Digital interconnects - all the same?

Hamster

Hamster

Hamster

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I'm about to hook up my AV receiver and am now looking to buy cables for my system. It's a set of Quad L-ite 5.1 speakers and an Arcam AVR280 amp, a Pioneer DVD player and a Sky HD box.

I'm aware that HDMI cables all do pretty much the same thing up to a certain length but is this also the case with optical and coaxial interconnects?
Which brands would you recommend or stay clear of? (I'm not going to buy Monster btw!!)

Also, how about subwoofer cables? What would you recommend for, let's say a 2m length?

Thanks
:)
JM
 
Caged said:
All digital interconnects will perform the same - if they don't then they are broken.
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Thanks :) I did hear that a coaxial interconnect is only supposed to be used in short lengths but i don't know how true that is.

Grimley said:
+1. Have a look at Mark Grant cables for a Subwoofer connector.
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Thanks :) Would the Mark Grant Canare LV77S (£20) be better than (EDIT: (quoted wrong cable!!)) the QED Qunex P-SW Subwoofer Cable which is £12?
 
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JoeMama said:
Bizarre! Are subwoofer cables digital? Is screening not important?
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I think so but there are a lot of very vocal people who think its all 1s and 0s and works or doesn't work. If the Op is one of those people then may as well buy your cables from tescos
 
A better quality cable will have better screening and so forth so the effect of interference on jitter and slew on the clock is reduced.

As a practical matter, any cable will do and you won't notice the difference.

Just get something that feels fairly well made - ie the connectors won't break and so on when you're moving stuff around.
 
Poor quality digital cables (particularly HDMI) will have trouble handshaking and may have drop out problems.

Make sure the cable has a half decent build, no need to spend hundreds.
 
dave-lew99 said:
Just get something that feels fairly well made - ie the connectors won't break and so on when you're moving stuff around.
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This. Its worth spending slightly more than pence if only to save the hastle of constantly having to replace broken cables. Especially if you like fiddling with stuff and moving it around a lot like i do!:o
 
For digital cables go FISUAL. An audiovisual online store does them and so do a certain south american woodland ;)

Subwoofer cable, just get one that is screened well. You won't be able to tell much difference anyway.
 
-Ad- said:
For digital cables go FISUAL. An audiovisual online store does them and so do a certain south american woodland ;)

Subwoofer cable, just get one that is screened well. You won't be able to tell much difference anyway.
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+1

I have Fisual interconnects and cant fault them.
Subwoofer lead you cant go wrong with a Mark Grant
 
cram said:
If you believe all digital cables will behave the same then it doesn't matter who you get it from
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So you can see/hear a difference between different types of cable carrying digital signals then I take it? Does video you download from the internet look better with a higher quality network cable?
 
Which digital cables have ECC? I'm not sure anything apart from HDMI does.

So any transmission errors in poor cables won't be corrected. I'm not sure if that would make any difference though

sid
 
The only thing I dare add to this thread is that I would go for cables with a decent looking build quality.

That doesn't mean parting with an arm or a leg either. ;)

That's my approach to any cable for any purpose - none of my cables cost any more than £15 with the exception of my speaker cable (but that was only due to the lengths I needed).

I don't care what does what better than what as long as I am happy with the results I have. You can go absolutely bananas on cables, and some do, spending more on say an interconnect than they did for their CD player and amp combined.
 
Caged said:
So you can see/hear a difference between different types of cable carrying digital signals then I take it? Does video you download from the internet look better with a higher quality network cable?
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if i'd paid £30 for an optical cable my conscious tells me i could hear the difference ;)
 
Caged said:
So you can see/hear a difference between different types of cable carrying digital signals then I take it? Does video you download from the internet look better with a higher quality network cable?
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Sigh

I didn't actually say what I believe... I made the perfectly valid point that if you believe that all digital cables are basically the same then it doesn't matter where you buy them from. Back to your message above: I get your point but your analogy is poor. Video streamed over the internet is most certainly affected by the bandwidth available as you well know. And watching video on TV is far closer to streaming than it is to downloading.
 
Don't buy it for the fancy packaging or the slogan. Buy the cheapest one you can find with half decent good quality construction. So that you know it'll last and for that little piece of mind.

That said, £2.50 usually get me the HDMI cable i want.
 
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