Are All HDMI Cables Created Equal For Audio?

If people are happier with more expensive HDMI cables and believe they offer better performance then good for them, but as far as I'm concerned it's a perfect demonstration of observer bias, HDMI cables either work and deliver the signal or they don't, the signal is the signal, it's not possible for different cables to add or remove information.

 

I have a background in digital computers which spans over the past four decades.

An analog cable is an analog cable, period.

A digital signal along that analog cable, through the air or what ever type of medium that is used to transmit digital information, is still transmitting a digitally encoded signal, there is absolutely NOTHING analog about it, period.

If digital information could not be transmitted and faithfully received, it wouldn't be much good for anything, would it?

The reason that digital information is used in the first place is so that more information could be faithfully transmitted from one place or medium to another.

For each and every pixel on a digital TV, 4k or otherwise, there are precise bits of information that have been created and are being transmitted to that individual pixel, for each frame. The current standard of HDMI 4.1 High Speed, is sufficient to allow 4k information to be accurately transmitted at frame rates up to 30 F.P.S.

There are long strings of zero's and one's that are instructing the electronics inside of your TV, precisely, what and how to display on each individual pixel. This information is digitally encoded and not subject to the interpretation of cables from a particular exotic cable manufacturer.

Digital information do not change, while passing through a particular cable, sorry, it simply does not and never has, unless there is some kind of malfunction of the cable and bits of data become lost or otherwise corrupted.

This is not a Analog v. Digital SQ debate. It is not up for debating things which have no basic of factual information. It is not up to anyone's either subjective or objective P.O.V.

It is simply a matter of reality, nothing more.

There are posts in this thread by educated individuals, who have plainly stated reality. There are established HDMI standards.

They have been tested, proven and since HDMI is a proprietary standard. A company, must submit their cable to be tested and they will only be allowed to sell that product, if it meets the standard's for that particular level of certification.

Which, in simple terms means, what goes in one end, must emerge at the other end, unchanged.

You may have any subjective opinion as to what you see on your 4k TV, it does, however remain, your subjective opinion, nothing more.

It changes nothing about the HDMI standard and how it works.

 

That.

 

There are no zeros or ones in the physical world. If you are so sure that there are, that is an extraordinary claim that requires evidence.

OP, not sure if you are still looking to learn or if you have your mind made up, but if you or anyone else want to verify a HDMI cable meets the spec., this should help, which shows you the non zero and non one things to verify:
http://download.tek.com/document/61W_17974_6_HR_Letter_0.pdf

However, there is no theory or evidence that supports that cables meeting the spec will all sound the same for the set of all potentially connected gear on each end, there are only isolated datapoints.

 

At which point in an HDMI cable is there a non- digital audio feature from one connector to the other?

 

Of course there are no physical "zero's and ones" traveling down the wire.

In the world of digital computers, from the very beginning, there are individual bits of information, these relate as to whether a particular binary digit is turned "off", a zero, or whether that same bit is turned "on", a one. I the digital world, it is all binary arithmetic, zero's and one's, nothing more or less.

Let's stay on the same program as the rest of the world with this, shall we?

There is no analog analogy, a bit of information is either present, or it is not, there are no sine waves here.

I do hope that you are not telling the forum; that if I take three 6' HDMI certified 4.1 High Speed cables (one being the $7 Amazon and the other two "audiophile grade"), and connect them side by side and pass a few bytes of information down each one of them, Amazon, being the control, that the digital information emerging from the "audiophile" HDMI cables will be both different than the Amazon Basics cable and that they will also be different from each other (in random?) ways?

 

I have a guy I know singing the praises of fiber optic hdmi cables. An entry level set would would run me about $400 for three. Can’t see it.

 

I have a background in professional recording and listening. HDMI, USB, and SPDIF cables do sound different.

At Rocky Mountain last year, I spoke to legendary designer Gordon Rankin and he agrees with me. It was his description of the USB cable as really being an analog cable that got me thinking that way.

You can think that theoretically they should all sound the same but in practice they don't. But you are better off being open to different opinions and then experimenting with different cables. When you have experience doing that, then you will see my point of view.

 

So Gordon Rankin agrees with you in thinking HDMI cables are analog, as you wrote in post 50 of this thread (where you said 'they are, in fact, analog cables with analogue transmission characteristics')?

 

Fiber is an excellent medium, depending on the material used, plastic or glass, it can be used for very long runs with no loss of signal. It has a further benefit of not being subject any outside electrical interference.

But, remember, while you can change to many networking topologie's when transitioning from A to B, in digital, it doesn't really matter, but the HDMI ports on both the sending and receiving unit are NOT fiber optic, but are designed to have a standard HDMI connector that is "wire". If you are intending to use an optical cable, you must get an adapter at each end.

You will need this to change the HDMI "wire" signal to the optical, then on the other end, change it back to a "wire" connector.

Most folks do with a standard 6' cable, how long do you need to run your cable?

 

Yes. You have to remember that the transmission of the digital signal is analog.

 

What do you mean by "digital audio feature"?

 

I am not telling the forum that, please re-read my post.

 

It boggles my mind to think of a digital cable as being capable of affecting sound. For a digital cable to affect the sound or video image the cable would have to either (1) introduce some recurring, non-random stream of information -- a consistent pattern of altering the information -- into the data transmission, which for a passive element is essentially inconceivable, or (2) produce interference, which is undesirable. No?

 

I've heard differences between cable between these two components as well.

 

One thing you didn't mention, the dielectric coating can and does alter the signal. As we all know dielectric shielding's hold and release energy in different ways which is why even digital cables all have a slightly different sound, sorry.

 

We all get the part about dielectric coating on wire, which has an effect on the capacitance of that wire, which most certainly effects an analog signal.

In a short length of digital cable, cable being cable, still is going to have an effect on whatever signal passes through it, in the physical world that we live in.

There is no sound in a digital transmission. It is all just data, sorry...

Which is why we need to ultimately terminate the data stream at the DAC, which then turns the digital signal into an analog signal.

Either the digital data stream is there or it is not there, there is no in between.

In order for the sound signature be changed during playback, the pattern of zero's and ones must have been altered.

Are you suggesting that the digital cable somehow alters the patterns of zero's and ones? I certainly hope not?

In the digital realm 1 + 1 does not equal 2.

 

Data or not dielectric alters the signal,sorry.I suggest you do some real world listening.

 

Yeah, why go listen and learn.

 

How then does HDCP work? If data is altered, wouldn’t it trigger a fail? I honestly don’t know, but it crossed my mind when reading this thread.

 

You'll free your mind of all this completely quantifiable mumbo-jumbo once you get out into the real world and listen to some HDMI cables, you see.

 

I find a rock works much better than fancy cabling

 

I know. From £5 to £130 and several different systems. Why indeed eh?

 

Question?

So you are saying that if put a digital string in one end of the cable, that same exact digital stream will not exit the other end of the cable intact?