Hdmi Cable

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How much should I be looking to spend on an hdmi cable? I need one to connect a panasonic 42 v10 plasma to a pioneer bdp 51fd (probably). I won't be adding an amp or speakers or anything else.

I've been recomended a chord hdmi cable for £50. Are they any good? Would I get noticeably better PQ, noise reduction etc from one of these over, say an £8 Linx premium 24k gold plated? Or is it worth paying the premium and going for a van den hul flat for £65 - which seems expensive.

Any advice would be much appreciated, since I'm confused after reading the good reviews for the linx on amazon, whether paying £50 is necessary/ ideal for performance.

Thanks

 

[Anonymous]

I use the Van Den Hul Flat and they are brilliant. Alternatively, you could consider the Chord 1.3 Silver Plus or the QED Performance HDMI.

You won't go wrong with any of these.

 

[Anonymous]

If both cables work correctly there should be absolutely no difference between them. The quality of a digital signal has to degraded substantially before you can see any degradation in picture quality and over short distances a cable would have to be particularly badly designed and made for that to happen.

If I were in your situation I'd get the Linx and also get the cheapest nastiest HDMI cable you can find and see if you can detect a difference. If you can then maybe get the Van Den Hul cable and compare that. But I'll wager you would not be able to tell the difference because there would be no difference to tell.

 

[Anonymous]

Yeah, I thought that over 0.5 - 1m there shouldn't be a loss of signal. I would've thought that where these premium cables outperform there cheaper counterparts is over longer distances. Then again there has to be a difference between a £3 one and a £65 one - but most likely not enough to justify the extra cost.

ValianTX,

The QED, Chord and Van den hul, you say all perform well. I don't suppose you looked at any cheaper ones did you?

Can you notice any difference between those 3 cables - can you tell that the van den hul is better when using it? (i'm assuming it's better based on its price)

 

[Anonymous]

hmtb:
Yeah, I thought that over 0.5 - 1m there shouldn't be a loss of signal. I would've thought that where these premium cables outperform there cheaper counterparts is over longer distances. Then again there has to be a difference between a £3 one and a £65 one - but most likely not enough to justify the extra cost.

Well there will be a difference. The £65 cable will likely be better made, will last longer, look more attractive and have nice packaging and marketing, as well as better technical support should you need it. But I have to repeat: if two cables conform to the HDMI specification then they will work identically, irrespective of cost.

 

[Clare Newsome]

 

[Anonymous]

I guess it must be quite annoying when the same questions come up.

I've just searched on the forum, and I can see that this subject has been covered extensively. I will take my research from here.

 

[Clare Newsome]

Please feel free to ask away - my exasperation certainly wasn't directed at you, merely at the way that every cable thread progresses.

We'd always recommend with cables, as with any hi-fi/AV purchase, that you try before you buy, and pick the product that best suits your budget and system.

We've tested many, many cables at all sort of level, and price/brand name alone is certainly no guarantee of a premium performance, but the top-rated cables in our reviews section are ones we've found to outperform others in their specific price classes.

Any more questions, fire away!

 

[Anonymous]

Clare,

you're right - the only way to know for sure is to test out first.

I bought my tv at sevenoaks, and i was able to play around with it for about an hour before i bought it. They also let me test it out with 2 of their blu ray players, so i'm sure i'll be able to try out a couple of cables (if they have demo versions) when i go and pick up my blu ray player.

I read on the forum and consumer reviews somewhere, that people had had problems with the pionner 51fd playing certain discs, and that you replied, that you'd had no problems - is that still the case? If there were a problem with a disc, would a firmware update solve it?

Is the layer transition speed on this unit really bad for dvds, as some amazon.com reviewers have said? I didn't notice it in the shop, but then again i was skipping scenes quite a bit.

 

[Clare Newsome]

It should do, yes. In the early days of any format (which Blu-ray is unquestionably still in) you get issues when software is pushing the boundaries and hardware manufacturers have (and do) adapt to 'problem' discs with updates.

 

[Anonymous]

hmtb:
Yeah, I thought that over 0.5 - 1m there shouldn't be a loss of signal. I would've thought that where these premium cables outperform there cheaper counterparts is over longer distances. Then again there has to be a difference between a £3 one and a £65 one - but most likely not enough to justify the extra cost.

ValianTX,

The QED, Chord and Van den hul, you say all perform well. I don't suppose you looked at any cheaper ones did you?

Can you notice any difference between those 3 cables - can you tell that the van den hul is better when using it? (i'm assuming it's better based on its price)

I used the Chord HDMI 1.3 Silver Plus for about two years before I switched to the Van Den Hul 1.3 HDMI Flat recently. The Chord was a very good cable, without doubt, although I detected a little improvement with both picture and sound with the VDH on my TV - that's just my observation, on my system.

The QED is used by a colleague of mine on his Samsung Full HD TV and it seems quite good, but not as good as the Chord or VDH on my HD Ready TV. Detail is much better with either one of these. Again, this is my observation.