The solution is to hire a competent contractor to find the problem outlets and fix them for 1/10th the cost of buying a snake oil. Usually this can get accomplished in tandem with your home inspection before buying your house.
That mantra of needing to spend a fixed PERCENTAGE on accessories (many of which are rife with snake oil) to compliment the cost of your main home theater purchase is the biggest SCAM still gobbled up by the gullible consumer. Speakers, amplifiers, and displays have justifiable cost because they are generally expensive to manufacturer, especially the more powerful and bigger you go. But sorry, cables, wire, surge protectors, and stands are not items anybody needs to spend hundreds of bucks on, let alone thousands. 3' HDMI cables for over $50? You kidding me? You'd think after all components have gone digital the snake oil pricing would disappear with their analog relics. I'm a reformed snake oil audiophile. A sales guy says I need to spend $500 on speaker cable just because of the price of my front speakers? Fuck you, I'm buying lamp cord. I replaced all of my audioquest speaker cable with 12 gauge RadioShack wire - and I dumped all my interconnects entirely since I'm using all HDMI components (and cheap HDMI at that, from bluejeanscable) - and I noticed not a lick of difference firing my Paradigm studio 100s. I guarantee you will not either. Roger Russell, former McIntosh loudspeaker engineer, first enlightened me here years ago: http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm In fact, A/V snake oil has become so absurd that it has alerted noted quackbuster James Randi, a famous skeptic who offers $1,000,000 to prove paranormal ability. That's right, the guy who deals with debunking religious fairy tales, mythical powers and quack medicine, now thinks that the notion of $5000 speaker wire being better than average wire is paranormal. LOL. http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/calling-bullshit/james-randi-offers-1-million-if-audiophiles-can-prove-7250-speaker-cables-are-better-305549.php So next time a snooty salesman tries to sell you the virtue of a $100 Monster 1000 HDMI cable vs. a cheaper line, or that a $2000 3' digital coax cable from Kimber is clearly superior to a normal 75ohm coax from Ratshack - don’t bother arguing, instead direct them to http://www.randi.org/joom/content/view/38/31/ and tell them they are a future millionaire. > Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 10:08:02 -0400 > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > To: hardware@hardwaregroup.com > Subject: Re: [H] Surge suppressor / power filter > > I do agree with you that there is a large element of snake oil with power > protection and conditioning but there is also an element of truth. Certain > devices will "dirty" household power and certain devices are sensitive to > it. If you have ever run into ground loops or feedback in a car audio > install then you know exactly what I'm talking about. The situation is a > lot less worse in the home (unless you happen to have a really messed up > ground) but there are some similarities. > > My limit on such expenditures is always a fraction of what I am protecting. > If I have $3000 in home theater and computer gear, spending 5% on surge > protection seems reasonable, IF (and that's a big if) the products do what > they are supposed to. > > If I had $20,000 in home audio separates along with my Martin Logan speakers > then I would probably think about getting a true power conditioner. But I > don't. > > ----- > Brian Weeden > Technical Consultant > Secure World Foundation _________________________________________________________________ Climb to the top of the charts! Play the word scramble challenge with star power. http://club.live.com/star_shuffle.aspx?icid=starshuffle_wlmailtextlink_jan
