Comments on: False starts in race to future of DVDs

The number of Blu-ray and HD DVD players and discs remains stubbornly miniscule. Should consumers pay any attention at all?

[Dragon Forge]

Ahh yes the audio - nudder can of wurms altogether

For those of you good ole boys back slapped and coraled into the group mentality and knowledge base that are lead into believing nitrogen loaded, gold plated $300 cables on your home audio h/w are going to make any sort of difference - if spending money unnecessarily gives you comfort and pumps your ego - lmfao - do it.

With anything under a few hundred feet and basic low impedence (relatively speaking of 4 - 8 ohms) then 14 guage copper is fine enough. If you are running into serious emi/emr sources that dont incorporate spread spectrum modulation then "balanced" should be used.

The sense of connecting high end cables to regular home/consumer audio h/w is a nonvalue. Connectors on most of this equipemnt is very seldom anything but aluminum, steel, etc and prone to oxidation even if the cable isnt't.

While the audio specifcations of the HD-DVD and blueray is a step up there are a number of standards that have to be prescribed to in order to achieve better results.

Production of the entertainment source may deploy only minimal audio capture, then there is the h/w used in production, and nothing is to stop them from recording in stereo on minimal professional equipment only and upmixing the sound to a 5.1 - 7.2, or whatever specification. To take real advantage it should be originally recorded that way.

The actual real hardware in your audio equipemnt/HD-DVD/blueray player must also pass the signal clean. Things as simple as internal shielding and quality components will make a difference and there is scant little information provided by oems on their products at the typical home/consumer level. This includes, most especially, the likes of oems like bose whom can charge big $K just for a name and no real quality information and products at all. As well if you do want, or plan to go to something like DTS - HD Master Audio you equipment should be acquired with that in mind and capable of providing the signal and quality to match your expectations

Unless you have an engineer helping you, the chances of wasting your money or marginalizing your investment is pretty significant. The costs at this stage, since there are no guarantees starting at the soruce of production, is ridiculous unless, just like fashions you want to hold up name brands, without any real quality control. Quality in name only.