According to our extensive testing, the HD Frequency Cable Cutter Antenna is the absolute best indoor antenna you can purchase if you live in the city. It performed better than the competition, which included unamped and amped antennas.
We conducted the testing in the heart of New York City and the unamped Cable Cutter antenna provided a perfect quality picture for most of the channels. The antenna itself if rather large and doesn't come with a stand. However, the great performance it provides makes those two qualities easy to overlook.
We would also like to note that if you live farther than 10 miles from a broadcast tower or care about how the antenna looks, you should probably go with one of the other amped antennas that also performed really well during our testing: Monoprice 107976 Indoor Outdoor Antenna with Low Noise Amplifier or the Mohu Curve 50 Designer HDTV Antenna
The problem with antenna recommendations
TV antennas are one of the hardest products to recommend to consumers. In fact, a recent report completed by Consumer Reports found that it was almost impossible to rank TV antennas based on their performance.
The reason it's so difficult to rate an antenna based on their performance is because there are many variables to keep in mind. Such as; the direction your window is facing, your distance from to a broadcast tower, the terrain around your home, and the height of the buildings that surround you, how much money you are willing to spend, how the antenna looks, and the TV stations you are trying to receive. No two locations are exactly the same so it becomes very difficult to come up with a "best" option that will work for everyone.
As we performed the testing of the different antennas we kept all of those factors in mind. However, that was also one of the driving forces behind the reason why we wanted to take on the challenge. While we figured out that the Cable Cutter and the two alternate antennas performed the best for people living in large cities, you should keep in mind that you may have different results in your location. One thing we can recommend you do is first buy the cheapest antenna you can find and see how it performs. If it doesn't perform well then you can upgrade to the next one if the cheapest one isn't good enough.
Who should consider buying an indoor antenna
Anyone who wants to have access to HD programming for local and major networks at a very affordable rate. If you don't have cable or satellite television service or if you just have a standard definition cable box, an antenna has major perks. We definitely recommend buying one if you plan on ever watching any major sporting events such as the Super Bowl, Olympics, NCAA sporting events, Nascar, or any other major event that shows in HD format.
The antennas we tested seemed to work best for people who live in a big city and in an apartment or condo setting. But, we also saw very good results for people who live in houses too. During out test we only tested indoor antennas, so keep in mind that you will typically get better performance from an outdoor antenna, but you may not be able to have an out door antenna at your location due to restrictions. The models we tested can easily be in your window or on top of a shelf and they are very unobtrusive. If you purchased your HDTV after 2007, it has a built-in ATSC tuner that will make sure the antenna works properly. To install, all you need to do is hook-up the antenna to your TV using a coaxial cable, plug in the amp (if it has one), change your TV to the antenna input setting, and perform a channel scan on the TV.
Most people associate antennas with the term "cable cutting" because they think it will eliminate the need for cable or satellite service altogether. However, these antennas will only pick-up major networks along with other local and independent channels in your area. Unfortunately, you can't use these antennas to get channels like HBO, USA, HGTV, or ESPN in HD format. Those channels are cable or satellite only channels. You should be able to get NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, PBS, The CW, Univison, and Telemundo. In some areas you should also be able to pick-up some foreign language channels in high definition as well.
If you already have cable or satellite service there are still some good reasons to buy an antenna anyways. First, a TV signal that is picked up over the air is optimal, meaning it hasn't been compressed, and it should deliver a higher quality picture that you can get through your cable or satellite box. Most HD cable or satellite boxes use a compressed signal that may cause some visual noise to the programming content. Secondly, if you have a standard definition cable or satellite box, having the HD antenna will allow you to watch major network programming without paying the high extra fees.
How did we decide which antennas to test?
The first thing we did was check out some well known review websites to see what they have recommended in the past. We dug through the antenna recommendations on CNET, Digital Trends, and Tech Hive. We kept track of any antennas that looked like they would be a good fit for our testing.
We didn't consider every single antenna on these lists because we were specifically looking for indoor antennas that were smaller, that scored well on reviews, and that were both amped and unamped. We quickly found that Mohu, Terk, and Winegard antenna fit well into that criteria.
The next thing we did was research Amazon to see if we could narrow down our choices using the customer reviews. All of the reviews for the models we chose were between 3 and 4.5 stars. While reading through the reviews, we also found that many people were happy with an antenna we hadn't considered, the Solid Signal HD-Blade, which we added to the models to be tested.
The final thing we did was throw in some antennas that sparked out interest. We discovered the Cable Cutter Mini and the MonoPrice Indoor Antenna. The great thing about the MonoPrice model is that it offers all the things we were looking for but a lower price than most of the competition.
After we gathered all of the antennas we would be testing, we found that we had 13 models to test in different scenarios. We then tested each model in the same location to see how many channels each of them discovered during a channel scan and the picture quality of each channel it picked up. We also tested for interference by placing them in not-so-good locations and even walking around with them to see how much they were effected by any interference.
After all of the results were tallied up, we wanted to have a clear winner. An option that dominated all of the competition during each test and location. Basically, a "one size fits all" winner. Unfortunately, it wasn't that simple. We found that we had different results from location to location.
You would think that the amped antennas would perform better when they were tested in a location that was further away from the broadcast towers. But that wasn't always the case. One would also think that the larger amped antennas would perform better than the smaller unamped antennas, but that wasn't always the case either. It was quite difficult to find a definite pattern. One specific antenna did perform much better than any other antenna we tested.
Our winner for people living in the city: HD Frequency Cable Cutter Antenna
The Best Indoor HDTV Antenna
HD Frequency Cable CutterThis antenna found the most channels during channel scans and provided the highest quality picture for many channels.
The HD Frequency Cable Cutter, which price ranges from $90 to $100 on Amazon, was the top performing antenna in all of our tests. It found 55 channels during our channel scanning test, which was 3 more than the 2nd place finisher. That's not a huge different, but more importantly, it provided the highest quality picture on the channels it did pull in. NBC, CBS, FOX, and Univision had pictures that were immaculate. While PBS, ABC, The CW, and Telemundo got scores of an "excellent".
It was also the antenna that was least effected by in-room interference. In fact, it seemed that no kind of interference had any effect. We even took it a step further and placed several picture frames around the antenna (something we didn't do with any other model during the tests), and that didn't seem to make a difference either. Knowing that you can place different options around the antenna actually gives you the option of hiding it behind things in your home so you don't have to see it, yet still get the same high quality performance.
The Cable Cutter antenna is slightly larger than most indoor antennas in this test, it measures in at 19 inches by 20 inches. It's not too large, but if you don't hide it, it may look off-putting for some people. But like we mentioned before, we had no performance loss when we covered this antenna up with pictures or other decorative objects. This model comes with a 12 foot coaxial cable for hooking the unit up to your TV and an outdoor mounting bracket if you choose to mount it outside your home.
We highly recommend purchasing this antenna if you're looking for a high quality indoor antenna for your over-the-air HD channels.
