Importance of quality of HDMI leads

[Anonymous]

aliEnRIK:Chiswick:
Just quickly, to answer another point posed, CD transports will sound different. This will primarily be a result of their jitter characteristics. Again, this re-enforces what I've been saying all along. The quality of the electronics at the source and recieving end of the signal path is key.

So by definition, if a cd/dvd or blurays transport is poor then its likely that a 'better quality' cable would help send the information intact whilst a poorly constructed cable would aid the 'jitter' in getting worse?

Cables, no matter of quality, can improve the signal they get. A
poor signal from the BD/DVD/CD will remain a poor signal. Low quality
cables are only more likely to make a poor input signal worse. Good
quality cables, hopefully, will reduce the amount of nasties they
impose on the signal carried (Ie. electrical attenuation, signal
dispersion, jitter, etc.)
Good quality BD/CD/DVD players
transports should be able to correctly read the data off the disc and
faithfully transmit this data over the interconnects without
introducing jitter, etc. Also I'd expect higher end players/transports
to have better output circuitry resulting in a better quality signal
(low jitter, decent levels (dB), good solid waveforms, etc) being
output to the interconnects to start with.

 

[Anonymous]

HDMI is not the one way stream that Coax digital is. It's worth noting the difference. You can't lump CD and BluRay in together. The way they transmit data is different. That said, over 1 - 2m cable lengths, you just are not going to have signal degradation. The BBC regularly run cables hundreds of meters for the coverage of sporting or other live events and you don't really think they'd spend all their time worrying about jitter over a 2 meter digital interconnect do you? It's better to concentrate on the quality of gear at each end of the cable and keeping the contacts clean.

HDMI is the way forward I think and I must say, I am a huge fan of BluRay as a format. It's made maintaining the quality of the source material something that is now far more dependant on the quality of your receiever and speakers than the player and HDMI cable. This has to be a good thing.

 

[Anonymous]

From a pure electrical standpoint digital transmission over HDMI and over coax is the same. The difference is in the transmission protocols being used and the pin-outs carrying the appropriate signal/signalling. Coax can equally be a two-way medium as HDMI, it's just that due to the handshaking protocols implemented in HDMI, a return path is necessary whereas with CD output, it's not.

The OB's for the Beeb and other broadcasters do use some very heavy/high quality cabling and very high quality electronics at either end of these cables and professional/industrial transmission systems, which really do help them not have to worry so much about jitter and the likes.

I'm not disagreeing with you Will, just trying to help those that don't necessarily understand all this stuff, understand it a little better

 

[Anonymous]

dont you worry about it alienrik its all a conspiracy lead by the cia and the fbi

surprised you havnt mentioned jitter as a reason all those buildings fell down theres probably a clandestine website about it somewhere

ciao

 

[Anonymous]

Chiswick:
From a pure electrical standpoint digital transmission over HDMI and over coax is the same. The difference is in the transmission protocols being used and the pin-outs carrying the appropriate signal/signalling. Coax can equally be a two-way medium as HDMI, it's just that due to the handshaking protocols implemented in HDMI, a return path is necessary whereas with CD output, it's not.

The OB's for the Beeb and other broadcasters do use some very heavy/high quality cabling and very high quality electronics at either end of these cables and professional/industrial transmission systems, which really do help them not have to worry so much about jitter and the likes.

I'm not disagreeing with you Will, just trying to help those that don't necessarily understand all this stuff, understand it a little better

Chiswick, you're spot on mate. We need more of you on the forums!

 

[aliEnRIK]

Chiswick:aliEnRIK:Chiswick:
Just quickly, to answer another point posed, CD transports will sound different. This will primarily be a result of their jitter characteristics. Again, this re-enforces what I've been saying all along. The quality of the electronics at the source and recieving end of the signal path is key.

So by definition, if a cd/dvd or blurays transport is poor then its likely that a 'better quality' cable would help send the information intact whilst a poorly constructed cable would aid the 'jitter' in getting worse?

Cables, no matter of quality, can improve the signal they get. A
poor signal from the BD/DVD/CD will remain a poor signal. Low quality
cables are only more likely to make a poor input signal worse. Good
quality cables, hopefully, will reduce the amount of nasties they
impose on the signal carried (Ie. electrical attenuation, signal
dispersion, jitter, etc.)
Good quality BD/CD/DVD players
transports should be able to correctly read the data off the disc and
faithfully transmit this data over the interconnects without
introducing jitter, etc. Also I'd expect higher end players/transports
to have better output circuitry resulting in a better quality signal
(low jitter, decent levels (dB), good solid waveforms, etc) being
output to the interconnects to start with.

Even VERY high end cd players have measureable jitter

 

[Anonymous]

Yes, even very high end CD players have measurable jitter. Jitter in itself is almost unavoidable, it's the amount of jitter that is important and the impact of this jitter on the syncronisation/stability of the data stream that really matters. High jitter is bad, low jitter is better. Again, very much depending on the receiving electronics ability to deal with jitter on the incoming data stream.

 

[Anonymous]

trust me mate get a van der hul flat sound and picture improve a great deal, its a great value cable

 

[aliEnRIK]

Heres what I know to be FACTS ~

Some cheapie cables have completely failed (Even 1m ones)

Fitting a better quality cable has suddenly allowed the picture to be displayed

Further to that EVERY digital cable has a 'cliff edge' (The point at which the cable completely fails due to the bandwidth being too high)

So in that respect it MUST be true that 'some' cables will perform ok but once the bandwidth starts to rise then they begin to display errors

Cables DO introduce jitter

If a poor source introduces jitter than a cable that 'would' have been fine with a 'good' signal could well now fail

Add all the above up and youve a genuine answer that not all HDMI cables will produce the same results (Equipment pending)

I myself have tried a MOLEX (They helped design the HDMI standard so they should have a good idea of whats needed)

QED

VAN DEN HUL FLAT

CHORD SILVER

WIREWORLD STARLIGHT

Now as ive also upgraded things like 'mains leads' I cant say for definite that the bottom 3 performed all as well as one another but I CAN say for a FACT that the QED performed better than the MOLEX (both 2m in length) and all the rest performed better than the QED (1.5 - 2m)

(Im talking about VISUALLY better only as at the time of testing I didnt have anything to feed a HDMI to)

 

[Anonymous]

alienrik you must dream about jitter

you know jitter isnt audible below 20ns and most devices have jitter way below this level

theres a good if old discussion about jitter here http://www.stereophile.com/features/396bits/index.html

there are also different types of jitter which type are you referring to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jitter

i suggest forgetting about jitter for a bit and going down the pub and watching some football

jitter really isnt important in the overall scheme of things

 

[aliEnRIK]

Funnily enough its that VERY same site that posted about jitter in the coax cable which which physically affected the sound at the DAC stage

GOOD post

 

[Anonymous]

analogue interconnects can make a difference

digital ones (HDMI etc) not - if the signal gets there and can be decoded its correct. I would love to be proved wrong though .. for sound wise - I'm using a £1.99 optical cable with a £3k av amp !

why not a challenge at one of the next hifi/av shows, an indenpendantly setup A-B ("blind") test for one of hte manufacutrers of the high end HDMI cables to pick their cable from a cheap five pound HDMI cable - or perhaps even our reviewers from this site would take part ? They review cables all the time so should be easy for them to pick up on the differences that the high end cables give vs the low end ones.

now that would be interesting

 

[Anonymous]

wont happen the cable industry and associates have too much to lose

 

[aliEnRIK]

I know for a fact that a certain USB digital cable was tested and was found to sound different. Oddly the result was never actually published! (So far as im aware)