Usable A/V buyer advice

"Buy the cheap cables"

Good advice.. within reason. Hint: It's the MECHANICAL quality of the cable and the connections more than the cable technology. "Gold" really means diddly squat.

And the BIGGEST LIE in all of A/V: "Skin Effect" in speaker cables... though this SCAM is usually directed at rolling boom box freaks.. and they deserve what they get... or lose from their wallets.
You could wire them to sound just as good with 12/2 House Electrical wire! Proof: They ship 700 MHz over ONE skinny wire in Cable TV.

HD newbies.. ESPECIALLY buy the cheapest well made HDMI cables. It's freakin digital!!!

 

Consumerist did a fairly extensive series of articles about this a month or two ago. The conclusion they seemed to draw was that unless you're buying very long cables, or want to install cables in walls and "future-proof" your home, you're perfectly fine buying a generic cable (such as from Monoprice) rather than a name brand.

 

Monster Cable sues.. again

via Instapundit, via Volokh...
Blue Jeans Cable Strikes Back - Response to Monster Cable

Monster issued little "BlueJeansCable" a cease and desist letter, claiming infringement on design patents of their connector barrels.

Unbeknownst to them {why is that? Lawyers are supposed to understand and practice 'due diligence'!}, however, that company is headed by a guy who used to practice law, specializing in defending against 'nuisance' suits.

Read the guy's response to monster... he's requesting the old 'paperwork avalanche'.. which seems to work both ways, dont it!

Get the popcorn ready!

5-1 says we never hear another thing from monster.

 

RE: Monster Cable sues.. again

The letter is more snark than substance. Writing a C&D letter in preparation for a patent or trademark suit is more work than it's worth unless the company you're C&Ding is actually using something pretty close to your product.

I have a hunch that the part about Monster being "unaware" that Blue Jeans Cable's President used to be a litigator is further snark added by the blogger at Audioholics.com rather than an actual representation of Monster's research. Even if that weren't the case, so what? You shouldn't sue someone because they have a good lawyer? That's not a great message for society.

The paperwork avalanche the guy has requested really isn't all that burdensome. The letter from Blue Jeans Cable is largely puffery, much like Monster's C&D must have been. That's basically the purpose of these early letters is to frighten the other side into backing down.

Looking at those design patents, I don't see anything about them that makes me immediately think they're invalid, though that's an issue that gets raised in every patent suit.

I'm not sure, but I think maybe what Monster is on about is the similarities between the '863 patent and the ridged design of this Blue Jeans cable:


And I think Monster is right that there's similarity between the '363 patent and the connector on this Blue Jeans S-Video cable:


Remember, these are design patents. This is solely about the appearance of the connector housings. If I were Blue Jeans Cable's lawyer, I'd advise them that it'd probably be cheaper to tweak their design a little than to litigate with Monster. Thinking about it from that angle, my conclusion is that they know this, but are proceeding at least this far because they're getting good press for resisting those big ol' bullies at Monster.