Best HDMI Cable: Van Del Hul Flat vs. Chord Company Silver Plus

[admin_exported]

Is the Van Den Hul Flat superior to the Chord Company Silver Plus? Which one provides a superior picture quality regardless of price?

Do I use the best HDMI cable to connect from the AV Receiver to the TV or do I use it to connect the DVD/Blu Ray Player to the AV Receiver?

Thanks.

 

[Andrew Everard]

I'd go for the Chord Company HDMI Silver Plus - it's what I use in my system, and I've yet to see a better cable of its kind.

And the answer to your second question? Both. Each connection will have as much impact on the quality of the signal.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the super prompt response Andrew! I'm curious then as to why the Van Del Hul Flat unseated the Chord Company HDMI Silver Plus in the 2008 Awards?

For the second part, is the ultimate picture quality and sound quality only as good as its weakest link. Say if I use the Chord Company HDMI Silver Plus on one connection but use a cheaper HDMI cable on the other connection, will the final picture quality only be as good as what the cheaper cable is able to produce? i.e., it would be a "waste" to only use the Chord Company HDMI Silver Plus on one connection?

 

[Andrew Everard]

As I said, I'd go for the Chord. The magazine Award went to the vdH, however.

Not dissent in the ranks: it's just that all of us on the team have our own favourites and opinions - we are not Borg.

And yes, your second assumption is correct.

 

[Clare Newsome]

The Chord remains an excellent five-star choice - most of us, however, felt the vanDenHul not only matched the performance of the Chord, but offered greater flexibility in use (literally), and slightly better value for money.

 

[Sliced Bread]

In theory though, if you did have one cable better than the other then surely it should be positioned between the source and amp At least that way you would experience the full benefit with regard to sound, and the poorer lead will only effect the picture. If you had it the other way around then both picture and sound would suffer. Not ideal obviously...and best avoided if possible.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

 

[Anonymous]

flexibility, the VDH is harder to bend than a copper pipe, just remember to buy a pipe bender of hire Jeff Capes,

 

[Anonymous]

I've no experience with the VDH but I have the Chord's too and you wont be disappointed. I'd use them throughout however if you want the best results.

 

[professorhat]

andrewg:flexibility, the VDH is harder to bend than a copper pipe, just remember to buy a pipe bender of hire Jeff Capes,
If you're serious on this, you really need to hit the gym. I have both and the VDH is much more flexible than the Chord.

 

[Sliced Bread]

professorhat:andrewg:flexibility, the VDH is harder to bend than a copper pipe, just remember to buy a pipe bender of hire Jeff Capes,
If you're serious on this, you really need to hit the gym. I have both and the VDH is much more flexible than the Chord.

I think your both right. It depends how you bend it. Bending it across it's width is very flexible, but if you need to twist it or bend it across it's length then it is very inflexible. It only appears to be designed to bend on one axis.

 

[Anonymous]

Thank you all for your valuable input & Happy New Year!

I just purchased the VDH Flat as it was cheaper than the Chord and in bad financial times, it's important to save every single penny.

Will let you know if I have any problems bending the VDH Flat HDMI cable.

Prof, since you have both cables, what is your opinion on them and which one do you think deserves the 2008 Award?

 

[professorhat]

I haven't done an A/B comparison with the same source actually - I may at some point but it would be pretty academic for me as my Sony S550 player needs a 3m cable to hook to my amp (which is the VDH Flat cable - £20 cheaper at this length than the Chord which is the main reason I got it like you) and my PS3 only needs the 1m cable (Chord). So without a major switch around of all my components, I can't use the Chord on the Sony S550 anyway!
I can tell you, the picture looks fantastic on the Sony S550, so I'm pretty sure the VDH is not limiting performance!

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Prof,

What made you buy the Sony S550 over other players like say the Panasonic 55 or Pioneer 51?

 

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I've scanned a lot of threads before writing this one. I bought the van den hul flat lead in advance of receiving my blu-ray player and it should be here this week. Having worked in hi-fi years ago, I know the benefits of good quality interconnects. However, I can't help starting to question buying the VDH lead even before I have seen the results, when I see people writing threads to the effect of "expensive HDMI leads do not make any difference over standard leads". The quality of the conductors and insulators is the main recipe for a good or bad lead, so there must be differences in quality of signal conveyed.

Look forward to any positive comments!

 

[professorhat]

seakingadvice:Hi Prof,

What made you buy the Sony S550 over other players like say the Panasonic 55 or Pioneer 51?
Price and functionality really. The main thing I needed was a decent upscaler for region 1 DVDs, and having read reviews and seen a few tests, it looked to me like the Sony S550 was a reasonable upgrade over my PS3 as well for Blu-Ray and it was very cheap just before Christmas so I bought one. At the time, the Pioneer hadn't come down in price, but I probably still would have got the Sony as it was a good £100 cheaper.

 

[Anonymous]

professorhat:seakingadvice:Hi Prof,

What made you buy the Sony S550 over other players like say the Panasonic 55 or Pioneer 51?
Price and functionality really. The main thing I needed was a decent upscaler for region 1 DVDs, and having read reviews and seen a few tests, it looked to me like the Sony S550 was a reasonable upgrade over my PS3 as well for Blu-Ray and it was very cheap just before Christmas so I bought one. At the time, the Pioneer hadn't come down in price, but I probably still would have got the Sony as it was a good £100 cheaper.

So, is the picture quality for blu ray a significant upgrade over your PS3? I have not jumped onto the blu ray wagon yet and I'm still thinking whether the PS3 provides better value in terms of overall functionality. Do you use the 2.0 feature on the player?

 

[professorhat]

PS3 is better value if you are going to use the other functions that come with it e.g. gaming, media streaming, storing photos, videos or music locally, basic internet browsing etc. etc.
For just Blu-Ray, the S550 is a notch above the PS3 performance wise and also allows me to bitstream HD audio to my Onkyo 905 for decoding (not sure if this is an advantage or not but it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to do so). However, as I say, I didn't buy it merely to replace the PS3 for Blu-Ray, I mainly bought it to upscale region 1 DVDs. The fact it is slightly better is a nice bonus, but it's definitely not worth looking at solely to replace the PS3. At some point in the far flung future, I will be looking at a proper high end Blu-Ray player but I'm waiting for a while on this now since it's going to take the hardware manufacturers and software manufacturers of Blu-Ray discs a little while to sort themselves out (as seen by Clare's recent blog about the issue). As with DVD before it, this will take Blu-Ray a little while and I'm happy at the moment with what I have.
I've used profile 2.0 once to download some movie trailers. I could easily have done this on the internet so, no, I'm not really too bothered about profile 2.0.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Prof,

Can't the PS3 also upscale region 1 DVDs? Any idea how we can check whether a particular player is able to read muti-region DVDs? Does blu ray also have the same region limitaions?

And I thought the PS3 is also able to decode HD audio?

 

[professorhat]

Nope, the PS3 is region locked to the region where you bought it. So mine will play Region 2 DVDs as I bought it in the UK, but will not play Region 1 DVDs. When you're buying a player, you need to look and check that it is multiregion enabled for DVDs (or Blu-Rays or both if you wish to have that). Blu-Ray has the same limitations, the UK is in Region B, the US is in Region A so my PS3 is locked to Region B Blu-Rays. However, there are lot of Blu-Ray titles available which are actually region free (see here for a list) so can be bought and played on any Blu-Ray player. Whether a disc is region encoded or not is up to the studio that produces it. So the Sony BDP-S550 I've bought is a multiregion player for DVDs but is region locked to Region B for Blu-Rays.

The PS3 can decode HD audio onboard but cannot bitstream that audio for an amp to decode. The Sony BDP-S550 allows me to do this, thus lighting up the HD audio lights on my amp which have hitherto been unused. As I say, I've no idea if it makes a difference to the sound or not (since they're two different players, there's no way of measuring this) so my happiness on this is probably mostly psychological

 

[Anonymous]

JohnNewman:professorhat:andrewg:flexibility, the VDH is harder to bend than a copper pipe, just remember to buy a pipe bender of hire Jeff Capes,
If you're serious on this, you really need to hit the gym. I have both and the VDH is much more flexible than the Chord.

I think your both right. It depends how you bend it. Bending it across it's width is very flexible, but if you need to twist it or bend it across it's length then it is very inflexible. It only appears to be designed to bend on one axis.

I've tested it out and you're right. However, it really does not matter as it is flexible enough to be curved and fitted into any position. Build quality of the cable overall is very good.

 

[Anonymous]

professorhat:

The PS3 can decode HD audio onboard but cannot bitstream that audio for an amp to decode. The Sony BDP-S550 allows me to do this, thus lighting up the HD audio lights on my amp which have hitherto been unused. As I say, I've no idea if it makes a difference to the sound or not (since they're two different players, there's no way of measuring this) so my happiness on this is probably mostly psychological

Hi Prof,

I'm just curious, don't you have an older DVD Player around somewhere?

I have a question about the second part of your reply. What do you mean by it can decode onboard but cannot bitstream that audio for an amp to decode?

Also, I read somewhere that it cannot output to an amp for 5.1 channel or surround sound? Is this true?

From the review "It can't bitstream HD audio over HDMI, but it can decode all the formats onboard and transmit them as LPCM. Arguably this is of greater use, especially for receivers that don't have HDMI 1.3 connections.". What does this mean? What does LPCM stand for?

What are the main limitations of using the PS3 as my primary blu-ray player rather than a dedicated player (ignoring picture and sound quality)?

Thanks.

 

[d4v3pum4]

The PS3 cannot send HD audio out as raw compressed data i.e. in bitstream format. It has to decode the audio on board and output as LPCM (Linear Pulse Code Modulation) which is the lossless decompressed (decoded) stream. LOCM can only be carried over HDMI (v1.0 i.e. from the start). Bitstreaming of HD audio was added in HDMI v1.3. However, in new interactive discs, the discs will be authored in such a way that the decoding has to be done within the player. This is a profile 1.1 mandatory requirement. Therefore other than having your amp light up and indicate Dolby True HD etc. on the front panel is in fact the only advantage. Once new discs arrive that have to be decoded on board, it will more or less make amp decoding of HD audio redundant.

The main limitations (for me) of the PS3 as a bluray player is that the remote was a costly option. It is also not backlit and therefore utterly useless for use in a projector environment. If you have a universal remote such as Harmony or Pronto, you can't use the remote functions of the PS3 as Sony weirdly decided to use bluetooth. This is a great use of technology but totally pointless. I could (if I wanted to) control my PS3 from the next street or in the bathroom. However, I got round this by buying an IR2BT adaptor and it now integrates seamlessly within my AV setup. Some folks have had issues with fan noise. I must have been lucky in that respect as mine is almost silent. My Xbox 360 in comparison sounds like a 747 taxiing! Others will argue that it doesn't match your other equipment due to the wedge shape etc. I actually have got used to the design and quite like it. However, it is a fantastic machine and does far more than play games and bluray discs. It does everything that a BD player is required to do and thanks to Sony's excellent updates, it will continue to do so.

Some of the first (and current) standalones on the other hand have been plagued with issues. Most manufacturer's answer is simply release a buggy product, get Joe Public to (beta) test it and then upgrade the firmware as these bugs are noticed and subsequently complained about. The whole BD technology was rushed in reply to HDDVD. The PS3 has grown with the technology from the start so you'll never be stuck with it. Now some pretty darn games have come out for it too so it now rivals the Xbox 360 although it does lack the massive back catalogue the Microsoft machine enjoys.

 

[professorhat]

seakingadvice:I'm just curious, don't you have an older DVD Player around somewhere?

I do indeed, but the picture quality of region 1 DVDs on the older player was awful in comparison to the picture quality of region 2 DVDs on my PS3 and, in my own opinion, it was worth buying a new piece of hardware to solve this. After looking at all the options (including just a standard new multiregion DVD player like the Toshiba), I decided on getting the Sony.

I'm sure many people might have just carried on using the older player, or may have spent less on a standard multiregion DVD upscaler, but those people aren't me. I'm a huge movie fan and living with the bad picture for region 1 DVDs wasn't an option for me. I saw no point in buying old technology, so the standard DVD player was out and I decided to get Blu-Ray (again, this is for me - I'm not having a go at anyone who's decided to get a DVD player!). After looking at the ridiculously low prices of the Sony and Panasonic players, I made the decision the Sony BDP-S550 was the best value I could get for the money, since it was also available at that price as a multiregion DVD player. And thus my choice was made.ÿÿ

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the detailed replies!

Do I understand this correctly that the PS3 does indeed decode all HD Audio formats and then the amp just passes through those signals so we do get to experience HD Audio when using the PS3 then, right?

Then why do the reviews make such a big deal about the PS3 not being able to bitstream HD Audio to the amp and list this as a disadvantage? What difference does it make if the player or the amp does the decoding?

And I'm guessing that the PS3 wil1 output sound in all 5.1 channels so no issue there as well, right?

I'm considering whether to buy a PS3 or a dedicated blu ray player and my main concern would be the PS3's ability to play blu ray disc and output audio like any other dedicated blu ray player. I'm willing to sacrifice a bit on the picture and sound quality as a trade off to all the other features provided by the PS3.

 

[professorhat]

Okay, I have both - the PS3 is an excellent Blu-Ray and DVD player for the money - if you want the other features it offers, it's a no brainer to buy it instead of a dedicated player. Don't be worried about my purchase of the Sony S550 - had I not wanted a new DVD upscaler for region 1 DVDs, I would still be using the PS3 for Blu-Ray / DVD playback duty. The picture and audio quality between the two is hardly noticeable (you have to really be looking for it to notice it).

As for your queries, yes you experience HD audio in all 5.1 channels (or 7.1 if you have a 7.1 setup and a disc with a 7.1 soundtrack) when using the PS3. Possibly those magazines / reviews which list not bitstreaming as a disadvantage are being a bit snooty about the PS3 being a games machine? Who knows, at the end of the day, the audio from the PS3 is still fabulous through HDMI into a decent AV amplifier.