Proof that expensive HDMI cables make no difference? Thoughts...

[CnoEvil]

Which bit addresses my point?

As I said, I'm not an engineer, but they seem to be saying that the cables carry more than 1s and 0s, and also list issues that can effect performance.

FWIW I am not saying that they do/don't make a difference, only that my mind remains open.

Somebody should have told me this was " oke: Cno Sunday", just to see what happens!

 

[AlmaataKZ]

If your mind is open, read the post above. Does it make sence?

 

[steve_1979]

Spread betting on number of posts this reaches just opened on betfair. 2/11 on nobody changing anybody's mind.

Have Betfair said what the odds they're offering on whether this thread will be locked before the end of the day?

EDIT: I've just realised that they won't let you gamble on a dead cert.

 

[steve_1979]

Somebody should have told me this was " oke: Cno Sunday", just to see what happens!

Don't take it too personally. We're all just jealous of you awsome looking home cinema setup really.

 

[CnoEvil]

If your mind is open, read the post above. Does it make sence?

Yes it makes sense, but so does the info provided by QED.....life is too short, so I'm out of this debate, as I've nothing more constructive to add.

 

[AlmaataKZ]

all it takes to agree or disagree with the OP is basic understanding of digital transmission.

in digital you either get it or don't.

non-technical explanation of the magic of digital -

- paint a large number on the wall - that is your digital message, say, '3'

- look at it through clear glass (an analogy of a perfect transmission system) - you can see it well, so the message you get is '3', exaclty as the original

- look at it through a frosted galss (an anology of a bad transmission system) - up to a point you will still be able to tell confidently it is '3' and nothing else, i.e. the message you get is still '3', exactly as the original. you can put this message in a notebook and give it to somebody else and they will get exactly the same message - '3' and will not even know that you saw it through a frosted glass. 3 will still be 3, 100%***. This will continue, until you:

- look at it through a very frosted glass (really bad transmission) - you cannot figure out any more what figure it is. you get no messsage at all.

so you either get it or not. all you need to do is know that either '1' or '0' are being sent (binary, digital) so at the receiveing end all that needs to be done is figuring out if it is 1 or 0. if you do - there is no quality losss because you know exactly how 1 and 0 look like and you do not need any more info about them.

if you misread several 1s and 0s, error correction may still get it back, up to a point (of error resilience of a codec). basically they are transmitted more than once so it is ok to misread some.

if you miss too many, you get dropouts - bricks/freezing on video, clicks on audio etc. thereare not sublte 'analog-like' impacts.

*** - this is the priciple of digital. this is why computers are good with numbers, why we have e-mail, internet, mobile phones, bluray etc etc.

 

[Anonymous]

If your mind is open, read the post above. Does it make sence?

And just to expand on that. Does it make sense that the digital data that's beamed from space to our digital set top boxes, is not affected by the weather (in as much as you either get a picture on your tv or it freezes), yet is supposedly sometimes corrupted when being transferred via a purpose made HDMI cable from digital box to tv?

 

[CnoEvil]

Somebody should have told me this was " oke: Cno Sunday", just to see what happens!

Don't take it too personally. We're all just jealous of you awsome looking home cinema setup really.

I didn't (it was said with more than a pinch of humour).

I fully realize that you all come under the heading of "passionate nutters" (just a break away branch)....same as meself.

 

[SouthaK]

It can't surprise anyone that QED make lots of valid points as to why one HDMI cable is better than another. After all they have a vested interest in making sure they are different i.e. the premium they charge versus the bog-standard.

One interesting point, if it is proven after all that expensive cables make no difference whatsoever, then how do reviewers at WHFS&V and the myriad others explain the variety of star ratings for different cables over the years without losing a little credibility? Either they are seeing differences that aren't there or something else!

After all it would take a very brave reviewer to say "right guys I cant see any difference between these cables".

 

[steve_1979]

passionate nutter

Ahhh you know me well (that's actually a pretty accurate discription of my personality).

As I said, I'm not an engineer, but they seem to be saying that the cables carry more than 1s and 0s, and also list issues that can effect performance.

There is also an issue of the timing of the 1's and 0's which is called jitter.

However any differences in the timing are so small that they don't actually make any audiable difference to the sound. Besides most modern DAC's include a bit of software that can fix these timing differences so it's just not an issue anyway.

 

[BenLaw]

Which bit addresses my point?

As I said, I'm not an engineer, but they seem to be saying that the cables carry more than 1s and 0s, and also list issues that can effect performance.

FWIW I am not saying that they do/don't make a difference, only that my mind remains open.

Somebody should have told me this was " oke: Cno Sunday", just to see what happens!

Well I'm not an engineer either, but I read nothing scientific in the link from QED (even before considering their vested interest) whereas I do in the OP's link (even before considering the apparently independent nature of the testers there). Your criticism was not then based on there being any problem with the methodology in that test but that it addressed PQ and you say SQ is different. I asked how; what you linked to in no way addressed that.

Not oke: you, just pointing out that my point still remains valid, at this stage.

Fwiw, what HDMI do you use and did you do much demoing?

 

[CnoEvil]

passionate nutter

Ahhh you know me well (that's actually a pretty accurate discription of my personality).

As I said, I'm not an engineer, but they seem to be saying that the cables carry more than 1s and 0s, and also list issues that can effect performance.

There is also an issue of the timing of the 1's and 0's which is called jitter.

However any differences in the timing are so small that they don't actually make any audiable difference to the sound. Besides most modern DAC's include a bit of software that can fix these timing differences so it's just not an issue anyway.

I can fight my corner as well as anyone, but when the argument becomes too polemic (and circular), I'm not really interested.

I have heard differences in ICs / SCs / MCs / 320 vs 16 bit vs 24 bit....all of which I've been told, at one time or another, are undetectable.

Now I know digital may be different, but as yet I haven't tried it for myself....which I need to do before I'm convinced (I'm that sort of bod). It's just that at the moment, I've more important things to do (like run round in circles until I'm dizzy).

 

[CnoEvil]

Well I'm not an engineer either, but I read nothing scientific in the link from QED (even before considering their vested interest) whereas I do in the OP's link (even before considering the apparently independent nature of the testers there). Your criticism was not then based on there being any problem with the methodology in that test but that it addressed PQ and you say SQ is different. I asked how; what you linked to in no way addressed that.

Not oke: you, just pointing out that my point still remains valid, at this stage.

Fwiw, what HDMI do you use and did you do much demoing?

Where is John Carrick when you need him?

I use ones from Chord that I got cheap when the specs changed (which I bought without demoing)..... There are areas that I spend time worrying about, but HDMI leads aren't one of them. This doesn't mean I'm waving a white flag though!

 

[BenLaw]

Fair enough. I would be interested to hear your conclusions if you ever do get round to doing this.

I like to ally my subjective thoughts about something with some objective knowledge, cognisant that my senses are fallible. Whilst I've not done any extensive testing with HDMI or optical, the little I've done tells me there are no subjective differences, which is supported by the science people occasionally link to, and this makes me happy as it saves me money

 

[AlmaataKZ]

Cno, open your mind

there is only 1 and 0 in digital. there is no 1 and a half or 1.3. so all the recipient needs to do is tell 1 from zero. if the recepient can't tell it is sent again, until he can. Once he can, he sees an entire 1 (or entire zero), there are no subtleties to retrive, there is nothing lost*, the recepient knows exactly what 1 is, he is just being told to use 1 in this instance. and so on, lots of 1s and 0s, received exactly as sent, are then converted to analog.

* nothing lost in transmission. although a little something has been lost during the original digitising - how much lost here depends on the resoution of the a to d conversion.

 

[CnoEvil]

Fair enough. I would be interested to hear your conclusions if you ever do get round to doing this.

I once briefly compared an expensive Mavros Coax, with my Ecosse The producer one, and in the short time I did it, the differences were so subtle that I don't think I could have done so blind.

I would need to have lived with it for a few days, and then changed it over. Atlas make a big thing about the connection itself ie the importance of maintaining the necessary 75 Ohms; as explained here (6.3): http://www.atlascables.com/right-connection.html

You can put it all down to spin if you like, but I've met John Carrick, and he makes a lot of sense. He's always open to having people ring him up on this sort of thing, so why don't you do that, and then report back. He is far more qualified to make this case, than I am.

 

[Paul.]

I have no intention of arguing for HDMI, as I'm not a believer. I am how ever going to going to argue the notion that digital is all ones and zeroes.

This wiki answers sums it up better than I can, (both for, against and intermediate arguments)

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_a_square_wave_an_analog_or_digital_wave

The short version is that there is no such thing as a perfect square waveform, and that although a digital transmission is always a square waveform, a square waveform isn't nessesarily digital.

 

[Frank Harvey]

I'm not fighting for either side, and I'm not getting drawn into an argument, but we've heard many times about various aspects of digital products/processes that "it is only 1's and 0's".

I do recall recently, and I'll have to rack my brain as to who said it, but apparently someone in the industry, who isn't 'connected' with cables )) said they had used two different USB cables connected to a printer, and they find that the file size was different at the printer end. I don't know the details, so no good asking me! It might have been Bryston's James Tanner.

 

[AlmaataKZ]

There is no need for a waveform to be perfect, just good enough to tell one state grom the other. Anything above a certain level is deemed 1 and anything below - zero. A decision one way or the other has to be made every time. There are no subtleties. Digital operates outside these subtleties, it ignores them. How much is ignored depends on resolution.

 

[AlmaataKZ]

For me there is no fighting. I am just willing to explain what I know.

The thing about usb cable was in a mag 2 or 3 month ago and was, put politely, a mistake.

 

[BenLaw]

Yes the USB cable printer thing was (IIRC) a guy scanning a document twice and the files being different - easily explained by even the smallest of movements of the object to be scanned. Utterly irrelevant.

 

[John Duncan]

Locked. Boring, done 100 times before, it'll end in tears.

And I win 640 quid at betfair.