Do different brands of HDMI Cables really make a difference?

[jetjohnson]

Jeez Andrew this take's me back (and you as well I'd guess) to the good old halcyon days of Peter Belt's missives within HIFI Answers ....aided and abetted by Jimmy Hughes if my memory is correct? ....whatever did happen to Mr Belt and his "treatments"?

Me? ...I'm a bit of a fence sitter re these arguments ..I have bought relatively expensive connections myself ..I can see the benefit of interconnects that are made to a higher standard than "in the box cheapos" simply because they are more reliable ....less prone to becoming loose ...or a wire breaking it's contact etc.

However I'm not really convinced that they improve sound quality per se' ...but I've never carried out an A+B test so I guess for me the jury's still out!

 

[Andrew Everard]

[quote user="echn111"]
I think that's a feeble excuse. Cables are an integral part of a Hi-Fi system and if you're trying to review and recommend the best in the world of hi-fi then you should absolutely review cables.

It is simply lazy to not review cables.

[/quote]

I guess that makes me lazy then. Fortunately there are many less lazy than me quite happy to review the things.

 

[Andrew Everard]

May I call the House's attention to this...?

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="echn111"]
What people care about is the quality of the cable carrying digital signals. Therefore, test the quality of the cable. For example, stress test the cable over a few days varying the conditions. Pass a patterned, repeatable signal through over a few days and measure the output. Identify and let us know the "error rate" for different cables under different conditions. Best cable is the one with the lowest error rate....

Enough of silly theories or soft, fluffy, subjective cable reviews that I can do myself. I want to see test results and expect a lot more from industry leading reviewers with access to the best equipment and whose main job it is to review this kit.
[/quote]

Applause.

The trouble is What Hifi only have rooms with comfy sofas in, not a lab.

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="Andrew Everard"]
May I call the House's attention to this...?
[/quote]

And I to this.

http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm#alllowcost

Scroll down to misleading wire demonstration.

 

[Clare Newsome]

[quote user="Zoot Horn Rollo"]

The trouble is What Hifi only have rooms with comfy sofas in, not a lab.[/quote]

Because everyone at home lives in a lab, right?

PS I wouldn't exactly call a suite of six acoustically measured test rooms just 'rooms with comfy sofas in'....

 

[Andrew Everard]

[quote user="Zoot Horn Rollo"][quote user="Andrew Everard"]
May I call the House's attention to this...?
[/quote]

And I to this.

http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm#alllowcost

Scroll down to misleading wire demonstration.[/quote]

I was directing this thread's attention to a news story. A news story, that's all, which I thought may be of interest to those participating here.

So what's the point you're trying to make with the reference to someone's opinion site?

 

[Alsone]

[quote user="Andrew Everard"]

May I call the House's attention to this...?

[/quote]

Sorry Andrew, call me the sceptic here but are we really to believe that the reason we should buy expensive HDMI cables over cheaper HDMI cables is because the manufacturer (who incidentally has an interest in selling expensive cables) tells us that they are beneficial?

I'm quite open to being convinced that an £80 cable is better than a £15 cable if you can show clear differences in picture and sound quality that can be observed in an average living room / home cinema set up.

However, where you have 2 cables of similar build quality at vastly difference prices then convinced I definately need to be, especially when you're dealing with digital signals which many electrical experts say simply aren't susceptible to interference in the same way as analogue and thus as sensitive to cable (non build) quality.

 

[Andrew Everard]

What you choose to believe is up to you - I merely reported what Monster said at the press conference.

Oh, and there were some demonstrations of the cable against no-brand rivals, both on test gear and screens, but the environment of a press conference is no place to draw serious conclusions from such demonstrations.

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="Andrew Everard"]So what's the point you're trying to make with the reference to someone's opinion site? [/quote]

Are you kidding? You think we should trade with a company that builds apparatus designed specifically to deceive the public?

 

[Andrew Everard]

In the opinion of the guy running that site and grinding his enormous axe, of course...

And anyway, who's asking you to trade with anyone? If you're willing to accuse a company of deception based on your reading of a third party's webiste, good luck to you!

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="Andrew Everard"]
In the opinion of the guy running that site and grinding his enormous axe, of course...

And anyway, who's asking you to trade with anyone? If you're willing to accuse a company of deception based on your reading of a third party's webiste, good luck to you!

[/quote]

The very existence of that device speaks volumes. Perhaps you could ask them why they made it.

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="Clare Newsome"]Because everyone at home lives in a lab, right?[/quote]

If you're going to conduct meaningful tests on anything as well as listening to it you need to test its spec in a lab. Then you wouldn't make mistakes like claiming the PV1 is the best subwoofer or that mains leads sound different.

 

[Andrew Everard]

I haven't seen the device for myself, and neither have you. You only have the word of an axe-grinder running a website. Did he ask them?

Hmmm... Belief in something you 'know' to be true, to the extent of never questioning it, willingness to take as fact something someone tells you without ever experiencing it for yourself, denouncing all those who dare to challenge what you know to be true because it's 'obvious' - almost sounds religious, doesn't it?

I'm bowing out of this ridiculous thread now, as I'm as bored as most other posters with your pompous posturing. Just go a bit careful on the insults and potential defamation - we know what happened last time a poster went down that route, don't we?

 

[Clare Newsome]

[quote user="Zoot Horn Rollo"][quote user="Clare Newsome"]Because everyone at home lives in a lab, right?[/quote]

If you're going to conduct meaningful tests on anything as well as listening to it you need to test its spec in a lab. Then you wouldn't make mistakes like claiming the PV1 is the best subwoofer.[/quote]

Interesting...new line of attack. So what's wrong with the PV1, which by the way we didn't say was 'the best subwoofer', just the best in its price class and the best performance-per-pound sub you can buy.

But then I suppose you've heard and comparatively rated every sub going from sub-£100 to £5000+.....

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="Andrew Everard"]
I haven't seen the device for myself, and neither have you. You only have the word of an axe-grinder running a website. Did he ask them?

Hmmm... Belief in something you 'know' to be true, to the extent of never questioning it, willingness to take as fact something someone tells you without ever experiencing it for yourself, denouncing all those who dare to challenge what you know to be true because it's 'obvious' - almost sounds religious, doesn't it?

I'm bowing out of this ridiculous thread now, as I'm as bored as most other posters with your pompous posturing. Just go a bit careful on the insults and potential defamation - we know what happened last time a poster went down that route, don't we?

[/quote]

What does the guy running the (very informative) website have to gain? The same as me. Nowt. Are you seriously suggesting he faked it? What does the company in question have to gain from the manufacture of a rigged demo machine? Thousands of dollars in sales.

It can easily be demonstrated that mains leads make no difference to the sound by using lab tests and double blind subjective testing, but that won't happen because nobody will do it and if publicised it will make the less scrupulous cable manufacturers' gravy train hit the buffers.

Do you actually have anyone that understands electronics in your team?

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="Clare Newsome"]So what's wrong with the PV1[/quote]

Nothing, I'm generally a B&W fan. It's designed well and plays music nicely. I had one in here for a while. For less than £500 and in a small room it's fine providing you don't want to shake the room. But for £950 I would want to be able to shake the room.

[quote user="Clare Newsome"]I suppose you've heard and comparatively rated every sub going from sub-£100 to £5000+[/quote]

Sadly no, but i have heard some you don't review at all. I actually own one you haven't reviewed yet.

 

[Alsone]

[quote user="Zoot Horn Rollo"] What does the guy running the (very informative) website have to gain? The same as me. Nowt.

[/quote]

It is possible he could be a disaffected customer, who knows.

Andrew is right though in that we should deal in fact not speculation.

If there is deifinite proof that an £80 high end cable with a digital signal can produce a visible increase in picture quality without having to specially strain your eyes to see it, then its possibly worth the extra money depending on how deep your pockets are. However, if an equally well constructed £15 cable can produce much the same picture then you have to question the economics.

I don't doubt that some people have reported improvements Andrew, but you seem to be unconvinced yourself totally as to whether or not these were real or psychosymatic.

All I said is that I'd like some definite proof of improvements via pictures showing side by side comparisons of the same image on the same screen (surely reproduceable in a magazine) or technical data showing that improvement in the final screen output.

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="Alsone"]It is possible he could be a disaffected customer, who knows.[/quote]

Unlikely, because there's more than one company mentioned. He's clearly a technical buff that likes straightening things out, not unlike myself. :O)

[quote user="Alsone"]I'd like some definite proof of improvements via pictures showing side by side comparisons of the same image[/quote]

That would be two identical pictures. Don't forget we are talking digital here so cable degradation isn't possible until it gets to the point where it starts to drop out . Strangely that doesn't prevent What Hifi from "reviiewing" the identical pictures produced by different cables and giving each one a different rating and description. They also manage to "review" coaxial digital interconnects with similarly creative descriptions.

A lab test comparing the loss of signal over a given length of the cable would provide some kind of quality comparison to be made but that would be a bit too informative.

 

[Gerrardasnails]

If expensive cables are no better than the free ones in the box, can you explain all the information here. It seems to me that subtle differences DO make a difference. For instance the new hdmi 1.3b cable adds automatic lip sync. I would imagine that a cable like this would be more expensive than say the cable that Sky give you with it's HD boxes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI

 

[Anonymous]

Come on guys... Clare, Andrew and the team provide a service (be it one that we pay for). They test the equipment on your behalf and, with experience are referenced against (many) other tests, providing us with a star rating. Try doing that in the shop window. Many folk trust these rating as a good starting point when it comes to Hi-Fi kit, why should our trust not extend to cables. My trust in them has saved me ages in reviewing too many bits of kit myself (e.g. flat-screens) although I was not provided with exact details - only the creative ramblings of the reviewer.
Technical point: these things are built to (fairly) exact requirements - mostly to keep costs down. Along comes a new requirement e.g. Firewire (IEEE 1394a then b), HDMI 1.3b after its predecessors, and even CAT6 after CAT5(e) as used in network cables for 1000BASE-T (Gigibit) and 100BASE-TX respectively. The cables now need improving - mostly because of bandwidth and signal strength deficiencies. The standard HDMI cable is twisted-pair small-gauge and this does have technical limits and weaknesses that can be improved with money...
Freebie cables often look crap (errrr bad) and that counts a lot to a lot of folk. They often have near useless shielding and are mostly low quality build. The value-for-money is therefore low. The star ratings include value-for-money. That's why I ignore 1 and 2 stars.
The thorn in that last argument is of course that the freebie cables are, by name anyway, free, therefore making them extremely good value of you want to look at it that way
P.S. For those looking for a reason why you should or should not have HDMI 1.3 cable (or equipment for that matter), this may help.

 

[Alsone]

You'll get no argument from me when you say that Andrew, Claire and the team do a great job.

The thread however seems to have become confused. No-one was questioning that a qulaity cable isn't an improvement over the freebies.

The question was whether a cheap quality cable could provide the same or similar qulaity of picture as an expensive quality cable and its here that the opinions seem to differ.

 

[Anonymous]

I agree - I like the magazine and think the staff are doing a great job in delivering a highly informative and entertaining magazine as well as a well run on line service.

I'm rather new to home cinema and all I want to know is what cables to buy and some solid reasons why!

 

[Anton90125]

[quote user="echn111"]So now that we've deduced that a digital signal "can" be distorted in theory and under extreme conditions, the "real question" is can poor quality cabling cause distortion of digital signals in reality and under normal conditions? Anyone with industry knowledge?[/quote]

Digital signal can be distorted. If you consider a signal stream with 2 bits 0,1 there is a voltage change between state 0 and state 1. This is not instantaneous (if it was it would imply that in that instant every voltage value would be there between state 0 and state 1- which is clearly nonsense. There might be more important philosophical reasons such as infinite energy implications ! ), there is a rise time between the 0 and 1 state. If this rise time take too long relative to the pulse width (ie the square wave is beginning to look sinusoidal) the point where the state of 1 is recognized may be blurred and not recognized. The stream would then be seen as 0,0 which is an error and can be classed as digital distortion. A cable that can better preserve this 0,1 distinction will better transmit the data. This is one of the reasons digital comms. is so carefully specified.

I suspect that some HDMI cable are better a preserving this then others.

 

[Anonymous]

Regardless of brand, price, packaging or any other marketing fudge is exactly what the new testing and rating program for HDMI is. It's called DPL(Digital Performance Level) Rating Program and involve tests that are focused on how the device performs over and above the HDMI minimums. Eye Mask margin differentials, DDC integrity both with Eye Patterns and I2C dynamics just to name a few. For me this is what the industry needs. I would rather install products that are well into the black with integrity rather than sitting on the edge.. It is far less likely that if some other portion of the interface is on the edge the better performing devices will allow for a higher success rate in establishing the necessary connection data. You all can find a LOT more info at their website www.dplrating.org.