Starting to actually care about my setup, need a suggestion on cables (1 Viewer)

Ok so my Vizio 47" that was less than 2 years old died. So yesturday I went looking for a new TV and after looking at everything I could find, I decided on the Sony KDL-55W800B 55" LED TV. I decided on that one due to the in store display they had of it. So crisp, clear and bright. The wife wanted to get the 60: Sharp Aquous, but talked her into the Sony. Anyways I took it home, hooked it up to our LG home theater/ Blue ray player and our Comcast/Xfinity cable, turned it on. Dissapointment. So I went through and tried adjusting all the settings for the screen. It got better, but nowhere where it was at the store. So i popped in a blueray DVD, and fine tuned it more. Got better, but still only about 75% as good as the store. So after thinking about it overnight, I realized it could be the HDMI cables. I had my wife grab my sons set off his TV. They are a few years old but still better than the cable company crap. The screen got clearer and brighter. I figure that maybe if i got even better cables I should technically be able to get it on par with with what I saw at the store. Am I heading in the right direction here? I started googling what would be the best type of HDMI cables to get, and aftere searching around, i concluded that I needed minimum of 10.3Gbps cables (i am sure none of ours are that high) because of it being an HDTV and a 3D TV. So now I knew what to look for so i came across some Rocketfish RF-HG04501 cables that are rated at 18 Gbps. Are these legitamate cables, or a marketing ploy? What cables would y'all recommend for my setup? I will soon be upgrading my audio side of my setup, but that is still a few months out. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks, Gregg

Here's a good article re: HDMI cables.

http://www.cnet.com/news/why-all-hdmi-cables-are-the-same/

Unless you're doing a long run from source to display, a cable is a cable is a cable regardless of price. www.monoprice.com is a great place to buy all types of cables.

There are only three cables(4 if you count "automotive")Standard speedHigh speedHigh speed w/ethernetAny good high speed is fine.VancoBlue JeansMono price

ZombieSoldier said:

I decided on the Sony KDL-55W800B 55" LED TV. I decided on that one due to the in store display they had of it. So crisp, clear and bright. The wife wanted to get the 60: Sharp Aquous, but talked her into the Sony. Anyways I took it home, hooked it up to our LG home theater/ Blue ray player and our Comcast/Xfinity cable, turned it on. Dissapointment. So I went through and tried adjusting all the settings for the screen. It got better, but nowhere where it was at the store.

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Just wondering, could it be that the store had torch mode engaged and you liked that look. ?

They do often turn the brightness/contrast and sharpness high and have the colour control too high too in shop displays.

FoxyMulder said:

Just wondering, could it be that the store had torch mode engaged and you liked that look. ?

They do often turn the brightness/contrast and sharpness high and have the colour control too high too in shop displays.

Click to expand...

My thoughts when I read the OP. After getting it home and calibrated, all TVs will look better than the display model.

Ok so I went back to the store and asked if I could see their settings, their settings were actually fairly conservative. Then I asked what HDMI cables they were using. They showed me the high speed Belkin HDMI cable. So I grabbed two off the shelf. One is for the cable box to the surround sound/blue ray, the other is for blueray to tv. I went home installed them, readjusted the tv to their settings and voila it looks almost identical to their tv on display!

ZombieSoldier said:

Ok so I went back to the store and asked if I could see their settings, their settings were actually fairly conservative. Then I asked what HDMI cables they were using. They showed me the high speed Belkin HDMI cable. So I grabbed two off the shelf. One is for the cable box to the surround sound/blue ray, the other is for blueray to tv. I went home installed them, readjusted the tv to their settings and voila it looks almost identical to their tv on display!

Click to expand...

Great. Just a suggestion, but if you have the new TV professionally calibrated, you'll have an even better picture. Congrats on your purchase and on getting this issue fixed.

ZombieSoldier said:

Ok so I went back to the store and asked if I could see their settings, their settings were actually fairly conservative. Then I asked what HDMI cables they were using. They showed me the high speed Belkin HDMI cable. So I grabbed two off the shelf. One is for the cable box to the surround sound/blue ray, the other is for blueray to tv. I went home installed them, readjusted the tv to their settings and voila it looks almost identical to their tv on display!

Click to expand...

Do you have the same lighting as the showroom? It's best to get your own calibration Blu-ray.

Where do I get that at?

ZombieSoldier said:

Where do I get that at?

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Here is a very good calibration disc, i have it myself and it's got everything you need. ( except a colorimeter )

http://www.amazon.com/Spears-Munsil-Benchmark-Calibration-Edition/dp/B00CKWI13O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1409957331&sr=8-1&keywords=spears+and+munsil+2nd+edition