HDMI Cables - The Emperor's New Clothes

[John_Gateshead]

Recently I bought a well-known hi-fi magazine and was dismayed to see a comparative review of HDMI cables where I read rubbish like "unearths impressive levels of detail and fires out movie effects" and "it doesn't sound particularly musical or refined". These were not reviews of blu-ray players, but of cables.

I had trouble in believing my eyes at first. Surely everyone knows that these kinds of differences between all-digital cabling are impossible? Of course analogue cabling can affect audio and video reproduction quality but, with a digital cable, eiher it works or it doesn't. If the cable can't handle the bandwidth or is too low spec then yes, you might see noise or hear audio degradation, but the kinds of differences described above are completely imaginary. I know that hi-fi magazines have to keep on the right side of advertisers, but this kind of stuff - not labelled as advertising - is beyond the pale.

Then I thought that maybe I had it wrong, so I trawled around the Net and found the following link amongst others. Is there any difference between a cheap (i.e. $10 HDMI cable) and an expensive (i.e. $150 HDMI cable)? | The PS3 FAQ

If RUSirius is to be believed (and I have no reason to think he isn't) then I was right the first time. I then looked at
Do HDMI Cables Matter? — Reviews and News from Audioholics This one wasn't quite as cut and dried, but it certainly didn't support contentions like "colour reproduction isn't quite as natural" (same source as above). The gist of everything I read on the web is that there is a huge mark-up on lots of HDMI cables, and there is no convincing evidence than a cable costing £100 is any better than one costing £15. You might need a slightly more expensive cable if you're watching in 1080P (it's possible that very cheap cables can't handle the bandwidth) but, with the ultra-expensive cables, your extra money is simply paying for the "big name". Reviews that try to find fine distinctions between cables are simply ignoring the science behind digital reproduction.

The depressing conclusion is, if hi-fi journalists can come out with this rot, how can we trust them to compare an £800 CD player with one costing £900 - or even two players costing £200 each? I think I'm going to stop buying hi-fi magazines altogether and, in future, just trust my senses.

Do you agree?

[Avi]

It wasn't What HiFi? Sound and Vision was it ?

HDMI cables are a much debated subject and there is some useful guidance and objective testing here -

Long HDMI Cable Bench Tests - Monster Cable Shootout — Reviews and News from Audioholics

Plus some AVF video interviews on the subject here -

HDMI Event Part 1

AVI

[John_Gateshead]

Originally Posted by Avi

It wasn't What HiFi? Sound and Vision was it ?

I don't want to name the magazine in case they try to sue me (!) - but I'm really disappointed in them. What I failed to say was that they gave the best reviews to cables costing £70 plus, and the worst to the cheapest, which I reckon is simply "protecting the interests of advertisers".

[Avi]

Originally Posted by John_Gateshead

I don't want to name the magazine in case they try to sue me (!) - but I'm really disappointed in them. What I failed to say was that they gave the best reviews to cables costing £70 plus, and the worst to the cheapest, which I reckon is simply "protecting the interests of advertisers".

As you mentioned if they can attribute such variances in performance to a short a HDMI cable would you trust them to objectively assess the performance of any product.

AVI

[Trollslayer]

Wait for them to review £2,000 mains leads
Everything that comes out of a HDMI cable is reclocked so unless it's bad enough to cause dropped bits there's no difference.
Video decoding, room acoustics - now there are factors.

[Trollslayer]

Originally Posted by Avi

It wasn't What HiFi? Sound and Vision was it ?

HDMI cables are a much debated subject and there is some useful guidance and objective testing here -

Long HDMI Cable Bench Tests - Monster Cable Shootout — Reviews and News from Audioholics
AVI

An excellent, practical and honest review, thanks.

[Badger0-0]

The depressing conclusion is, if hi-fi journalists can come out with this rot, how can we trust them to compare an £800 CD player with one costing £900 - or even two players costing £200 each? I think I'm going to stop buying hi-fi magazines altogether and, in future, just trust my senses.

Or indeed anything at all, including analogue cables, imo.

The trouble is a hell of a lot of people 100% believe these articles and get it into there heads they can only use certain makes, usually at ridiculous prices.

Give me the likes of this forum any day.
No vested interests

So yes, I totally agree.

[Ian_S]

Wrong forum me thinks....

[namuk]

Try cheap via dear there is a difference indeed ,,(test this with your own eyes worked for me and i always thought differant , never again) the key is getting the Quality leads at a good price

[igglepiggle]

I spent hours reading all the technical and the physics makes sense - its only digital after all - albeit high speed. Interestingly I then purchased a really cheap HDMI cable and the picture quality was excellent. I couldn't get HDMI control (bravia synch on Sony) to work which bugged - I called Sony who could not understand and finally suggested another HDMI cable. I bought a QED and suddenly the HDMI control worked. The picture however I would argue is the same.

[limegreenzx]

Originally Posted by igglepiggle

I spent hours reading all the technical and the physics makes sense - its only digital after all - albeit high speed. Interestingly I then purchased a really cheap HDMI cable and the picture quality was excellent. I couldn't get HDMI control (bravia synch on Sony) to work which bugged - I called Sony who could not understand and finally suggested another HDMI cable. I bought a QED and suddenly the HDMI control worked. The picture however I would argue is the same.

If you look at the HDMI spec you will see that it actually makes sense that the Bravia sync (CEC) should fail before video and audio. The CEC data line is single ended, the TMDS (video audio) lines are differential.

[John_Gateshead]

Originally Posted by namuk

Try cheap via dear there is a difference indeed ,,(test this with your own eyes worked for me and i always thought differant , never again) the key is getting the Quality leads at a good price

I'm not saying that all cables are exactly the same. However, to claim that one all-digital cable gives "better audio imagery" or "brighter colours" than another is rather like telling us there's a Pink Elephant in the sky that looks after us all. They're entitled to believe it if they find it comforting, but I don't: in a topic that's supposed to involve science, some hi-fi journalists are behaving like adherents of a "cult" religion.