HDMI cables - expensive = better?

Archangelus

Archangelus

Archangelus

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Morning, and happy new year!

Just bought a 40" sammy LCD and a panasonic BD player, and both are lovely. When I was talking to the salesman, he was trying to sell me a £90 HDMI cable, as "it is a full speed cable, and will allow the bluray player to give 12 bit colour, while the cheaper ones will only allow 8 bit colour". Sounded like bobbins to me, as I always thought that HDMI is a digital interface, so only transmits 0's and 1's, so if you've got a connection, then thats as good as it gets.

So, in short, will a £5 HDMI cable give as good a performance as a £90 cable, assuming a 2m length on both?

Cheers!
 
As long as you're keeping to short lengths then there's no difference. I paid £5 for my 3m HDMI cable for my PS3 which transfers 1080P Blu-Ray and uncompressed sound fine :).
 
Someone posted a link to a scientific study/review on HDMI cables on this forum. The upshot was that over a short distance there was no difference between the cheaper and more expensive cables. Salesmen are using them in the same way as aftercare packages, to boost the profit margin in a very cut throat market.
 
Ive got a Linx 2.4m Luxury 24k Gold Plated HDMI Cable from a retailer i cant name (quick google will show you where i got it from) for £12.99

i know its a bit expensive as some have got cables for £5, but the cable feels every bit as good if not better than the £90 ones. Its 24k gold plated and it feels like a quality item. The braiding on the cable is nice and tight and it just feels well made.

Theres no need to buy anything more expensive than this, the salesman is just talking crap. HDMI is digital, it either works or it doesnt. As long as its rated to HDMI 1.3 specification (which all will be) you'll be fine.
 
atpbx said:
There is no difference what so ever.
I think the one between my Ps3 and Telly was about £1.99.
Click to expand...

But unless youve actually tried expensive cables how can you say there is no difference ?

For every person who says there is no difference you will get another saying there is :)

This is one of those subjects that will go on and on and on.
One thing most people agree on is that if your going for a long distance get a better quality (quality not expensive) cable but for shorter lengths there "should" be no difference.

You read loads of posts on the Internet from people who claim to be able to see the difference in sharpness, colour and contrast in cables but you see as many posts shooting them down.

The only 100% way to be sure for your self is borrow a selection of HDMI cables and see if you can see the difference, alternately buy the best value one you can get and be happy with what you have.

I wouldn't personally go for the cheapest cables out there purely from a quality of materials point of view and I don't want it to fall apart after 6 months but in sure about the £10 mark would be fine.

Now id just like to add, I've got a Denon DVD player, PS3 and SkyHD all connected via HDMI and every cable I have is over the £80 mark (QED, IXOS and Cord) but id also like to add that I've not bought any of them so even though I've got expensive cables I don't class my self as the type of person who would go and buy these cables but I've never tried cheaper cables so I cant say if there would be a difference or not but common opinion would suggest there wouldn't but unless id tried it my self i wouldn't like to really comment.
 
OK, so say over a distance of 10m, is it worth plumping for a £25 cable instead of a £3.99 cable?
 
My g/f's dad came back from a popular high street store with an hdmi cable and optical audio cable, totalling over £100. Needless to say I nearly projectile vomitted in disgust, told him not to open them, take them back and get a refund.

Then I went out and bought the same cables for £5-10 each, works perfectly!

A cable sending a digital signal of on's and off's will be exactly the same from one end to the other as long as it works, as far as I'm concerned there are no other factors involved.
 
Marf said:
OK, so say over a distance of 10m, is it worth plumping for a £25 cable instead of a £3.99 cable?
Click to expand...

I have tried a cheap 10m one and it wouldn't do 1080p over it however it would do 720p OK. I spent £30 on the next cable and it worked fine with 1080p at 10m it also felt far better quality with the plugs etc. For short distances a £2-3 HDMI cable is fine however it may be better paying £5-10 for a better constructed cable with quality plugs.

If you start to do more than 10m you are better paying for the HDMI over cat 5e/6e devices works out cheaper. I run these for a 30m connection from a HTPC to a projector and these work fine, you then use another cat5/6 cable for USB and you are sorted for full control of the PC.
 
Over short distances there really isn't anything in it, for a longer run, it's worth paying a little bit more (still less than £50 or so) for a better made cable.

The reason being is that over longer runs there will be more jitter induced on the signal - the recieving end has to work harder to distinguish what are 0's and what are 1's as the signal will be mis-timed and slewed.

So although it is digital, distance and cable quality can effect performance, although it usually manifests itself as either working or not - as is the case of Dangerous Dave where 720p worked fine but 1080p didn't.
 
its a digital cable , it either works or it doesn't

premium cables just tend to be of better build quality , if thats important to anyone
 
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