I was wrong about HDMI cables!

[duaplex]

She was unaware of the test I was conducting...

I wouldn't bet on that.

+ 1

Can the OP describe how he 'tests' skyfall?

Using my LX54 in Bitstream mode, through to the AV (LX83) which then feeds the Panasonic TV. Connections in between are the Chord HDMI cable. For Music, I have my PC connected to the AV using FLAC files and WAV ripped to about 40mb to 120mb per song.

Is that what you wanted to know?

 

[Dave_]

People often forget that HDMI carries sound as well as picture and most of the tests revolve around picture quality as opposed to sound.

They also forget its data that's being carried, not magic that requires a 'specialist' company dabbling in some black art to get right

 

[Petherick]

There is absolutely NO difference between good quality HDMI cables and expensive versions. (Cheapo cables tend to be poorly fitting and degrade over time)

Bill

I don't know why I get involved, but...

You sir are wrong. Your statement was made as a fact, so's mine.

 

[altruistic.lemon]

What puzzles me is why girlfriends/wives only walk in after a cable change and comment.

Apparently you can change the whole system and they say nothing.

 

[duaplex]

People often forget that HDMI carries sound as well as picture and most of the tests revolve around picture quality as opposed to sound.

They also forget its data that's being carried, not magic that requires a 'specialist' company dabbling in some black art to get right

Which cables are you using with your setup? I assume cheap like I was, so my next question is have you tried out alternatives?

 

[duaplex]

What puzzles me is why girlfriends/wives only walk in after a cable change and comment.

Apparently you can change the whole system and they say nothing.

:rofl: indeed, but I have mine well trained to appreciate good systems.

 

[chebby]

What puzzles me is why girlfriends/wives only walk in after a cable change and comment.

Apparently you can change the whole system and they say nothing.

It proves she loves you. She knows you have a new gadget/gizmo/cable and she can tell all the signs of testing being conducted (music played louder than normal, certain tracks being played, Blu-ray being paused for minutes at a time but no-one making a cuppa or going to the toilet or answering a phone or leaving the room, duster bag open in cleaning cupboard, partner sitting bolt upright exactly half way between speakers rather than slobbed out on couch as usual ... etc.)

All this (and other body language cues that only she can detect) tell her that it is time to walk in and comment on how unusually good the sound/picture is today. She knows it will make you feel good.

 

[Cypher]

What puzzles me is why girlfriends/wives only walk in after a cable change and comment.

Apparently you can change the whole system and they say nothing.

People have to convince themselves that the expensive cables they bought are really good.

 

[nopiano]

Ha, chebby's analysis made me laugh. LOL even!

But bravo to the OP for posting his genuine findings. Whether these are 'facts' to convince the sceptics (definitely not), or 'beliefs' genuinely arrived at and experienced at home (surely) is not important.

With a stonking screen like the OP's I cannot blame him for getting something decent to connect up the gear. He's happy (and so is his wife) and that's what matters!

 

[Dave_]

People often forget that HDMI carries sound as well as picture and most of the tests revolve around picture quality as opposed to sound.

They also forget its data that's being carried, not magic that requires a 'specialist' company dabbling in some black art to get right

Which cables are you using with your setup? I assume cheap like I was, so my next question is have you tried out alternatives?

Thatcable for my PJ and TV, because I needed longer cables than the bundled generic ones I had laying around and because they're chased into wall/running through ceiling I wanted some of decent build quality.

Everything else is connected by bundled generic cables.

I won a Chord HDMI from WHF a few years ago (dunno which one but it was turquoise/blue coloured) which I tried and it made no difference to PQ/SQ and because it was so thick and inflexible was more likely to damage sockets than improve quality so got shot of it.

Now i'm just waiting for someone to come along with the audiophile cliche "your system isn't revealing enough" 🙂

 

[BenLaw]

She was unaware of the test I was conducting...

I wouldn't bet on that.

+ 1

Can the OP describe how he 'tests' skyfall?

Using my LX54 in Bitstream mode, through to the AV (LX83) which then feeds the Panasonic TV. Connections in between are the Chord HDMI cable. For Music, I have my PC connected to the AV using FLAC files and WAV ripped to about 40mb to 120mb per song.

Is that what you wanted to know?

Sorry, it's not. Apologies for not making myself clear. I more had in mind the sort of things Chebby outlined.

I assume any comparative testing of cables doesn't involve playing the whole film through once, changing the cables and doing it again. I can't imagine anyone would suggest they'd be able to say 'the texture of the shadows at 13.28 was much better with cable 2' or 'the red on the aeroplane at 1.23.47 was much deeper and more vibrant' using that method. So does the test involve pausing at certain points? Then cable swapping? Maybe a number of times Rewinding? etc

Also, did your wife go with you to the show? If so, was she with you when you bought the cable? If not, did she see you come home with a bag? See the bag at any point? Hear any noises as you pull equipment out to swap cables? You get the idea.

 

[BenLaw]

People often forget that HDMI carries sound as well as picture and most of the tests revolve around picture quality as opposed to sound.

They also forget its data that's being carried, not magic that requires a 'specialist' company dabbling in some black art to get right

Which cables are you using with your setup? I assume cheap like I was, so my next question is have you tried out alternatives?

Thatcable for my PJ and TV, because I needed longer cables than the bundled generic ones I had laying around and because they're chased into wall/running through ceiling I wanted some of decent build quality. Everything else is connected by bundled generic cables. I won a Chord HDMI from WHF a few years ago (dunno which one but it was turquoise/blue coloured) which I tried and it made no difference to PQ/SQ and because it was so thick and inflexible was more likely to damage sockets than improve quality so got shot of it.

Now i'm just waiting for someone to come along with the audiophile cliche "your system isn't revealing enough" 🙂

Your system isn't revealing enough. And you've got cloth ears. And cloth eyes.

 

[AnotherJoe]

For a cable to be HDMI CERTIFIED it has to have a maximum error rate not greater than 1-bit error in a billion (roughly one pixel incorrect per second).

So you will not see/hear a difference between 2 certified cables.

 

[Cookie Monster]

I have been saying for years that there is a difference. Clearly see this on a PJ.

However! I am not saying a more expensive HDMI cable is better!

My first upgrade was from the freebie sky cable. Colours were so flat, edges rough - but then look at the shielding! So slim!

Changed to a Wireworld £50 cable = better shielding from interference (especially behind TV) and higher grade conductors (no motion blips).
Clean image, sharper picture and colours.

Funny that the first post mentions silver, lots of research on conductivity of silver vs copper.

Length makes a big difference too, longer length more chance of noise.

I have found some cheaper cables to be excellent whilst more expensive cables offer less, and Vice Versa. Have owned and tested 6 different cables from free to £95 and find that once you get past a certain level of cable quality then that's your lot.
Take What Hifi for example, there cable of the year the Audioquest Pearl retails at around £20-£25. When you consider that a really high end cable is around £200 and a cheaper one maybe £2. Then a £20 cable seems like a realistic price vs quality and results.

 

[duaplex]

I would have to agree, the cables name is silver, I was not inferring that it was made of silver 🙂

I would never spend 200 on a cable, in fact audioquest was recommended to me, but at £40 for the chord cable I plumped for it. On a 65inch TV I can see it.

 

[michael hoy]

I have been using the Chord active cables for a long time 2x 3m and 1x 2m and am extremely happy with them.

I did have a HDMI cable a while ago that truly irritated me with the way it changed the colours when in use.

Swapped it between different devices along with a different cable, the same cable changed the colours no matter what device it was plugged into.

The colours became more vibrant but not in a good way.

So I do believe cables make a difference, and good luck with the Chord cables.

 

[AnotherJoe]

As I''ve said if you use CERTIFIED cables they wont make a difference.

 

[Deleted member 2457]

I would have to agree, the cables name is silver, I was not inferring that it was made of silver 🙂

I would never spend 200 on a cable, in fact audioquest was recommended to me, but at £40 for the chord cable I plumped for it. On a 65inch TV I can see it.

Agree too.

 

[fr0g]

I have been using the Chord active cables for a long time 2x 3m and 1x 2m and am extremely happy with them.

I did have a HDMI cable a while ago that truly irritated me with the way it changed the colours when in use.

Swapped it between different devices along with a different cable, the same cable changed the colours no matter what device it was plugged into.

The colours became more vibrant but not in a good way.

So I do believe cables make a difference, and good luck with the Chord cables.

Sounds like a faulty cable. A non faulty HDMI cable will look and sound the same as any other non-faulty cable. Just like the moon is in fact smaller than the sun.

 

[chebby]

What constitutes a 'specialist' or audiophile cable? I have seen a 1 metre Belkin high-speed HDMI cable that costs £24.99 in Argos. (1 metre!)

In Sainsburys the other day I saw a 1 metre Sony high-speed HDMI costing £29.99.

Surely Sony and Belkin are fairly 'vanilla' brands and not made by 'audiophile' outfits but global giants. (And they are being sold in supermarkets and places like Argos not posh hi-fi dealerships.) And yet they cost £25 and £30 pounds per metre. Those prices are well into 'specialist cable' territory.

Back in October 2011 I bought two 1 metre QED Performance HDMI cables from Tesco for £3.55 each because it was proving almost impossible to find good, cheap, certified, 1 metre HDMI cables to replace my old 2 metre long John Lewis cables. (Part of my de-cluttering and cable shortening mission at the time.)

I bought them because they were only £3.55 each (and the right length) and because Tesco's own brand cables were twice as costly and twice as long as I wanted!

Please identify a stone-dead-righteous, non-audiophile, non-pretentious, non-hi-fi, non-BS, certified HDMI cable manufacturer who make a completely adequate product for ... say .... a tenner for 1 metre.

If I told you i'd bought a Sony HDMI from Sainsburys - or a Belkin from Argos - but without telling you the cost first, you'd probably think that was good and very 'right-on' because neither manufacturer (nor the outlets they were sold in) were small specialist cable companies (or 'rip-off' hi-fi dealerships).

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

First of all, I have to say when HDMI cables first hit the stores, they were a RIP-OFF. It was like the electrical chain stores, on both sides of the Atlantic I hasten to add, were selling the TVs pretty much at cost, knowing they'd make a killing on the "must have" 100-dollar (or 100-quid) HDMI cables needed to connect up all your new gear, probably making them even more profit than selling the all-but-pointless extended warranties. As an aside my brother used to work for Comet in the 1980s. He hold me they made diddly-squat on the appliances and all the profits were in the extended warranty sales.

Nowadays, HDMI cables aren't the ripoff they once were, generally speaking, but experience the hard way has taught me it's the terminations, not the cables themselves, you should be looking at. This is especially true if you have to bend the cables near the connectors, for example behind a wall mounted flat-panel TV. I've bought three or four in the last 12 to 18 months as I tinkered with the living room setup. They always seem to fail, not in use, but when I've been fiddling.

I echo the point that the 1's and 0's coming down the wires probably don't give two hoots what kind, or price, of cable they're whizzing along, but when you get to the connections at the ends, that's where the problems occur.

Buy your cables by the quality of the connectors. Period.

 

[cstanwhf]

Buy your cables by the quality of the connectors. Period.

Does that means the higher priced cables as they tend to have better connectors?

 

[bigboss]

Not necessarily. Even this has a good connector:

http://www.thatcable.com/product/HDMI-Male-to-Male-Cable-Type-A-(Standard)-Version-1-3BHDMI-1.3b

 

[cstanwhf]

http://www.thatcable.com/product/HDMI-Male-to-Male-Cable-Type-A-(Standard)-Version-1-3BHDMI-1.3b

I see. Maybe that's why it is rated by WHF? 🙂

 

[Alec]

It's rated by What HiFi because:

"Pictures are more stable and motion more assured, while even colours are a little more vivid and exact. Sound has more scale and detail, too."

Which is cobblers, of course.