HDMI Cables
- Thread starter arfur
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That's a really good point about the HDMI certified cables.
Part of the problem with the cheaper cables is that they aren't very often carrying the proper HDMI logo, even some of the more expensive don't either, so I can only assume that the design hasn't been properly certified.
I found this out when I bought a 10m one from my local electronics parts place beginning with m and it was total garbage. Even though it was £60 and from a major retailer it didn't have the correct HDMI logo on it, or the packaging.
On the other hand I bought a really cheap one recently and it has the proper logo on, is well built, and works perfectly. Seems to me a safer bet to make sure it's certified.
Soldato
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There is no reason to believe anything in hi-fi will sound better with better components. I've seen no evidence that any speaker cable will sound better than a reasonably well made copper wire of sufficient thickness to carry the signal (which should cost about £1/metre). That is, no evidence other than these ridiculous what hi-fi style tests which are so flawed that they offer nothing of use to a buyer.
If people are convinced they can see/hear a difference in such cables, i'd seriously recommend going and knocking on James Randi's door.
Ok, well I kinda expected this kind of discussion and its been interesting reading the replies. I have since bought several cheap £4.99 cables and the Blu-ray player looks amazing, so then I hooked up a HDMI multi switch (so I can plug in SKY HD, Blu-Ray and 360) and was expecting a slight deterioration in image due to the box, but theres no difference... yippee
That's the type of thing I mean, as long as the cable is thick enough, and not like paperclip think bell-wire, it should be fine. I didn't actually know the going price of speaker cable, but I'd be comfortable spending £50 max on all my speaker wire for an 'entertainment' room that I'm in the process of doing up. If £1/m is sufficient, I'll save myself £30
Soldato
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Aye, thats a different story, of course the line comes down to 'well-made'. Beyond a certain capacity and cost the wire will be of sufficient quality that its not going to be riddled with defects that cause it to be heavily/slightly resistant. I paid £18 for 30m of 322 strand copper cabling and its of reasonable quality, I'm not the one to spend £30/m on cables, however over longer distances and higher current better quality cable to a certain level will benefit, as any electrician can tell you resistance over a longer length of cable increases, as does interference, however spending a reasonable amounts should prevent this. The 322 I have does have slightly thinner shielding than the more expensive stuff I bought a shorter run of from RS previously, but then I spent £1.80 p/m on that, so thats to be expected.
Basic gist being for hi-fi systems, good quality is important, however going to opposite extremes of expeeeeense or bellwire isn't a good idea either; just make sure you have cabling of a high enough quality, shielding and thickness to carry the current your cabling will be carrying with a minimum of resistance and interferance.
HDMI wise; as I said earlier, except at longer lengths where better shielding is important, bar HDMI certification to the standard relevant (I tend to go for 1.3, certified cables) theres very little between the £90 3m cable, and the £10 3m cable, bar Belkin trying to persuade you theres extra wiring to carry the audio frequencies; bulls**t...it's digital not analogue! (and yes I did used to work at the Purple Shirts and yes I DID actually choose to tell customers this sort of stuff.
@kylew; I'd say up to £2-10 p/m is really the top level of recommended expense per meter on cable, however it all comes down to what you're pairing it up with. If you're pairing £2k AVR and Floorstanders I'd recommend spending the upper limits of that money, especially for longer lengths (bar you make sure you're buying something well made), spending less and well, £2 p/m RS bought cable should be fine.
Basic gist being for hi-fi systems, good quality is important, however going to opposite extremes of expeeeeense or bellwire isn't a good idea either; just make sure you have cabling of a high enough quality, shielding and thickness to carry the current your cabling will be carrying with a minimum of resistance and interferance.
HDMI wise; as I said earlier, except at longer lengths where better shielding is important, bar HDMI certification to the standard relevant (I tend to go for 1.3, certified cables) theres very little between the £90 3m cable, and the £10 3m cable, bar Belkin trying to persuade you theres extra wiring to carry the audio frequencies; bulls**t...it's digital not analogue! (and yes I did used to work at the Purple Shirts and yes I DID actually choose to tell customers this sort of stuff.
@kylew; I'd say up to £2-10 p/m is really the top level of recommended expense per meter on cable, however it all comes down to what you're pairing it up with. If you're pairing £2k AVR and Floorstanders I'd recommend spending the upper limits of that money, especially for longer lengths (bar you make sure you're buying something well made), spending less and well, £2 p/m RS bought cable should be fine.
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Soldato
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you are going to have to expand on that. poor how? what equipement do you have connected?
KDL40V4000 Sony TV connected to a sony 350 blu ray via HDMI. Haven't purchased a AV amp yet.
I bought a cheap £10 HDMI cable from a supermarket, but am no considering a high quality AV amp and HDMI cables
It does improve if I put the sound on the TV to the voice setting, but seems a bit of a nightmare..
I bought a cheap £10 HDMI cable from a supermarket, but am no considering a high quality AV amp and HDMI cables
It does improve if I put the sound on the TV to the voice setting, but seems a bit of a nightmare..
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Soldato
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right, what is the sound output on the bluray player set to? needs to be 2 channel stereo over hdmi. try that.
the cable will not change the sound.
the cable will not change the sound.
It was set to auto, now change to 2 channel PCM so I'll see what that is like
Just to add my bit.
Brought a 2m "quality" Ross GP HDMI from Asda for £13 and had no end of problems with it. It was like the cable couldnt keep up with the signal being sent from the Samsung upscaler.
Brought a 1m Philips £20 certified 1.3 and it works a treat no problems at all.
Would I buy another £20 cable, probably not, well not if other brand cheaper ones work. Until I get another device that outputs HDMI I wont know.
Brought a 2m "quality" Ross GP HDMI from Asda for £13 and had no end of problems with it. It was like the cable couldnt keep up with the signal being sent from the Samsung upscaler.
Brought a 1m Philips £20 certified 1.3 and it works a treat no problems at all.
Would I buy another £20 cable, probably not, well not if other brand cheaper ones work. Until I get another device that outputs HDMI I wont know.
I have used multiple cables, the one that came with my PS3 was free, and the others cost about £3 from different ebay sellers. Each has been perfect and had no problems at all with 1080p over 2m.
alferret, you just seemed to have been unlucky, there will always be cables with faults out there, but all cables will have to be compliant to the relevant standards to work as a HDMI cable, so don't worry and buy 2/3 cheap cables compared to a more expensive one over a tenner, and then you will have spares
alferret, you just seemed to have been unlucky, there will always be cables with faults out there, but all cables will have to be compliant to the relevant standards to work as a HDMI cable, so don't worry and buy 2/3 cheap cables compared to a more expensive one over a tenner, and then you will have spares
I have had issues with a 10m cheap HDMI cable off ebay, bloody annoying too as it is wired through a floorspace which has had carpets put down on it.
The picture has little red lines of interferance on it, and occasionally cuts off completely for a second or two before reforming.
Then again another cheap HDMI 10m off ebay works flawlessly, it seems hit and miss
The picture has little red lines of interferance on it, and occasionally cuts off completely for a second or two before reforming.
Then again another cheap HDMI 10m off ebay works flawlessly, it seems hit and miss
Got to say I agree with that, if I'm going to all the hastle of hiding cables in walls and under floors I always use slightly better qulaity and where possible/practical put in an extra run. I've never believed in Bi-Wiring speakers but I've done it in my dining room as I'd layed double runs of cable under the floor and it seemed silly not to use them. The annoyance factor of a cable being faulty after I've plastered and carpedted etc just isn't worth the small extra cost.
As an engineering student, I thought I would clear this matter up once and for all. I’ve left most of the physics out!
*****DIGITAL IS NOT 1's AND 0's ******
This is a common misconception. We live in an analogue world where you can have a virtually infinitely small increase in anything. The concept of 1’s and 0’s is a simplification, for ease of design, calculation and engineering processes.
In reality, these 0’s and 1’s are simply arbitrary analogue voltage levels within a system. A ‘0’ is not 0Volts or else the system would actually be turned off, incredibly inefficient and slow.
As an example take a ‘digital’ signal, where the transmitted ‘0’s are 1V, and ‘1’s are 9V.
As these are ANALOUGE voltages they are prone to not only transmission interference, due to propagation and attenuation through the cable, but also to EMF interference from nearby cables/electrics etc, as with ANY OTHER CABLE. (Ever tried putting a decent oscilloscope near a mains cable? – you’ll get a AC voltage field of about 1V all around it, this induces new/changes existing voltages in nearby connectors i.e. your HDMI cable)
So on the receiving end there is always some tolerance (say anything below 2.5V = ‘0’ & anything over 7.5V = ‘1’. Any value that has suffered more interference (i.e. 2.5000001V-7.49999999V) is then sent for data correction, which is an arbitrary logic process designed by the manufacturer (BRAVIA engine™, Live Colour Creation™ etc.), these are basically combinations of seeing what the rest of the signal looks like before and after the corrupt bit, or in the immediate surrounding area of the picture (e.g. colour shade), or if in complete doubt, just making it up... yes I did say that – statistically some (if only a very, very small percentage) of your picture must be made from pure guesswork by your kit.
The reason you get certain cables with ‘better blacks’ etc is the differences in the shielding technology and implementation.
So if that hasn't confused you, in short:
A digital signal is in-fact made from analogue values! And hence is just as prone to corruption as an analogue cable. The more shielding, the better the conductors (silver is best) and the purer the copper inside (more 9’s after the 99.%), the better your cable and hence signal will be.
So getting a higher grade cable WILL improve the signal your AV system receives.
However whether you can see the difference is down to both the viewer and the kit. Bad kit = bad picture, no matter what.
Good cables can’t make your kit any better, but BAD CABLES MAKE IT MUCH WORSE.
On a different matter, Optical cables are essentially the same principal, although they don’t suffer from EMF interference. But the higher grade the glass/polymer, and the better the reflective jackets inside, the less attenuation will occur so less recovery of data is required.
Oh and if you ever have a sales person (in my case it was a ‘regional manager’ in a Panasonic store!) tell you about ‘gold plated’ optical leads, just walk out, don’t dignify him (or her) with the sale. Its a light pulse, gold plating would make the cable worse...fool.
*****DIGITAL IS NOT 1's AND 0's ******
This is a common misconception. We live in an analogue world where you can have a virtually infinitely small increase in anything. The concept of 1’s and 0’s is a simplification, for ease of design, calculation and engineering processes.
In reality, these 0’s and 1’s are simply arbitrary analogue voltage levels within a system. A ‘0’ is not 0Volts or else the system would actually be turned off, incredibly inefficient and slow.
As an example take a ‘digital’ signal, where the transmitted ‘0’s are 1V, and ‘1’s are 9V.
As these are ANALOUGE voltages they are prone to not only transmission interference, due to propagation and attenuation through the cable, but also to EMF interference from nearby cables/electrics etc, as with ANY OTHER CABLE. (Ever tried putting a decent oscilloscope near a mains cable? – you’ll get a AC voltage field of about 1V all around it, this induces new/changes existing voltages in nearby connectors i.e. your HDMI cable)
So on the receiving end there is always some tolerance (say anything below 2.5V = ‘0’ & anything over 7.5V = ‘1’. Any value that has suffered more interference (i.e. 2.5000001V-7.49999999V) is then sent for data correction, which is an arbitrary logic process designed by the manufacturer (BRAVIA engine™, Live Colour Creation™ etc.), these are basically combinations of seeing what the rest of the signal looks like before and after the corrupt bit, or in the immediate surrounding area of the picture (e.g. colour shade), or if in complete doubt, just making it up... yes I did say that – statistically some (if only a very, very small percentage) of your picture must be made from pure guesswork by your kit.
The reason you get certain cables with ‘better blacks’ etc is the differences in the shielding technology and implementation.
So if that hasn't confused you, in short:
A digital signal is in-fact made from analogue values! And hence is just as prone to corruption as an analogue cable. The more shielding, the better the conductors (silver is best) and the purer the copper inside (more 9’s after the 99.%), the better your cable and hence signal will be.
So getting a higher grade cable WILL improve the signal your AV system receives.
However whether you can see the difference is down to both the viewer and the kit. Bad kit = bad picture, no matter what.
Good cables can’t make your kit any better, but BAD CABLES MAKE IT MUCH WORSE.
On a different matter, Optical cables are essentially the same principal, although they don’t suffer from EMF interference. But the higher grade the glass/polymer, and the better the reflective jackets inside, the less attenuation will occur so less recovery of data is required.
Oh and if you ever have a sales person (in my case it was a ‘regional manager’ in a Panasonic store!) tell you about ‘gold plated’ optical leads, just walk out, don’t dignify him (or her) with the sale. Its a light pulse, gold plating would make the cable worse...fool.
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Quite technical, and Im a grease type engineer rather than a scummy sparky, so my knowledge is limited 
How on earth can the cable change the black levels, contrast etc, as from what I have read in articles and from other people in the business, it's impossible.
How on earth can the cable change the black levels, contrast etc, as from what I have read in articles and from other people in the business, it's impossible.