Do HDMI cables make a difference?

[chebby]

Is it any wonder it's being ignored if it's constantly misused?

But back on topic, I'm still fascinated by the lack of recent reviews of HDMI cables, especially in the light of the blog outburst referred to above, which would seem to suggest a 'we know we're right and we don't care' attitude, and then – silence.

There were some HDMI reviews in July of this year but they are all impossible to view because of site software errors. A couple of examples where I get errors looking at reviews of HDMI cables ...

http://www.whathifi.com/products/wireworld

http://www.whathifi.com/asda/wm391-1/overview

... in fact the whole 'Accessories' section in 'Reviews' is knackered ...

http://www.whathifi.com/products/accessories

So I think it might be that the reviews are actually there (at least the July HDMI tests) but site software is not showing them because of errors.

Go to the home page and type 'HDMI' or 'HDMI cable' into the 'Search for a product' box and see what happens. You'll either get errors or a 2007 review.

It please me that it's not just forum members who are inconvenienced by site software problems. It also means no cable (or other accessory) manufacturers can link to their WHF 5 star reviews on their websites. (Nor even read them unless they bought the mag.)

 

[Deleted member 2457]

Is it any wonder it's being ignored if it's constantly misused?

But back on topic, I'm still fascinated by the lack of recent reviews of HDMI cables, especially in the light of the blog outburst referred to above, which would seem to suggest a 'we know we're right and we don't care' attitude, and then – silence.

Calm down Norman.

 

[chebby]

Is it any wonder it's being ignored if it's constantly misused?

But back on topic, I'm still fascinated by the lack of recent reviews of HDMI cables, especially in the light of the blog outburst referred to above, which would seem to suggest a 'we know we're right and we don't care' attitude, and then – silence.

Calm down Norman.

Why should he? (Notwithstanding the fact that he seems very calm anyway.) I did a product review trawl (page by page) going back to September 2013 and not one HDMI review was listed. Then I did a Google search ('site:www.whathifi.com') for 'past year' and all the 2014 HDMI cable reviews resulted in errors when they were clicked on.

So I don't think any editorial decision has been made about HDMI reviews, rather that the site is knackered when looking for them.

 

[spiny norman]

Calm down Norman.

As ever, not a clue what you mean...

 

[spiny norman]

rather that the site is knackered when looking for them.

Seems totally knackered now: I'm just getting a 'search is temporarily unavailable' message whichever type of product I try to look for.

Must be another one of those improvements.

 

[Deleted member 2457]

Is it any wonder it's being ignored if it's constantly misused?

But back on topic, I'm still fascinated by the lack of recent reviews of HDMI cables, especially in the light of the blog outburst referred to above, which would seem to suggest a 'we know we're right and we don't care' attitude, and then – silence.

Calm down Norman.

Why should he? (Notwithstanding the fact that he seems very calm anyway.) I did a product review trawl (page by page) going back to September 2013 and not one HDMI review was listed. Then I did a Google search ('site:www.whathifi.com') for 'past year' and all the 2014 HDMI cable reviews resulted in errors when they were clicked on.

So I don't think any editorial decision has been made about HDMI reviews, rather that the site is knackered when looking for them.

I wasn't referring to your post.

 

[Deleted member 2457]

Calm down Norman.

As ever, not a clue what you mean...

Mine comment was friendly joke, that's all.

 

[Deleted member 2457]

Calm down Norman.

As ever, not a clue what you mean...

My comment was friendly joke, that's all.

 

[Deleted member 2457]

Which you clearly didn't find funny, oh well.

 

[relocated]

At the time that ridiculous piece was produced, I just thought it was one last desperate attempt to see what the current reaction would be to digital cable reviews. Or someone trying to keep his job/ an intern on his pre-determined way. This guy told us that he could tell the difference between ethernet cables, preposterous doesn't come close.

Having not seen any hdmi cable reviews and there being no digital cable section in the Awards, I thought I must have understood or at least got close.

It is easy for us, it is the newbies I feel so desperately sorry for. Wasting money because WHF and the likes + manufacturers and retailers keep this nonsense alive. Although to be fair to the manufacturers advertising, that I've seen, they don't actually make the claims of better sound and vision they let their lackeys do that.

 

[Deleted member 2457]

At the time that ridiculous piece was produced, I just thought it was one last desperate attempt to see what the current reaction would be to digital cable reviews. Or someone trying to keep his job/ an intern on his pre-determined way. This guy told us that he could tell the difference between ethernet cables, preposterous doesn't come close.

Having not seen any hdmi cable reviews and there being no digital cable section in the Awards, I thought I must have understood or at least got close.

It is easy for us, it is the newbies I feel so desperately sorry for. Wasting money because WHF and the likes + manufacturers and retailers keep this nonsense alive. Although to be fair to the manufacturers advertising, that I've seen, they don't actually make the claims of better sound and vision they let their lackeys do that.

It does seem a bit weird when even you got Watch Dog on the case! *smile*

 

[cheeseboy]

Although to be fair to the manufacturers advertising, that I've seen, they don't actually make the claims of better sound and vision they let their lackeys do that.

Some do. I've even complained about a few to TSA and had the complaints upheld. (slow days ) Last one was against chord, who in fairness did change the wording on their website, but changed it from "it will" to "we think it does"....

 

[Frank Harvey]

This guy told us that he could tell the difference between ethernet cables, preposterous doesn't come close.

Have you compared any?

 

[cheeseboy]

This guy told us that he could tell the difference between ethernet cables, preposterous doesn't come close.

Have you compared any?

I tried a few different ones. No difference. Plus one can prove that what gets put in one end is *exactly* the same as comes out the other end. If any of these magic ethernet cables were able to change the sound as claimed, they would have to have some kind of built in processing unit (a small computer basically) in order to read the file, analyse it, add said magic fairy dust, then lob it out the other end. Funnily enough that doesn't happen. This is exactly the point I was making earlier on about hifi people trying to shoehorn their beliefs in to an already very very well established sector, and if the ethernet cables had the effect on the data as they say they do (bearing in mind it's data that's being transmitted down the cable, not audio) then like I said before, the internet just wouldn't work.

 

[Deleted member 2457]

I've tried about 4 HDMI cables, they didn't seem to effect the picture or sound but I do like to buy cheap recommended ones by WHF, just so I know I am covering all bases.

 

[Frank Harvey]

I tried a few different ones. No difference.

Any particular ones?

This is exactly the point I was making earlier on about hifi people trying to shoehorn their beliefs in to an already very very well established sector, and if the ethernet cables had the effect on the data as they say they do (bearing in mind it's data that's being transmitted down the cable, not audio) then like I said before, the internet just wouldn't work.

Why would the internet not work if higher quality ethernet cables existed? And if someone said they could play you a system that could show there were audible differences, would you attend a showing of that? And would you believe it a difference was shown?

I find that when things become "well established", there's a tendancy towards laural resting and complacency.

 

[cheeseboy]

I tried a few different ones. No difference.

Any particular ones?

God knows, working in IT I've tried plenty.

This is exactly the point I was making earlier on about hifi people trying to shoehorn their beliefs in to an already very very well established sector, and if the ethernet cables had the effect on the data as they say they do (bearing in mind it's data that's being transmitted down the cable, not audio) then like I said before, the internet just wouldn't work.

Why would the internet not work if higher quality ethernet cables existed? And if someone said they could play you a system that could show there were audible differences, would you attend a showing of that? And would you believe it a difference was shown?

I find that when things become "well established", there's a tendancy towards laural resting and complacency.

the internet would work fine. Please re-read what i said with regards to the claims being made by cable manufacturers and in order for those claims to actually be true, how it would have to work. I said that if those claims by the cable manufacturers were true about *what it did to the data* were true, the internet wouldn't work. The internet works on the basis that if I send you x, y and z, you get x, y and z, not x.5, y.3 and z.11111.

you could put a 1 million pound ethernet cable on the chain, a 1 is still going to be exactly the same 1 because it's being trasmitted as data. IT does not rest on it's laural's though. Moores law has seen to that and there's more advances in one year in the IT sector than there is in 10 years of the hifi sector.

To be honest, it doesn't matter if I sat in a room and heard differences because I can *prove* that there are none. Nobody wants to hear somebody say that differences are in the head, but they are, it's a simple fact of life in these cases. Here is a case in point...

The lines sure as hell look sloped to me. Yet, I can get a ruler, measure them, and then prove to myself that they are straight, however they still look sloped. Sometimes you just can't override the tricks the mind plays, and this is *exactly* what I'm talking about. Although we can prove that certain cables don't make a difference, people will still refuse to believe, just like the picture above.

 

[Frank Harvey]

Now we just need an aural test that proves the same for digital transmission as that picture proves from an optical point of view.

If your eyes can't see that picture for what it really is, then how do we know what we are hearing (in certain circumstances) is correct? How can you trick my brain into hearing something I'm not really hearing?

 

[cheeseboy]

Now we just need an aural test that proves the same for digital transmission as that picture proves from an optical point of view.

I totally agree. You can do to a certain extent with software like audio diffmaker. However, it depends if you are talking digital or analogue. It's very easy to prove that digital transmission is the same as one end as it is at the other. The tricky bit comes in when you convert that into analogue so you can acutally hear it, and that's where the whole thing goes to pot.

If your eyes can't see that picture for what it really is, then how do we know what we are hearing (in certain circumstances) is correct?

We don't and I've admitted many times to hearing differences, then also being able to prove to myself those differences don't actually exist! That's why I will always say listening to stereos is totally subjective and there's too many variables imho to have some kind of standard. But that works both ways, in that just because you have changed a cable and hear differences, doesn't mean there are any there.

How can you trick my brain into hearing something I'm not really hearing?

erm, stereo does a pretty good job of that It's also important at this point to define this sentence. It's harder, but possible, to make the brain hear things that are not there, but moreso in the case of this things like cables, it's changes people go on about, not actual things that aren't there. So whilst there maybe no "real world" changes, people still hear them. It's the same thing they are hearing, as in nothing new per se is being heard, but because people are aware that something has changed they expect something in the music to change. It's actually possible to do this without changing anything, just listen to the same track a few times, and each time really focus on a different part of the music on each listen and it will sound different.

I'm not stopping anybody buying cables, if they want to, that's up to them, I'm just merely trying to say that in some cases there are no proven differences, so as a musician myself, I urge people to spend the money on the music, or going to a gig, rather than to perpetuate what is *in some cases* just a bunch of advertising in order to make money. Hifi would be pretty useless without something to listen to, and I'd rather people helped fund that which they say they love (the music) and not the snake oil salesman. Also, that in this merging of digital and hifi, that there are people out there who have been at it already and *do* know what they are talking about, so not ignore them out of ignorance because they are clinging on to rules which just don't apply any more. It still amazes me the amount of people who are willing to spend hundreds on cables, yet won't even consider the most modest of room treatments which would innevitably bring much more sonic goodness.

 

[chebby]

The lines sure as hell look sloped to me. Yet, I can get a ruler, measure them, and then prove to myself that they are straight, however they still look sloped. Sometimes you just can't override the tricks the mind plays, and this is *exactly* what I'm talking about. Although we can prove that certain cables don't make a difference, people will still refuse to believe, just like the picture above.

Do you also manage to train your mind to overcome 'trickery' like image retention when multiple still images are flashed in quick succession to give the impression of movement?

Can you overcome the subjective impression of three dimensional sound soming from two stereo speakers when it's not really there?

Do you actually sit there - listening or watching - knowing it's all trickery and refusing to believe - on a scientific level - what you are seeing or hearing?

 

[Native_bon]

Is it any wonder it's being ignored if it's constantly misused?

But back on topic, I'm still fascinated by the lack of recent reviews of HDMI cables, especially in the light of the blog outburst referred to above, which would seem to suggest a 'we know we're right and we don't care' attitude, and then – silence.

Calm down Norman.

Why should he? (Notwithstanding the fact that he seems very calm anyway.) I did a product review trawl (page by page) going back to September 2013 and not one HDMI review was listed. Then I did a Google search ('site:www.whathifi.com') for 'past year' and all the 2014 HDMI cable reviews resulted in errors when they were clicked on.

So I don't think any editorial decision has been made about HDMI reviews, rather that the site is knackered when looking for them.

Knackered for only HDMI cable reviews..? *unknw*

 

[relocated]

This guy told us that he could tell the difference between ethernet cables, preposterous doesn't come close.

Have you compared any?

Oh god, you sell fancy ethernet cables? Either way you will inevitably sell fancy digital cables, so have to perpetuate the folly.

I wonder David, if you had a severe nut allergy diagnosed by the leading physician in that field; would you chew and swallow a hand-full of said nuts to make sure he knew what he was saying?

 

[Native_bon]

This guy told us that he could tell the difference between ethernet cables, preposterous doesn't come close.

Have you compared any?

I tried a few different ones. No difference. Plus one can prove that what gets put in one end is *exactly* the same as comes out the other end. If any of these magic ethernet cables were able to change the sound as claimed, they would have to have some kind of built in processing unit (a small computer basically) in order to read the file, analyse it, add said magic fairy dust, then lob it out the other end. Funnily enough that doesn't happen. This is exactly the point I was making earlier on about hifi people trying to shoehorn their beliefs in to an already very very well established sector, and if the ethernet cables had the effect on the data as they say they do (bearing in mind it's data that's being transmitted down the cable, not audio) then like I said before, the internet just wouldn't work.

Like I know from the computer world & cheeseboy may also know, emphasis of cable quality is of no importants as far as it meets the required specifications. These are gamimg riggs that cost thousands of £££..

 

[Frank Harvey]

relocated - I had been preparing a reply over the past 15 minutes, but was thwarted by a freeze moment. All is lost.

All I'm going to say instead is that your post is a typical post displaying that people will read what they want from a post.

For the record, I haven't compared any ethernet or USB cables.

 

[RobinKidderminster]

The visual effect above is one of hundreds. There are also dozens of similar audioexamples. The eyes and ears are very easily and demonstratably fooled. I dont comment on the cable debate but lets please accept the plain and obvious