QED REFERENCE HDMI GRAPHITE

[barenakedmarc]

QED REFERENCE HDMI GRAPHITE

Just purchased one of these and was wondering what people thought of them

And would a £5 one be as good?

 

[bigboss]

 

[nads]

as you have already bought it is it not a bit late to be asking?

plug it in and if it works and you like it that is all that matters.

 

[AEJim]

I've seen a few of these cable debates on here recently and just thought I'd comment on my own findings this week in one particular area (not meaning to be inflammatory or anything, just stating my findings!) -

I've been calibrating my screen again since finding out the settings in my PS3 were wrong (the results are now stunning) but I had a bit of an issue yesterday, my £150 super duper "active" HDMI cable (naming no names) gave up the ghost halfway through. A little worrying as cables going wrong shouldn't be a factor but I know HDMI is a little different than most due to hand-shaking technicalities... I had to swap in what I had lying around, which happened to be a £5.99 ASDA cable, handily far more flexible than the previous one at least!

The results:

Measureed, with a light meter, at every 5% point between 0-100% and on all primary and secondary colours - No difference. At all. Whatsoever. This to me is "science", it was not my judgement or perception, it was data gathered by a very sensitive light meter and appropriate software. It's not my opinion on it, but how it actually measured.

Now, there are of course variables I can't measure - the results on data throughput of a full-on 3D action scene may well be different, the acoustic qualities may well be different. If anything I guess showing a small patch of static colour in the middle of the screen when calibrating is the easiest possible test of a video cable after all! Cable length may also be a factor, at 1m there shouldn't be much that can be interfered with but if you went to 5m+ the "higher quality" cables may well lose less and be less susceptible to interference. I've not noticed any picture break up while watching action movies so far (I don't have 3D) so I'd say the ASDA cable can handle the data throughput just fine.

So my results can't be conclusive for all aspects of performance on a cable but they do back up some initial testing I did when I first went "Hi-Def", in that myself and girfriend at the time could see no difference in A/B comparison, the light meter on a static picture can also see no difference. My eyesight at 2m+ isn't good enough to notice a difference when there's a lot going on with a picture either so I can't judge that fairly.

(Oddly on the acoustic cable side I can hear differences, as can our engineer, we both hear the same differences too - I don't know why this would be that different to a digital video cable, perhaps the length of the run, who knows... When I'm back in the office next week, and if I get some free time I may well do some measuring to see if the £3.5k+ mic can hear a difference in an anechoic chamber!) 🙂

 

[barenakedmarc]

Looking at the difference the cable has made to my set up (panasonic plasma and true HD blu ray cinema kit) i would say the sound is slightly better with this new cable, not sure the difference in ££ is worth the money. Do what hi-fi test them on £££'s equipment so the difference is glaring and has anyone got the £5 cable that is reviewed on here, if so what is the quality like.Thanks for the feedback.ps....whether or not i have purchased it has nothing to do with asking other peoples opinon on the matter.

 

[Anonymous]

The results:

Measureed, with a light meter, at every 5% point between 0-100% and on all primary and secondary colours - No difference. At all. Whatsoever. This to me is "science", it was not my judgement or perception, it was data gathered by a very sensitive light meter and appropriate software. It's not my opinion on it, but how it actually measured.

Indeed it is more scientific than the usual claims about improved/degraded quality with different hdmi cables.

My problem is that I have not seen a difference in hdmi cables so am on the side of the sceptics. However if someone like yourself can demonstrate a measurable difference then I will quite happily swap sides.

Interesting you can hear differences although not see them will have to wait to see what the mic results show.

Personally I would like to see someone build a rig to capture the hdmi output to disk using different cables and compare the results.

 

[AEJim]

The results:

Measureed, with a light meter, at every 5% point between 0-100% and on all primary and secondary colours - No difference. At all. Whatsoever. This to me is "science", it was not my judgement or perception, it was data gathered by a very sensitive light meter and appropriate software. It's not my opinion on it, but how it actually measured.

Indeed it is more scientific than the usual claims about improved/degraded quality with different hdmi cables.

My problem is that I have not seen a difference in hdmi cables so am on the side of the sceptics. However if someone like yourself can demonstrate a measurable difference then I will quite happily swap sides.

Interesting you can hear differences although not see them will have to wait to see what the mic results show.

Personally I would like to see someone build a rig to capture the hdmi output to disk using different cables and compare the results.

Yeah, I'm definitely a 50/50 kinda guy on these things, when designing speakers how they measure is important but I always prefer to use my ears in the final stages. Pretty much all of our most succesful all-time products don't really measure very well interestingly enough...

I'd just like to clarify a couple of points though - when I say I can hear the differences, I'm talking with regard to audio cables (I didn't really make that very clear!), I don't have a home cinema set-up on the plasma and my "man room" system is a projector with old Aego P5 system so a little hard to guage subtle differences in audio.

I can often tell different speaker cables fairly quickly and oddly have never liked the sound of any of the very expensive cables, they always come across a little bright and clinical to me - we use an old Crimson Audio solid-core copper design in most listening as it's been the most neutral all-round cable we've come across, it's also pretty affordable as a bonus!

My other point is that I don't want to come across as totally dismissing HDMI cable differences but the only data available to me says the two vastly different (cost & build-wise) cables I've used at home perform identically with the measurements I'm able to make. I'd expect if there was a way of measuring performance across scenes in a film with a very busy picture and dynamic audio going on then that would be fairer! Like you, I'm a skeptic - until proof shows me otherwise!*

*Edit, had to put that hyphen in there or the language filter seems to get uneasy!

 

[barenakedmarc]

see now im edging towards getting the £5 after reading this......at least the misses will be pleased