Tried a £70 HDMI cable

Stanleh said:
I am pretty sure I am going to get mocked and called a idiot and all sorts of names but I know what I saw and this has been a fairly one sided thread so far.

First off

I tried swapping a normal free nasty hdmi cable with a qed HDMI-P on a sony 1080p lcd the one that all the mags including what hifi said was the best lcd out at the time. I can go and get the model number if anyone really cares.
This made virtually no difference to the picture what so ever, the sound was maybe a bit better but it could have also just been a bit louder.

Now here is the bit that will get me flamed

I have a award winning pioneer 426xde plasma hooked up to a pioneer lx70a bluray player both of which are fed into a isotek sigmas.
Now using a free hdmi cable I still got a good picture however replacing with the chord 1.3 hmdi cable did the following.
It drastically reduced the digital noise and also removed any grain. It also gave me better detail and depth of field and slightly smother motion, there were other improvements as well however it is nearly six am and I really cannot remember them.
Now it wasn't just me who seen this improvement and I even done blind tests and picked the chord as the better cable. It really was a nice improvement, I am not lying and I have nothing to gain by saying this other than to likely get mocked by a lot of people.

My opinion is that you have to have a high enough quality source and screen to notice the difference as my sony is not even in the same league as the pioneer. Sadly I just don‘t think the ps3 as good as it is, is a good enough source to say for a fact that hdmi cables are identical after all its just a console, I mention the ps3 as I bet that is the bluray player most people in here use. Even then I think not only is not everyone going to display the difference but not everyone is going to be able to see it either.
I will say I know several other people who have bought this cable for their pioneer plasma tv's and found a improvement, although I am not sure if they done a blind test or not.
I do know that one of them didn't tell his wife he had done anything to the tv, she came in and said what have you done to the tv as the picture is just leaping off the screen. He is not the sort of guy to make something like this up.

This is my passion and I have spent the past ten years indulging it, and I am the first to say when something I have bought was a piece of crap or was just not worth the money. The Xbox 360 hd-dvd drive being one, I have seen far better performance off of a dvd player, it had horrible motion, the black levels were bad, it had no detail and don‘t get me started on the sound quality or the volume of the console when running, just the biggest waste of cash I have spent in a while even though I only paid £50 for it.

I think this like upgraded power cables will always be a hot bed of debate, I also think upgraded power cables give HUGE improvements in quality in certain systems as well, having just got a award winning [hifi choice, not those muppets what hifi, although they liked it as well] Russ Andrews power cable. It was one of the biggest improvements to my stereo setup I have used since I bought a pair of grado gs1000's.

I understand the logic that says it will either not work or be perfect, but as is the way of the world lots of things go against what the logic should be. Like flying, or why a medication works or any number of things. In the end I have to go with what I myself have seen and experienced for is that not what life is about ?

I am not saying that you are all blind or idiots, I am just saying it took me quite some time to realise what I was looking at and what I was looking for and even then I have seen that it makes no difference at all on some screens.
I am also not saying that cheap hdmi cables are all rubbish, I am just saying that on my Pioneer tv I did notice a difference although I did not on my Sony Lcd.
Click to expand...

Have you ever heard of the placebo affect?
 
Stanleh said:
I am pretty sure I am going to get mocked and called a idiot and all sorts of names but I know what I saw and this has been a fairly one sided thread so far.

First off

I tried swapping a normal free nasty hdmi cable with a qed HDMI-P on a sony 1080p lcd the one that all the mags including what hifi said was the best lcd out at the time. I can go and get the model number if anyone really cares.
This made virtually no difference to the picture what so ever, the sound was maybe a bit better but it could have also just been a bit louder.

Now here is the bit that will get me flamed

I have a award winning pioneer 426xde plasma hooked up to a pioneer lx70a bluray player both of which are fed into a isotek sigmas.
Now using a free hdmi cable I still got a good picture however replacing with the chord 1.3 hmdi cable did the following.
It drastically reduced the digital noise and also removed any grain. It also gave me better detail and depth of field and slightly smother motion, there were other improvements as well however it is nearly six am and I really cannot remember them.
Now it wasn't just me who seen this improvement and I even done blind tests and picked the chord as the better cable. It really was a nice improvement, I am not lying and I have nothing to gain by saying this other than to likely get mocked by a lot of people.

My opinion is that you have to have a high enough quality source and screen to notice the difference as my sony is not even in the same league as the pioneer. Sadly I just don‘t think the ps3 as good as it is, is a good enough source to say for a fact that hdmi cables are identical after all its just a console, I mention the ps3 as I bet that is the bluray player most people in here use. Even then I think not only is not everyone going to display the difference but not everyone is going to be able to see it either.
I will say I know several other people who have bought this cable for their pioneer plasma tv's and found a improvement, although I am not sure if they done a blind test or not.
I do know that one of them didn't tell his wife he had done anything to the tv, she came in and said what have you done to the tv as the picture is just leaping off the screen. He is not the sort of guy to make something like this up.

This is my passion and I have spent the past ten years indulging it, and I am the first to say when something I have bought was a piece of crap or was just not worth the money. The Xbox 360 hd-dvd drive being one, I have seen far better performance off of a dvd player, it had horrible motion, the black levels were bad, it had no detail and don‘t get me started on the sound quality or the volume of the console when running, just the biggest waste of cash I have spent in a while even though I only paid £50 for it.

I think this like upgraded power cables will always be a hot bed of debate, I also think upgraded power cables give HUGE improvements in quality in certain systems as well, having just got a award winning [hifi choice, not those muppets what hifi, although they liked it as well] Russ Andrews power cable. It was one of the biggest improvements to my stereo setup I have used since I bought a pair of grado gs1000's.

I understand the logic that says it will either not work or be perfect, but as is the way of the world lots of things go against what the logic should be. Like flying, or why a medication works or any number of things. In the end I have to go with what I myself have seen and experienced for is that not what life is about ?

I am not saying that you are all blind or idiots, I am just saying it took me quite some time to realise what I was looking at and what I was looking for and even then I have seen that it makes no difference at all on some screens.
I am also not saying that cheap hdmi cables are all rubbish, I am just saying that on my Pioneer tv I did notice a difference although I did not on my Sony Lcd.
Click to expand...

Just about everything in that post is all wrong.

oli, I'd say it's more like taking strong medication rather than a placebo.
 
Stanleh said:
I am pretty sure I am going to get mocked and called a idiot and all sorts of names but I know what I saw and this has been a fairly one sided thread so far.

First off

I tried swapping a normal free nasty hdmi cable with a qed HDMI-P on a sony 1080p lcd the one that all the mags including what hifi said was the best lcd out at the time. I can go and get the model number if anyone really cares.
This made virtually no difference to the picture what so ever, the sound was maybe a bit better but it could have also just been a bit louder.

Now here is the bit that will get me flamed

I have a award winning pioneer 426xde plasma hooked up to a pioneer lx70a bluray player both of which are fed into a isotek sigmas.
Now using a free hdmi cable I still got a good picture however replacing with the chord 1.3 hmdi cable did the following.
It drastically reduced the digital noise and also removed any grain. It also gave me better detail and depth of field and slightly smother motion, there were other improvements as well however it is nearly six am and I really cannot remember them.
Now it wasn't just me who seen this improvement and I even done blind tests and picked the chord as the better cable. It really was a nice improvement, I am not lying and I have nothing to gain by saying this other than to likely get mocked by a lot of people.

My opinion is that you have to have a high enough quality source and screen to notice the difference as my sony is not even in the same league as the pioneer. Sadly I just don‘t think the ps3 as good as it is, is a good enough source to say for a fact that hdmi cables are identical after all its just a console, I mention the ps3 as I bet that is the bluray player most people in here use. Even then I think not only is not everyone going to display the difference but not everyone is going to be able to see it either.
I will say I know several other people who have bought this cable for their pioneer plasma tv's and found a improvement, although I am not sure if they done a blind test or not.
I do know that one of them didn't tell his wife he had done anything to the tv, she came in and said what have you done to the tv as the picture is just leaping off the screen. He is not the sort of guy to make something like this up.

This is my passion and I have spent the past ten years indulging it, and I am the first to say when something I have bought was a piece of crap or was just not worth the money. The Xbox 360 hd-dvd drive being one, I have seen far better performance off of a dvd player, it had horrible motion, the black levels were bad, it had no detail and don‘t get me started on the sound quality or the volume of the console when running, just the biggest waste of cash I have spent in a while even though I only paid £50 for it.

I think this like upgraded power cables will always be a hot bed of debate, I also think upgraded power cables give HUGE improvements in quality in certain systems as well, having just got a award winning [hifi choice, not those muppets what hifi, although they liked it as well] Russ Andrews power cable. It was one of the biggest improvements to my stereo setup I have used since I bought a pair of grado gs1000's.

I understand the logic that says it will either not work or be perfect, but as is the way of the world lots of things go against what the logic should be. Like flying, or why a medication works or any number of things. In the end I have to go with what I myself have seen and experienced for is that not what life is about ?

I am not saying that you are all blind or idiots, I am just saying it took me quite some time to realise what I was looking at and what I was looking for and even then I have seen that it makes no difference at all on some screens.
I am also not saying that cheap hdmi cables are all rubbish, I am just saying that on my Pioneer tv I did notice a difference although I did not on my Sony Lcd.
Click to expand...


If 'upgrading' your cable removed grain from your blu-rays then the picture is actually worse as you are losing detail from the original film stock.
 
I changed a HDMI cable and it changed my life! The picture was better, my wife loved me again, and my kids excelled at school. At only $500, why not see what it can do for YOU?
 
Beansprout said:
I changed a HDMI cable and it changed my life! The picture was better, my wife loved me again, and my kids excelled at school. At only $500, why not see what it can do for YOU?
Click to expand...

:D:D:D

There is no alteration to a picture from a better HDMI cable, unless the first one was having problems getting the whole signal there and you were seeing real problems.

Reducing grain, next you will start saying that it alters colours and somehow sharpens the image. I really think you should forget about all this cabling **** and spend the money on better equipment instead, then spend additional time actually enjoying it instead of trying useless tweaks that only have a perceived effect when they actually do nothing at all.
 
badbob said:
How do these look?

http://www.russandrews.com/product....&customer_id=PAA2289089308222WFYVFPBCIEVKJDCQ

http://www.russandrews.com/product....&customer_id=PAA2289089308222WFYVFPBCIEVKJDCQ

http://www.russandrews.com/product....&customer_id=PAA2289089308222WFYVFPBCIEVKJDCQ
Click to expand...

:D:D

Improved XYZ with cable for £1800.... HHAAHA NO !!!

Improvement from £1800 on new source,amp speakers... .HELL YES !!

Oli, with you on this one, need to be in the business plenty of people out there willing to spend money on cables that cost probably 1000x less in parts and assembly :D
 
I must admit i cannot see the point in ultra expensive cables, for either digital or analogue signals. However, sound quality and IQ are all subjective - if you are looking to improve your picture quality and if buying an £1800 cable makes you think that the picture is better (whether it is or isnt), then i dont see the harm. Although, £1800 is a bit much...
 
Of course how silly me of me, its clearly a placebo effect IN A BLIND TEST !!!!

Clearly you all have your opinions already formed and nothing will change these, how dare I post my opinions I deserve to get mocked.

Last time I post on these forums as they are no headfi or avforums.....
 
Surely these power cables are only as good as the quality of the wall socket and the socket in the appliance.... if they are poor your not going to get any benefit.
 
That is true, however mine is used on a isotek sigma which cleans the power so I get a true improvement.
It still depends a lot on the quality of the power in your house though, if you have zero issues with your power supply then you may well find you have very little quality improvement.

To those who say high quality power cables CANNOT make a difference, have any of you actually tried them on a decent setup ?????
 
Filtering the incoming mains I can see the benefit in but surely theres more losses, noise etc introduced at connections than in a single piece of cable so don't see the point in an upgraded cable..... and yes have tried them on my stereo system and wasn't impressed.
 
Stanleh said:
Of course how silly me of me, its clearly a placebo effect IN A BLIND TEST !!!!

Clearly you all have your opinions already formed and nothing will change these, how dare I post my opinions I deserve to get mocked.

Last time I post on these forums as they are no headfi or avforums.....
Click to expand...
Hangon, I thought you were posting fact? ;)

A digital cable is a digital cable. You don't see uber-shielded, gold-plated networking cables, do you? That's because, er, nobody would buy them.
 
As I said upgraded cables make the best benefit when used in conjunction with a filtering product like the sigmas, I have noticed differences without but no where near as vast.

Using a filtering device with standard free kettle cables seems a little silly to me as any of the improvements you would get are then mitigated by the quality of the cables.
 
Stanleh said:
As I said upgraded cables make the best benefit when used in conjunction with a filtering product like the sigmas, I have noticed differences without but no where near as vast.

Using a filtering device with standard free kettle cables seems a little silly to me as any of the improvements you would get are then mitigated by the quality of the cables.
Click to expand...

ITS DIGITAL !!!!

Say the data been sent across it is
1 0 1 1 1 0

£££XPENSIVE CABLE would send
0.9, 0.1, 0.9, 0.9, 0.9, 0.1

CHEAPO CABLE might send
0.8, 0.2, 0.8, 0.8, 0.8, 0.2

TV would round up both cables as
1 0 1 1 1 0


Get it yet??
ITS ALL THE SAME !!
 
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I don't really want to even begin disecting your post and all the terrible forms of persuasive arguing you're using. Comparing different speaker cables to established medical science in an attempt to make the average person thinking "oh yes, I agree, complex stuff, yes", honestly I think you'd be better off running pyramid schemes selling these things.

If you think swapping a digital cable with another digital cable makes any difference whatsoever, then I'll do the same with my ethernet cable in order to make the text on my emails appear crisper. Then eat my power supply. But if you're happy, and I'm happy, ultimately that's all that matters :D

Edit: I should say that yes, over longer distances and higher data transmission rates, a higher quality cable does give you an improved signal. That's why there are standards, to ensure that the cable can carry the data. But if a cable meets the standard...that's it!
 
Johnnytoxic said:
ITS DIGITAL !!!!

Say the data been sent across it is
1 0 1 1 1 0

£££XPENSIVE CABLE would send
0.9, 0.1, 0.9, 0.9, 0.9, 0.1

CHEAPO CABLE might send
0.8, 0.2, 0.8, 0.8, 0.8, 0.2

TV would round up both cables as
1 0 1 1 1 0


Get it yet??

ITS ALL THE SAME !!
Click to expand...

There are no 1,s or 0,s being sent down a cable. Binary is a language used for programming the 1,s and 0,s are turned into electrical signals used to switch a device either on or off. There are no 1,s or 0,s running through computers cables or anything digital.. There is a voltage. Also in binary there is no such thing as 0.8 or 0.9 this would be a value and would technicaly be analogue not digital in binary there is only either a 1 or a 0 its either all there or not.

Digital cables are subject to interference as passing down the cable is a voltage. The only cables not subject to interference are optical cables as these use light. I work in the aircraft industry and we spend hundreds of thousands of pounds shielding our digital data bus cables from interference. This is the principle of high quality cables such as monster and the likes, Whether this would show any difference in a home setup is negliable, but it can have huge consequences in what i do...
 
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MOOGLEYS said:
There are no 1,s or 0,s being sent down a cable. Binary is a language used for programming the 1,s and 0,s are turned into electrical signals used to switch a device either on or off. There are no 1,s or 0,s running through computers cables or anything digital.. There is a voltage. Also in binary there is no such thing as 0.8 or 0.9 this would be a value and would technicaly be analogue not digital in binary there is only either a 1 or a 0.
Click to expand...

Heres a tip.

Don't take everything literally, I was trying to explain in simple terms for the guy.
 
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