I’m a convert after years of digital cable improvement denial

Basically the way naysayers will put it: bits are bits so if it's getting from one end to the other you'll get exactly the same picture and sound. It either works or it doesn't. So if he was getting audio and video whether the cables were older specs is irrelevant.

Disclaimer: I am a believer! Yes! give me snake oil, I can't have enough of it.

 

You misunderstand. It has nothing at all to do with being incompetent or stupid. It has to do with being a regular old human being

I get how convincing the experience can be. As I said: I've had it. It's when you really try to delve in to the issue, actually testing what would be so IF it's so, that you may have a different experience.

So you talked about increases in "sharpness, color, depth (depth presumably induced by greater contrast)."

All those are measurable, do you agree? They are adjustments people make every day of the year on a display.

Honestly: why do you think no one at all has reported seeing any difference in those parameters when calibrating displays with any number of HDMI cables?
I get my projector calibrated regularly by a professional and we've used tons of different HDMI cables as the situation required. Never once has he suggested one bit of difference
or "we'd better use X or Y cable for the best color/sharpness" etc. Why? Because as a pro calibrating displays every day in many systems, he never encounters HDMI cables making any detectable difference. Exactly as the theory tells you. (You just need to have an HDMI cable suitable to the task at hand, for instance capable of passing a 1080p or 4K signal for the length of the cable you need).

Do you have a resolution chart to display on your screen? You can download various types, e.g. here:

https://www.walvisions.com/FullFields.html

If your special cable can ACTUALLY resolve lines etc that your previous cable could not, that would be something.

Actually I'd suggest that it's the whole "How Much Does That Cable Cost?" stuff that turns people off hi-end audio. If there is anything that audiophiles get stuck with, it's how ridiculous the high end cable scam seems to obviously be to many.

Again, it has zero with being "stupid." It's like saying you are "stupid" to "fall for" all those optical illusions you can see on the net (e.g. contrast illusions). We are simply primed to sometimes interpret differences where there are none. Happens to everyone. A lot of high end cable stuff takes advantage of this fact.

(As to my being unable to sense the nuances of sound and picture, I sure hope that's not true! I've spent a lifetime as an audio and videophile, took two years to build a complex home theater room, and work in sound for film and TV!)

 

I’m a believer to the extent I’m not using an Amazon’s Choice USB printer cable, but I won’t spend more than an AudioQuest Cinnamon USB cable costs.

FWIW, the XLR interconnects in my primary system are Blue Dragon cables from Moon-Audio, my phono cable is a Cardas Iridium, and my RCA interconnects are Pangea Audio Premier SE. I used to be a BJC guy, but cables do make a difference. I became a believer when, on a whim, I ponied up for a Silver Dragon upgrade for my Sennheiser HD650. It blew my mind, and I figured, if it can make a difference for headphones, why not for interconnect cables and speaker cable?!

...and so it goes...

 

I partly agree, I would get something better than cinnamon but certainly while I find digital cables make a difference there is less value for money to be found there. That is unless you have a super set up or/and a big fat wallet. I don't have either, for that reason my main USB cables look very shabby.

 

What I spent on my XLR interconnects is about my limit. Lol...

 

This more or less sums me up. I have audioquest forest and carbon usb cables for my audio systems. It seems reasonable to spend that much on high quality cables which are better than the $1 China special free cables. For analog interconnects I got pangea and nordost blue heaven. I fully believe those made a difference.

 

Cables count - up to a point. I am not convinced megabucks cables make much (any?) difference over merely 'good' cables. But 'good' cables are a big improvement over budget cables.

Jitter on most HDMI interfaces is not caused by the cable but by the inherent design of HDMI and the lack of an independent clock for audio data. Early HDMI implementations easily had 3,000 psec of measured jitter once the audio data had been through a DAC (for reference an Oppo gets these figures to within about 20 psec, whilst the outstanding Chord Hugo 2 measures a mere 5 psec).

Different manufacturers have adopted different approaches for solving this. Pioneer and Arcam have some of the better implementations. Denon have a separate sync cable between their players and the processor.

I upgraded from an amazon Coaxial to a QED coaxial and observed very minor improvements in audio quality.

 

Was your old cable hdmi 2.1? HDMI cables have changed over the years, for 4K and hdr you need one that conforms to the 2.1 standard. Older cables might sort of work but might not and could degrade the picture too- I tried a non-2.1 cable with hdr and 4K from a few devices recently since I just upgraded my tv’s to 4K. On one tv the old cable just wouldn’t do 4K or hdr, on the other it tried but the picture and sound were definitely showing artifacting.
Long story short, make sure you’re using the right hdmi cable for what you’re trying to send over it!
Sounds like you’ve got one that works now.

 

HDMI cables simply don’t operate like other cables. Read up on TDMS before insisting HDMI cables can produce a different picture from another HDMI cable (assuming both cables are spec’d for the same version).

 

That is absolutely correct. The transmission of digital data (whether HDMI, SPDIF or USB) needs to be thought of as RF engineering, or as transmission lines with mistermination reflections; the concept that it is "just" a digital data stream is totally flawed.

 

I don't know where I stand on cables yet but here are my thoughts.

I recently tried a pair of QED speaker cables I had bought my grandmother in 2003 and to be honest, they had more detail in the mids than my thick cable I was running. I did a AB test over and over again and over again with the same song and I thought I was crazy to hear the difference. So I swapped my thick cable out with the thinner one.

When I moved from RCA to XLR cables I felt that the sound was cleaner. Apparently there is more blackness which makes you think there's more detail. Which it isn't, it's just a cleaner sound.

For HDMI I think it's important to look at usage of the old one and also if it supports the 4k current format and that it is was not an old cheap one.

I believe in cables make a difference in the sense there are badly made cables versus well made ones. And if it rocks your boat and it's bringing you joy, then it's worth it either way.

There are always people who will say nay to things. Cables or Dacs etc. If you feel / hear / see the difference then and you think it was worth the price then that's what this all about. - To be enjoyed.

Personally, I don't have the cash to spend 300 dollars on a cable though. I find it frustrating to buy a 5m USB tethering cable for 100 dollars (I'm a commercial photographer and if you think hifi gear is expensive you should check out that market where you literally have little choice). Especially when I just bought a Hi-fi rack (2nd hand) for the same exactly the same amount. So to me/for me, I'd rather get a good quality cable where its more than cheap but not in expensive bracket. - rather than the cheapest or the most expensive.

On another note, when posting in a forum, there's always going to be people who don't agree with you or have a different opinion. I think that's a healthy thing as it's part of education and having an open discussion and open mind (both sides shouldl. So I'm sure you expected this when writing up your post. Thus you can't really be offended by it either.

And besides you can't expect to change the world with one post either.

 

I went from cheap ($20) generic HDMI cables to AQ Carbons. I kept one Carbon going from my Oppo's audio out but returned the one I had for video out. It made zero difference in the video. For evidence, one needs to simply refer to the official Audio Quest site to see there is not one mention of improved video with their HDMI cables. Not a single word. That should tell you everything you need to know.

 

So is the reduced quality of the video or audio when using a cheaper/inferior cable a result of a 1 misinterpreted as a 0 or vice versa, or something else?

 

That's awesome you're so satisfied with your new cables. I've been upgrading interconnects and power cables for the past few years with varying results.
Recently, I upgraded the power cable of my CD player to an Audioquest NRG Z3 because I was astonished at the improvements it made. Cheers to you on your a/v adventure.

 

Back in 2016 I believe they got busted rigging a demo of their HDMI cables. The more expensive cables were louder and tone shaped to make them sound better than the less expensive cables. This is fraud to be sure.

 

Up and down?
More like all over the place, as their thoughts don’t follow orderly patterns

 

Agree 100%. I’ve had issues with picture degradation / instability when my BD player was upscaling to 4K that resolved with a newer, better spec HDMI cable. The upgraded cable was still an Amazon Basics one, mind, but it was the correct HDMI spec for 4K use.

 

LOL

 

I'm sorry, I misunderstood your question and I wasn't clear in my post about this when I mentioned the Forest cable, which was 4k as well . I went from one supported cable to another. I used their 4k Forest cable and while it made a difference, the Chocolate was the one that made the biggest difference. When I used "out of spec" cables, there were a ton of HDCP errors along with even worse quality.

Is that what you were looking for?

 

Yes.

 

I'm just spitballing, but I can see how that could be. If in the billions of bits that are streamed across a cable, it seems reasonable that misplaced 1s and 0s could make things sub-optimal without rendering the picture blank. It's just my own interpretation, but it mathematically and electrically seems to make sense to me.

 

yeah that can happen- data can just drop out too and not be received on the other end.
it's basically the same sort of thing you'd see with a defective cable . . .cable doesn't match the spec needed to carry the data it's being asked to handle . . . .so essentially from the perspective of the devices transferring data it IS defective.

 

My objection is always "you didn't see a difference" because it's disrespectful. And, I really wasn't posting my opinion, rather I was posting the results of what happened when I put the new cable in. There is text I could read in the picture with the better cable that was blurry with the other. It was that different and why I posted it. Because I was like you about all cable and I still am about analog cable. While I can hear differences, I can't say the more expensive is better so who knows. But, the reason I posted is that I am now 100% off the fence about HDMI cables. The cables priced and advertised as better truly made a substantial difference in the clarity of the audio and video I heard and saw when I replaced them. I still don't have an opinion about which cable characteristics are better, but I now have evidence that they produce different, and in this case, better result.

 

I mentioned this before, but it’s worth reading up on how TMDS works. The link below is not some white paper (although I’m sure there’s some available) but it at least provides an overview of it:

What is TMDS and why is it in my HDMI

 

Well once again, "I misunderstand" and need your superior intellect to correct me" You should read what you post for how condescending it actually is. I don't misunderstand anything. I'm intellectually inferior and unable to overcome my own biases as a human being and you're going to reach down and help me.