"Premium" HDMI cables are a nonsense except for a very few situations where extra-long lengths are required. Much more important is to purchase a HDMI 1.3 or 1.4 cable which is also rated as a Category 2 cable (many premium cables are not cat 2)

$250 for a 3M cable is highway robbery, even with the small amount of precious metals used in the construction. It's a long standing fact supported by several home theater enthusiast publications that there's no performance gain from these so-called premium branded HDMI cables as compared to the mass-produced cables costing less than $10/meter. Digital signals are not enhanced in any way by the quality of the cable - they simply have to reach their destination. If you want to be "that guy" who needs to brag about how much your gear costs, then go ahead and waste your money. Otherwise, I think tech articles like this should be more responsible with their research and point out the glaring rip-off to unsuspecting newbies.

In the digital world there are 1s and 0s. No grey area of almost a 1 or almost a 0. It either works or it doesn't in the digital world. $250 for a cable? If I replaced these cables in the back of my system I would have more in cables.

See, this is exactly the problem that blog-whiners never address. Sure, we want our products to leave Chinese "slave" companies and move manufacturing back to the U.S., employ U.S. workers, paying U.S. wages. But wait!!! We still demand that everything costs Chinese-cheap!!! Just reading the above posts about the price differences sickens me with the hypocrisy going on. You guys need to just keep your yap shut.

Joe, not sure if you're trolling or just ignorant... You've somehow twisted a simple discussion about digital cables into a political rant. Congrats on sounding like a misguided, angry old fart. What hypocrisy are you alluding to? At what point did anyone state that they want Chinese-cheap products? As home theater enthusiasts, we want more high quality gear and we expect that higher-priced components deliver some extraordinary benefit. I can name several American made amplifiers/receivers that are many times more expensive than common Japanese brands, but, the more expensive American equipment actually delivers superior audio, and has more robust components and build quality, making the investment justifiable. The article touts this HDMI cable like it's something special, and Yay, they're made in the USA! But, as each of the posts pointed out (if you actually read them), HDMI cables transfer digital signals which can't be enhanced in any way by the build quality of the cable. This isn't opinion, it's a fact supported by exhaustive research from a number of respected publications (Sound & Vision, Home Theater Mag, CNET, to name a few). It's not whining when pointing out that a competing $10 cable delivers the EXACT SAME PERFORMANCE. I'm not going to support any company that sees fit to steal from me, regardless of nationality. In fact, buying a $10 cable from the many other American retailers allows me to spend $240 on other American goods that have some actual value. Maybe you can afford to blow your money on garbage, but I can't. Maybe YOU should brush up on reading comprehension or take a class on economics before shooting off your own yap and making us Americans sound really stupid.

The made in USA is nice. The face that each extra meter adds $100 to the price is a clear sign that the $250 price isn't based on the "hand terminated in the USA" factor as much as it is on the "there's one born every minute" factor. I don't care where you do the labor, the extra meter of cable doesn't add $100 to the build cost.

You guys must do more reading then testing yourself. While these are on the pricey side. I have used 1.2,1.3,1.4 and the top of the line monster cables. While the monster cables are pricey as well. I will never go back to anything else. The clear picture and the bandwidth for 3d is a huge improvement over cheap cables. And yes you can see a color difference in a cheap vs. pricey cable. If you can't you have cheap signal/equipment to begin with.

Mike, that is your imagination buddy. This is also well supported in psychological studies: People that spend extra money on "superior" equipment delude themselves into believing the extra money was worth it. I know you don't really know what you're talking about and you're just regurgitating what the best-buy salesman told you because of the phrase "bandwidth for 3d...". If you actually did research beyond the claims made on the packaging or what the salesman told you, you would know that 3D signals use LESS bandwidth than a standard 1080P signal. The fact remains: a 1 is a 1 and a 0 is a 0. If both cables transfer the entire signal from the output source to your TV, then the pictures are identical.