper alloys (as compared to high purity copper) is more important than gold plating, and of course a moulded PVC connector is quite common; you already know what I think of PVC. PVC with gold is still crap.

Connector chemical treatment can do the same thing as gold plating and even improves gold-plated connector conductivity somewhat. CAIG DeOxit followed by CAIG ProGold is highly recommended. You can substitute CAIG PreserveIT for outdoor, wet or corrosive environments. 

There's a right way and a wrong way. As to whether some exotic cable performs better than a rather ordinary but properly constructed cable, I will leave that to others to debate. There most certainly is a point of diminishing return; and since cable does have varying electrical properties certainly not all cable is alike.

The geometry of a cable also plays a rather large role. Twisted pair, for example, reduces interference and noise (you find that construction in Cat 5 cable and most computer cable for that matter) and it's certainly not the only way or perhaps even the best way; but it does have measurable advantages over straight wire.


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## gordguide (Jan 13, 2001)

*Buying cables; tips and tricks*

Look for high purity copper with a good dielectric (such as PTFE Teflon); don't be too worried about PVC jackets (the part on the outside) which usually is just around the shield (it adds quite a bit to the price to use other materials) but avoid it with the signal carrying wire itself. It's not expensive to buy such a cable; certainly at $40 for a 1 or 2 meter cable with manufactured connectors you've spent enough to get that and plenty of room for a profit for the reseller.

Monster sells the cable at an inflated list price relative to dealer cost, and prohibit advertising discount prices more in line with the industry's normal profit margins necessary to stay in business. Dealers like it because they can "throw in" the cable for $15 cost to them and then tell you you're getting $50 off.

However, they are by far the most well known cable brand; competing against them is an uphill battle no matter what the value of your product. So, essentially, resellers (including Apple) have to carry their stuff or risk people seeking it out elsewhere.

Of the commercial machine-made cables I've examined (yes, I take them apart) the AR ones are good choices at reasonable prices. They're not hard to find.

If you can find them, Marshall sells a very good cable called Mogami Gold and Mogami Gold Professional Patch Cables at a nearly unbeatable price but they are geared towards musicians; you might find it hard to get the connector you need unless it's 2 or 3 conductor phone connectors (like on a guitar amp). Well stocked music stores may have them with the mini and RCA connectors we normally need for audio and computers. Way better than Monster for less money.

If you wan to make cable yourself PM me and I will give you a list of materials to use. A 1meter pair will cost you about $20~30, depending mostly on the connectors chosen, and additional meters run about $4 or $5. You could do if for less if you are not too picky; certain Neutrik connectors are very reasonably priced but don't fit as tightly as I like to the RCA jack, but you could try them and see. You could also substitute a different bulk cable, although it's really not a big part of the cost overall so the savings in my opinion are not worth it. It will be a very good cable; anything better will be much more expensive and probably not worth it for most people.

If you want me to build you one, it's cost plus $10 for my half hour's work. I will soon have a very small supply of the iPod connector to make some proper line out cables rather than using the headphone jack, which isn't really optimal for connecting to your stereo.

I would really love to be able to buy proper cable off the shelf but it's really not possible without spending quite a bit more than I'm willing to pay (especially for longer lengths; I hate paying $10 more for a few extra feet of cable when I know it only cost another buck, if that, for a meter of the kind of wire typically found on store cable).

"Digital" cable seems to be a buzzword to gouge the consumer; most of the stuff is just regular coax (the stuff the cable company installs) you can buy for 30 cents a foot and usually is not "true" 75 ohm cable combined with almost certainly not true 75 ohm connectors, which do cost a little bit more but not much. The same goes for "Home Theatre" cable (which has very similar electrical needs to S/PDIF).

This type of cable you usually find in stores creates a lot of digital errors. Again, the AR coaxial digital is not too bad. A good digital cable is quite easy and inexpensive to make (a couple of specialized tools are needed, but that's it), so I don't see the reason for the prices I see in stores.


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## Melonie (Feb 10, 2005)

My husband and I were considered "audiophiles" back in the day, and our Linn/Krell/PS Audio/Accoustat system still rocks. We used $15ft multi-strand oxygen-free copper cables for our setup, and our Accoustats came internally wired with Monster Cable.

All I can say is yes Virginia, there is a difference you can hear between cheap speaker and interface cables and the good stuff, but really only if you have a system that can "tell the difference". Running pricey cable to a Future Shop stereo system is not a good way to spend your money, IMHO.

And yes GG, the "digital ready" moniker applied to speakers, speaker wire, etc. has always elicited much mirth from us. What utter nonsense. Sort of like "THD of .0003"...

Mel


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## Ants (May 6, 2003)

Melonie said:


> My husband and I were considered "audiophiles" back in the day, and our Linn/Krell/PS Audio/Accoustat system still rocks.


Hey Mel,
Nice kit! Great to know someone else here is also a fan of Linn....are you using the LP12?


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## Melonie (Feb 10, 2005)

Hey Ants -

LP12, Ittok arm, Fidelity Research MC cart.

All I've ever had to replace is the belt.

And you?


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## Ants (May 6, 2003)

A 10+ year old LP12 (bought it new at the time), Ekos arm, Troika MC cart and Lingo power supply. Of course, it took time to get to this stage, I used a both the Basic & Ittok arms for a long time...replaced belt twice in the time I owned it.


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## Glipt (Aug 7, 2003)

I thought a "Digital" signal (as in SPDIF for DVD audio) would not be affected by cable quality so I used the cheapest thing I had hanging around. I noticed that every time my refrigerator turned on the sound would cut out. So I changed it for a better (although still relatively cheap) cable and it's been fine since.

Anybody using optical cables? I've read that the coax digital connection is supposed to be the best but am wondering why the optical seems to be more prevalent. For example receivers all seem to have far more optical hookups than coax and the G5 has an optical digital connector only.


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## anal-log (Feb 22, 2003)

There is no difference in performance between optical and coax, as long as you have decent cables. Optical less prone to interference.

With all you guys talking about your LP12's
I'm really missing my Delphi


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## gordguide (Jan 13, 2001)

Optical is a good choice when you need to isolate two components electrically due to problems with interference or AC line noise; there is no chance of ground loops with optical and therefore zero hum. With properly grounded and shielded equipment you won't have that problem, but there you go; it's a quick fix if you do. I would presume that's why Apple chose it, besides cost (optical is a bit cheaper for equipment manufacturers; the cable itself is usually more than coax though).

Personally, I prefer coax over optical for a number of reasons. Coax is often more durable than optical cable, which can be more easily damaged by rough handling, especially bending it too tight, and coax costs less. In theory optical is great for long runs, but longer optical cables are not easy to find and are never cheap.

Optical connectors are a bit flimsy and if you bump the cable sometimes you lose sync or get data errors; best used for more permanent installation with no pets in the house. Similarly, they do wear if you're plugging and unplugging a lot and can break or become sloppy. If you're doing any recording you're going to bump that cable sooner or later.

Some equipment that's been under test with both available have, for some reason, higher jitter errors with optical and this seems to be a fairly consistent phenomena; many papers have been presented to the AES on the subject. I don't know if it's related to reflections in the optical cable or with the two devices (one at each end) that convert from bitstream to optical and back again.

My gut feeling is it's a combination of both, but LEDs do have problem that could affect the quality of a digital signal (you can use lasers, but not at the prices home audio gear sells for); they are easy and quick to turn on but slower to turn off (quit emitting light once the current falls to zero), for example. They age rather quickly and light will fall off after about 2 years operation, where it should stabilize somewhat.

Inexpensive drivers (the circuit that powers the light) are limited to about 50 KHz which is the bare minimum for redbook CD's 44.1 frequency; perhaps that plays a role with less expensive gear. A rather thorough discussion of optical transmission can be found here. Fewer translations is a good rule of thumb to keep things clean. 

Having said that, if you have a choice it's alright to buy equipment with both and some day being able to switch might solve a problem you're having with one or the other.


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## gordguide (Jan 13, 2001)

Ants, the Fidelity Research MC's are old, sentimental favorite of mine. Some of the other cartridges of that era I liked were:
ADC XLM Mk 3
AKG K8E (bright top end, but it had it's charms as well; you could load it down to tame that and it worked very nice if you had something like the Apt Holman preamp)
FR1 Mk2 (very nice)
Denon DL-103 (conical) and DL-103D (I like the conical one best; killed surface noise quite nicely)
Supex SD 900 Super (another favorite)
The original Dynavector 10x
Stanton 681EEE

and a few others I can't recall anymore. I owned a bunch of TTs over they years, an AR you could literally hit the dust cover with a hammer while the record played perfectly, a Thorens 124 MkII, then later a Denon DP 2000/Grace 707 followed by a Rega3. I had a Linn in my home for a while, as well as the original Oracle Delphi but never actually owned either of them.

The PS audio, is that the outboard phono preamp or the regular pre (with phono) you're using? Some nice stuff in it's day, and not too shabby compared with today's stuff either.


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## Ants (May 6, 2003)

hey gordguide,

you have quite a history with phono cartridges...I don't know most of them other then the Stanton ( I used the blue dot) for a while with a Dual and then with a Thorens similar to yours. Eventually replaced the arm & cartridge with the entry level Basik/K9 combo from Linn. When I finally had the money to buy the LP 12, I had them move the arm over to the LP12 for a complete Linn TT set up. Since then, when the budget allowed, I would bring about upgrades to the arm & cartridge. The biggest improvement was moving from a MM to a MC cartridge.

I always liked the Rega, seemed like good value and just loved the look of the Oracle - it has to be one of coolest looking objects out there but I stopped looking when I found the LP12.

Actually, the PS Audio stuff is from Melonie's post. I use a separate Linn power supply for the TT but not for the phono stage. I was actually looking at the Linn's Linto phono preamp but found that Naim makes a damn fine preamp, so no need for a separate phono preamp just yet. Instead I recently upgraded my audio equipment rack and this proved to be a very noticeable overall improvement. It's really incredible what a good quality rack can do for pace, rhythm and timing!

Just like cables, there’s the cheap stuff, the intermediate and the overpriced stuff which keeps you mumbling to yourself – I hear the difference but how do I justify this upgrade and expense!


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## gordguide (Jan 13, 2001)

I did a few TT mods in those days as well. The Denon I put in a new base made from cultured marble and that worked well. I also modded a Technics SL 1200 MKII for a friend of mine by removing the tonearm, machining an aluminum mount and mounting a SME 3009 III on it.

The trick there was maintaining the same mass for the arm and mount as the stock Japanese parts we removed so the suspension worked properly. He loved it; he's a well respected musician who's appeared on a lot of recordings over the years, and he needed pitch control, mostly. That meant Direct Drive if we wanted any pitch accuracy and drift control.

Suspending the Denon was too much work, once we delved into the issues a bit, so we had to use the inferior DC motor of commodity DD tables over the much smoother AC Denon system. No more auto-return, but who cares.

It's funny, but the TT I wish I still had was that old AR. A remarkable beast, considering the arm weighted as much as a small child, or so it seemed anyway. They got a lot of things right there; the Linn (and the Ariston, etc) is a direct descendant of that one.

With the right cartridge it worked really well. Running that table for a while alongside the low mass arms and high compliance cartridges in vogue at the time got me to rethink my ideas about the whole thing, and it was a bit of a revelation to me. It wasn't drop-dead amazing, but it did some things right and I learned a lot.

To this day I always run the cartridge at the high end of the recommended mass because of what I learned there. Why eat a disk's groove walls with chatter and mistracking (which causes permanent damage) by trying to go for that last bit of low mass at the tip?

My analogy there is: yes, it wears both the road and your tires to drive down the highway, but not enough to worry about. It does not save your tires or the road to knock down posts along the way when you lose tire grip and go flying everywhere.

Maybe we should start a new thread, so the others at ehMac can have a good laugh at us and our frivolous pursuits ;-)


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## gmark2000 (Jun 4, 2003)

For you "golden-eared" audiophiles, despite your $5,000 turntables, have you actually listened to any LPs in the last 15 years??


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## Ants (May 6, 2003)

gmark2000 said:


> For you "golden-eared" audiophiles, despite your $5,000 turntables, have you actually listened to any LPs in the last 15 years??


Of course...on a regular basis as my lp collection is much larger than my compact disc collection - always has been this way. This may seem odd to some but I actually only bought my first CD player in 1995! It's only in the last few years that I'm playing CDs more often...due to a better sounding player. Not to mention the fact that I have no friends left willing to help move my boxes of "albums"...

Also, when looking for new music to buy, I will look for it on LP first...it's slim pickings for the most part but I recently found the new The White Stripes & Air releases.


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## gordguide (Jan 13, 2001)

Only about every day. And I don't own a $5,000 turntable, and never have. I think I might have about half that in audio gear altogether.

You don't need to spend lots of money to get good sound, you just have to choose gear with sound as the prime basis for your decision.


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## anil (Oct 28, 2003)

I still don't understand how a digital signal can be susceptible to interference. Doesn't the signal just consist of ON/OFF impulses, with redundancy and error correction to compensate for any "dropped" ones or zeros?

Could someone explain to me where I'm misunderstanding?


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## RobTheGob (Feb 10, 2003)

anil said:


> I still don't understand how a digital signal can be susceptible to interference. Doesn't the signal just consist of ON/OFF impulses, with redundancy and error correction to compensate for any "dropped" ones or zeros?
> 
> Could someone explain to me where I'm misunderstanding?


You're missing a *major* point. There is no such thing as a truly digital signal. The digital signal that you refer to is sent in an analog form down the wire. Reconstruction of signals is great - but what if your CRC is damaged? Does the transmission standard that you're using allow for retransmission? If not - what then? 

These types of scenerios are best to avoid - and good shielding goes a long way to protect the integrity of the signal. Like was already mentioned - have a look at a enterprise quality network cable, you'll see a fair bit of shielding.


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## gordguide (Jan 13, 2001)

" ... Doesn't the signal just consist of ON/OFF impulses, with redundancy and error correction to compensate for any "dropped" ones or zeros? ..."

What is an on pulse and what is an off pulse? They are not zero and "10" when you transmit data digitally. There is a point where everything under that point is interpreted as a zero and everything above that point is interpreted as a one. Interpretation itself is subject to error.

Most data is transmitted on a basis more like 3x or 4x is zero and 5x or 6x is one. Electronics work well when the level changes slightly but is always above zero, and poorly when you want zero at one state and "something" at another, so it's rarely done that way. More typically there is a high and a low state, both above zero.

There would be more errors if you did; the "zero state" is non-linear and is almost always avoided where possible because the error it causes is unpredictable and is time-based distortion. Time is a critical aspect of digital signals; "when" is as important as "how much".

Most errors are caused by misinterpreting the 4's and 5's which are close to each other in level but are supposed to represent two different values. Interference can suppress or increase a signal's level, making the "5" look like a "2.5" or the "4" look like an "8", for example. That's a simplification (it's usually more like 00110000 being reported as 01111000) but you get the idea.

Let's say my digital "bit" is a signal of one 60 Hz wave (sounds like "hum" from your speakers). Let's say my interference is one 60 Hz wave from a cable that is too close to a power line. If that interference wave is in phase, the level is doubled. If that wave is out of phase, the level falls to zero. If it's in-between in phase, the level will be somewhere in between double and zero. Where is my "bit" ? Is it a one or a zero?

The digital signal on a coax cable or optical cable is not 60 Hz but that's not important. At any frequency it works the same and interference also works the same. SCSI drove people crazy because the cables were susceptible to interference and echos. We're getting better, but we're no where near perfect.

There is also problems with varying the level and the timing of the signal. If (for example) an LED on an optical cable turns on easily but turns off slowly then the period when it's looking for the next digital bit might be a period when the light is still lit but falling in brightness. It could then assume it's a digital one when it's supposed to be a digital zero. The "clock" is the march of time; it's relentless and will read whatever it sees whether you're ready or not.

Try this one: close your eyes for a moment, turn off a light bulb, then open your eyes and look at the bulb. You will see it glowing and fading after there is "zero" power. Same with the TV set.

Digital "bits is bits" is only true when you talk about a storage system. You could use Lego to represent the data, and as long as nobody moved the blocks it will always be bit-for-bit accurate storage. There are a very few examples of LP records storing digital data from the early days of computer development. Hold up that album and ask people is is digital or analog? The correct answer is it's digital, at least as much as a CD is digital, and it's analog, equally as much as a CD is analog. People equate the object with it's "digital-ness". But objects are always analog "things".

Also, although everything from the CPU to the hard drive deal with digital *data*, they are all working in the analog *domain*. A CD is an analog device (made of atoms) using analog energy (light) and analog physical properties (pits and lands) to store digital data.

Any two pits and any two lands are never the same exact height but hopefully are far enough apart from each other height-wise that we can tell what it's supposed to be. They cannot be zero (no atoms at all there) and infinite in height and still be physically capable of being held in your hand (or existing anywhere for that matter). Sometimes a pit and a land are very close to each other in height; what do you suppose it was supposed to be? The error correction makes it's best guess, but can be wrong.

We made CDs with the height and the distance apart as good as we could at the time and still tell them apart from each other. But we could still make "bad" CDs that didn't properly represent the data we wanted; maybe a spec of dust got on the stamper. We make DVDs with closer values because we can now, so they store more data. But we're always on the edge of error; disk drives still slow down and try again. A DVD would not work at all 20 years ago; we couldn't tell the pits and lands apart with what we had then.

A CD-R uses dye to change reflectivity; manufactured CDs use physical "stair steps" stamped into the disk with a press. Digital is great in that you can use any of the analog properties of anything to represent the data, but there is still plenty of room for error to creep in. And it's important to remember you are always "representing" data; there is no way it can simply "be" the data.

You can't ever get away from analog; we live in an analog world and physical objects cannot be "digital", they can only represent digital data via analog means.

Copying can easily be bit-for-bit accurate. Take your "Lego drive" and press it into clay and you have a perfect copy of the data it represents. Transmission can be subject to errors of interpretation. Error correction works, but has limits (easily knows something is wrong; now what?) unless the same data is written many times, which we really don't do much since we want ever-more capacity from our systems. And there's always the clock; we have a limited amount of time to get it right and then it's going to give us an answer, right or wrong.

CDs have robust error correction (the data is actually written to multiple areas) but there are level 3 errors that are non-correctable (level 1 and 2 are perfectly handled and you don't even know when they happen). Few systems are as robust as CD for error handling, however.

Certainly not digital music traveling from one place to another by a cable in real time; we only have so much time and bandwidth to use before it either gives us a best guess or has to stop and look for the "right" answer. Stopping is bad, so guessing it is then.


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