Component Leads

B

BarryTra

Guest
Hi
Whats the best component lead to get and who sells them.I have a SANYO Z1 and a Limit 9900se Dvd player.Cheers
 
Do a search for VanDamme they're very reasonable - 10m for £50 approx from a coupkle of sources. 5m was £30 ish I think

If you don't want to spend that much, the same search should bring up a recent similar question where I replied. The thread start found some links to the Farnell's website and found a 3m for about £10.
 
Originally posted by GaryG
If you don't mind importing ...


www.bettercables.com/componentvideo.html

Bl***y hell, I know he said the best but I'm sure he wanted a good high quality cable at a reasonable price $530 for a 12M lead. Now you've got to be either crazy:eek: or have more money than sense to spend that on one component cable:suicide:
 
Originally posted by mandlebrot
Now you've got to be either crazy:eek: or have more money than sense to spend that on one component cable:suicide:

So you think I'm crazy then?

I'm neither crazy or rich :p

I'm Kramer :smoke:
 
Originally posted by Kramer
So you think I'm crazy then?

I'm neither crazy or rich :p

I'm Kramer :smoke:

Me thinks you were rich until you started buying these cables:devil::rotfl:
 
There is no point spending silly amounts on a component video cable. Most of the cash that you spend goes straight in the pocket of the reseller or the manufacturer.

At the end of the day, if you buy three decent 75ohm video cables from farnell, all the same length, this will function perfectly well as a component cable. If you want you can tie the three cables together at intervals to make it neater. Or you can cover it in a fancy purple cover and end up with something that will provide indistiguishable performance from the fancy expensive cables.

Don't bother wasting your money.

J
 
I've read both here and avs forums that the difference a cable makes seems more noticable on audio than video, so I doubt that an expensive cable would look any better than a middle of the road one.

I've just made three cables using some twin screened 75ohm coax cable and the 1.99 phono connectors from Maplins. The cable didn't cost me anything, but is cheap anyway, so the cost was £6.

My Philips 963sa arrived today, so I'll see how it looks and compare it with some bought cables I have lying around.

Gary.
 
Gary,

I think I made up the very same cables as you from Maplins, the cable I got is called Sharkwire. I have them connected from my 963 to the Hs10, you will be glad to know the image is superb.

Hope your 963 is ok, good luck.....

Klippie.
 
Ah Cables, cables cables....

For many years I was a big sceptic, just bought bog standard cables and thought all was well.

Then I was persuaded to listen to some performance tests with different cables, and suddenly my ears opened up. Yes there is a difference and it can be huge. So when I upgraded my system I opted for expensive cables for audio and video and the difference is massive. Sharper picture, less fuzzieness, less interference, better colour the list goes on, and the same is true for the sound.

Quick estimate on cost : Spent about £600 on cables for a full av setup, and its worth it.

I always use a simple comparison on cost btw, estimate the value for your software and ensure that the hardware costs less.

The best advice for you is o talk to a good local dealer and borrow cables for a week (they may ask for you to pay upfront with the option of returning them) and give them a whirl, ok dealers want be the lowest price, but if you want to get the best out of your system, having a good relationship with your dealer can help.

Tone
 
Errrr...no! A good dealer will let you borrow cables free of charge.

If you pay upfront and you don't like them, it puts you in a spot when returning the cables and asking for money back.
 
OK. Time to right a few wrongs here.

Expensive unbalanced audio cables sometimes give a TINY return with audio equipment over the super cheap leads that you get with the equipment. Until quite recently I was heavily into hi-fi gear and I have spent literally thousands per component and hundreds for an interconnect. You can tell tiny differences. This is a game of diminishing returns. A lot of the audiophile hi-fi game is snobbery and a lot of the gains are psychological. A lot of "audiophile" hifi gear still uses unbalanced audio for input and output. This is how "professional" it all is (in other words - it isn't). To take the point further - I can only tell tiny differences between my current Merdidian CD player costing £2000 and my other Marantz CD player which cost £400. Dimishing returns. And the effects of cable on audio are FAR more subtle.

If I'm perfectly honest, I can't tell the difference in my current system (which cost around £7000 for the amp, CD and speakers) between some mission speaker cable at £3 / metre and some audioquest speaker cable which cost a lot more.

In the world of home cinema, you aren't going to tell the difference between one digital audio cable and another. End of story. Seriously though - the digital signal coming out of the unit is going across a PCB track and up and down the legs of components. Do you think that the short length of cable you use is really going to make much difference? No. As long as it is correctly terminated and correctly matched, again - don't waste your money - this is a digital signal here. Any old 75ohm digital cable will do.

However, for a video signal, I can categorically say that if you know electronics and what to buy, you can buy three 75 ohm video cables from farnell and you will get a picture that is INDISTINGUISHABLE from any component video cable you care to mention at ANY price. The manufacturers and resellers are exploiting brand snobbery and ignorance on the part of the public to sell you stuff that you do not need.

Just as an aside - in the professional electronics industry - people very often use 50 ohm and 75ohm BNC cables from suppliers like farnell and this is to perform exacting measurement work.

I used to work at BT Research Laboratories in Martlesham Heath and we used 75 ohm BNC cables all the time to perform measurement experiments in audio and video. I would certainly never have dreamed of using the garbage cables that people buy for £120 a pop from the likes of Richer sounds of whatever. You literally are being ripped off and paying ridiculous amounts of money for fancy gold connectors (with gold on the OUTSIDE - doh! ) and fancy coloured sleeving. And besides. Phono connectors are a bad way of terminating a cable anyway. For video you want to be using a BNC.

Any "professional" cable using phono connectors on the end is nothing of the sort. Phono plugs are typically found on consumer gear. The better quality stuff will use XLR (balanced) for audio and BNC for video signals.

If this makes you feel psychologically better - then fine. But seriously - you will not see a visible difference. You will not even see a measurable difference if you connect up a signal analyser.

Don't waste your money people. You'll get a lot more enjoyment if you buy a component video cable from farnell or make one up from three 75ohm cables and spend the extra on DVDs.

John
 
Aye. Pity video BNC haven't filtered down to RPTV's and £500 DVD players.

Is it possible to change phono sockets (on a DVD players component output, and a RPTV's componen input) to BNC?
 
John_N .... How can I start to thank you, I was considering spending £120 on a QED component cable this weekend! Your post is a classic example of why these forums are so valuable. Please could you give me some further advice though?

I am running amoungst other things a Denon AVC-A1SR amp connected to a Pioneer 737 DVD Player via the S-Video socket. Would I gain any picture improvement if I used the component output instead of the S-Video.

Forgot to say that all this is being fed into a Sony VPL-HS2 Projector which is connected to the amp via a S-Video cable.

Thanks in advance for any tips.
 
Hello

Robbie Gnome:

Pleased to be of service. The cable issue annoys me frequently :)

You will see an improvement using component video rather than S-video if the DVD player is half-decent. I saw a difference with my Toshiba SD-9000 player. The difference was not subtle. The picture was far better.

S-video signals are not really good enough for a projector - you should be using component video or RGB if you can because a projector is very unforgiving of bad quality source material.

This is because the S-video standard contains signals for Chroma and Luma seperated out, thus being better than composite video - but the component video seperates out the signal still further into Red and two colour difference signals. In this way it is very similar to RGB except it uses colour difference where RGB does not.

In any case, there is less potential for interference and the picture should be noticeably better.

Nathan:

If you fancy messing around with a soldering iron and invalidating your warranty then sure you can do it - you can buy chassis mount BNC from farnell or maplin.

However an easier way is to buy a phono to BNC male adapter and use that on all your phono outputs. Then you can use BNC cables to connect them all together.

If you make sure that you buy good quality adapters and make sure they are a tight fit into the phono connector and that the mating surfaces are polished clean, you can then leave them on permanently.

John


John
 
Component is better than S-Video, especially since S-Video degrades over a few metres (Component can allow longer leads)


Go direct from your DVD player into the projector with component (three 75 ohm coaxial cables) if you can.
 
John_N,

strangely enough I decided to order some 10m rgb leads from Farnel just to see how they compared to my home made leads of the same length. The cheapo leads I was going to use aren't long enough so I can't do a back to back test with them until I move things around a bit.

Even stranger is that I work for BT and know exactly what cables you are talking about. ;)

Talking of s-video with projectors though - the s-video into my HT1000 is surprisingly good, and I may be able to improve that with some chrominance adjustment via the Philips 963 player I've just bought. Some pjs are more forgiving than others - especialy the newer models with Faroudja and DCDI.

Gary.
 
John_N

Wish I could do what you suggest but my projector only has composite or s-video. Am thinking of getting either the Sony VPL-HS10 or go mad and dip my toes into the DLP arena. The Sony has component and I suspect all DLP's have them too.

nathan_silly

Prefer using my amp to switch from input to input, makes life tidier but thanks for the tip.
 
would like to buy some component cables from farnell - but i know nothing about all the technical stuff - and their website is a tad daunting....

anyone care to find the right product code for the right sort of cable + connectors and post it - so we can all benefit??

thanks.
 
If you want pre-made Van Damme cables, here's prices from here I got some

110-272 10m 10.03
110-273 15m 11.94
110-274 20m 13.86
110-275 30m 17.70

Price for a single cables, so obviously need three. Dunno if that's reasonbly priced ?
 
Hi

If anyone wants the farnell component cables (3 x rca) I bought them but after rearranging my room - its too short. They are 1.5 metres long and are good quality.

Farnell product code 30579

For sale at £13 incl p&p.

Email if interested (I can take nochex or cheque if you like)


[e-mail address deleted. There's a for sale forum here at avforums, you'll have to post your add in there. No trading off thread though, so no e-mail addys allowed - Kramer]
 
Reply to Robbie Gnome


I have a Pioneer 737 dvd player as well and would strongly recommend upgrading from s-video to component. The Pioneer 737 outputs progressive from component cables when using NTSC (region 1 dvds) which is a good upgrade in picture quality for next to no cost.
I assume your projector takes component inputs and progressive signals so it should work well.

Best wishes
 

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