I was wrong about HDMI cables!

You are 100% right, this thread is just me admitting I have switched sides on the argument. Also, so I don't sound like a hypocrite later on for those that know me

I won't comment on whether it's a con or not. The OP is obviously happy with his £40 purchase, this is all that matters. One size never fits all.

I had mentioned this some time back now and was completely over looked. 

I have had many HDMI cables, enough to start my own shop and i have found alot of the cheaper cables to be very much the same and i've had a couple that have failed after a short period, i have also noticed now i have a plasma the cheaper cables are less shielded. 

I also had a chord silver HDMI cable and the first thing i noticed was the sound was a massive improvement and that was just with standard TV speakers so i would love to hear a propper surround sound systems difference, though i cannot comment see any difference on picture quality there might of been if i had looked for it but in this case i could not.

 hi all,i have had a chord active silver cable for some years,and i agree it is much better than the cheap cables,that you get out of the box,when i bought mine some years ago it was £95 ,i have always been trying to get the best out my tv and dvd player so tryed to take up notch and bought myself a silver starlight hdmi cable from wireworld which cost me £300 pounds,i swaped the cables back and forth to see which was the best for sound and picture and there was no question in my mind that the chord was better,so it's not always about the price.i have always believed that when you pay a lot of money on your home cinema, that a five pound lead out of a box is going to get the best out of your system.i think we before we knock something high or low price,lets give it a chance before we pan it.i dont wish to cause a fight it's just my view,when i first started out with my hi-fi and home cinema i was a non beliver of high priced cables ,but i was prepared to give it a go to see for my self.cheers david  

I'm glad more people are posting about their experience and confirming for the rest what I'm trying to point out. The cable brings something else to the equation and sound quality is a marked improvement.

I would never suggest we all start spending £300 on cables (unless analogue) because for that money you could buy a power amp and REALLY see a huge difference.  For the price and what this cable has given me its a nice improvement. 

I had been testing out a more expensive HDMI cable over the past few months, and I'd recently put my normal one back in (Chord Active Silver Plus). I had meant to try a few familiar Blurays but didn't get round to it last week. Now too much time has passed, so I think I'll need to loan it again...

I was recently talking to Audioquest and they tell me they won't willing.y use any 'active' components in their HDMI cables as their testing found that it actually degraded quality. I haven't been into the details of this yet, but I'm just passing that on for those who are interested. If I recall correctly, Audioquest are working on longer cable runs that won't need an active component in order for it to work properly.

I was at the sound as vision show today and picked up a three Atlas HDMI cables (Atlas Hyper High-speed HDMI). The original RRP was £90 /£80 and having checked online, you can now pick up the 2m ones I bought for £54 from a number of shops. I paid £20 for 2 metre cable and £15 each for the 1.5 metre versions.Now given that I'm going to connect the cables to more than £3000 worth of AV equipment, not including my speakers, if the cables make little or no improvement isn't going to lose me any sleep.(I haven't connected them yet). I think that is the main point - given the amount of money many peope spend on AV equipment, a 'reasonable' outlay on something that may improve picture quality or sound seems a worthwhile enterprise, even though many people would disagree.Thereore, i think the cables were worth the punt at the price I paid.

We'll done duaplex for giving the new cables a go and writing about your findings even though you probably knew some people would try to ridicule your statement. I'm sure my new cables will give the 1s and 0s the kick they need   ...oops

You can argue that the more expensive your AV system is, the better it is in performance. It is then less likely for cables to bring significant improvements.

FWIW, I've spent £6500 on my AV equipment (including installation but excluding furniture), & I haven't noticed any improvements with expensive HDMI cables (QED Profile & Chord Active, along with £5 ThatCable).

I posted heavily years ago about how the chord active made a big difference to sound and picture, people shun you.

i recently upgraded my system and needed longer HDMI runs -I put a cheap and nasty freeby in for a few days between virgin and direct to the Kuro - the least links in the chain so the best way possible and my mrs the first night commented on how bad the picture was, what had I done to it, it's all blurry!  She was unaware of any physical changes.  I couldn't stand the picture with the cheap HDMI it was terrible and all I had changed was the HDMI.

i bought the newer chord active with the blue plug tested against the older with the black plug and there is a difference between them 2.  Not huge but better motion and better areas or shadow detail in scenes with the blue plug. 

There is a clear difference is sound as well between the chord active and el cheapo and others.  I have tested it against the WHF award winner Audioquest Pearl that I own as well and there are big differences

OK here’s a question:

Let us say that HDMI certified cables are measured to less than 1-bit per billion.

I am *assuming* that this is measured under the most flattering conditions possible for the cable (i.e. virtually no interference) as the manufacturer wants the certification.

Does a cable that had exactly a 1-bit per billion error rate, have exactly the same error rate when stuffed under the hi-fi rack, curled up and crossing several power cables, a power block, speaker cables and interconnects many many times over in very close proximity as most of us stuff the cables out of site.

I’m not sure how interference effects the signal of a HDMI cable, but it is likely that it will increase the error rates *another assumption*. *If* true then better insolation / booster chips etc may make a difference for some people, *if* their system is revealing enough *and* there are issues of interference.

This is more a question than a statement.

http://www.bluejeanscable.com/articles/certified-hdmi-cables.htm

I don't know how up to date that information is, but it seems to mean that any certified product may not in fact be individually certified, certainly at longer lengths 

Thing is, though, individual and random errors in data are just that, they aren't richer colours, deeper bass, an increased top end or whatever else was claimed. You see them in blocking / sparklies when they get too much. At most, one can imagine a single pixel during a single frame may be unpredictably the wrong colour. But none of the stuff that is claimed about these digital cables. 

What Ben said.

Maybe you should spend £40 on a USB cable and see if your digital camera photos look better too?? 

Asyncronous USB is said to improve sound. I've not tested this at all myself so I'm on the fence, but it sounds reasonable to me that a cleaner digital signal would produce better results. I just don't know about picture.

I do really wonder, how much of this is enviornemnt specific...you should see the underside of my rack...it's a mess They don't move an inch either because I had to lift the rack up (40kg including kit), then drop it down on the cables to make it fit If there is cable interference, then it is in abundance under there. Fortunately I have a rubbish HD ready plasma which isn't revealing in the least, so if there is a problem...