Curious about how people feel regarding low-end vs. high-end cables in this forum (example: Monoprice vs TARA Labs). Please use poll in this post (thanks)

Have never heard of either brand

As for the poll, it's difficult to answer without understanding what low-end is. If you're talking the cheapest interconnects from alibaba, then the answer has to be that there will be an audible difference. If by low-end you mean something like Canare cables, then my answer would be, no audible difference no matter how much extra you spend

Monoprice is a company that sells various cables and does not manufacture them

http://www.monoprice.com/

TARA Labs manufactures high end cables

http://www.taralabs.com/about-us

High end most often being defined as expensive.

As long as connectors are good any should work fine. This is even more true in the age of digital then when the 'used car' salesmen of yesteryear were touting there super-duper elephant size speaker cables - when simple lamp cord did just as well.

Exactly what sort of cables?

HDMI, component, audio, loudspeaker?

Good quality, multi-strand, oxygen-free copper speaker cables can make an audible difference when compared with cheap speaker wire.

Digital, no difference unless the cable is so carp that you can hear the error correction failing.

High end most often being defined as expensive.

As long as connectors are good any should work fine. This is even more true in the age of digital then when the 'used car' salesmen of yesteryear were touting there super-duper elephant size speaker cables - when simple lamp cord did just as well.

Yep, so long as the cable is sufficiently sized for the signal (and that probably requires less copper than most think), and has good quality terminations, you're done.

Beyond that, feel free to spend extra on something that's better built, the color you want, and has connectors that won't corrode, fall apart etc, but as soon as you see claims of improved sound quality, be very skeptical

For anyone that's still not convinced, open up your speakers and have a look at the wiring inside.. I've seen some very disappointed looks on faces from some of the 'believers' when doing that

Exactly what sort of cables?

HDMI, component, audio, loudspeaker?

Good quality, multi-strand, oxygen-free copper speaker cables can make an audible difference when compared with cheap speaker wire.

Digital, no difference unless the cable is so carp that you can hear the error correction failing.

There's digital and there's digital though.. It's pretty hard to go wrong with say a coaxial S/PDIF cable - so long as the shield is unbroken, but for high speed data cables like HDMI there are differences in some cases - e.g. it's hard to find a reliable 15M long HDMI cable at bottom-end prices.

Analogue audio is just AC sinewaves - nothing very challenging about that for a cable

It depends on what cable we are talking about.

If we are talking about speaker cable, I can say that from the voice of Celine Dion to your $20.000 Bang Olufsen Stereo there is at least 1000 meter of cable in equipment. Nevertheless to say, the 2 meter that goes from your amp to speaker will in ANY regard be completely irrelevant regarding the accuracy of the sound reproduced.

IF we are talking about cables with connectors then the quality is regarding the actual cable and the physical connector. For example, an expensive HDMI-cable is less prone to be jerked in pieces when manhandled than a cheaper one.

Also, cable quality matters hugely depending on how you use them - if you have a portable stuff that connects and disconnects several times a day and that is exposed to weather and -30 degrees C, we can assume that we need special cables handling that.

So overall - this is a very expansive question and needs to be specified further.

My daughter used to work for Monster Cable (aka over priced cables) and even within the company there was a opinion within the engineers that for the average consumer no-one would or indeed could detect any difference between their $100 HDMI cables and the generic $29 cable at Best Buy .

On a scope absolutely you will detect better audio and video response with better cables. But human eyes and ears are going to be hard pressed to detect any difference

Cables come down to marketing. Who can bullshit the most.

I always say, find a fair priced cable that looks and feel expensive. A bigger cable is always better without over doing it especially for something like HDMI. Speaker cable. 16-14awg is plenty unless your running a zillion watts.

Beware CCS copper clad steel of CCA copper clad aluminium cables - there's many getting around now days.