HDMI Cables

[Conchis]

Having made the decision to go ahead with the purchase of a blu ray player (see separate thread), I'd now appreciate some advice on what HDMI cable to buy (it's not included in the set).

I don't want to spend a lot of money on this (definitely under £20, preferably under £10, if possible) but am also mindful of the 'if you buy cheap, you buy twice' school of thought.

Any advice? I'm pretty much in a sea of ignorance where this is concerned.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Having made the decision to go ahead with the purchase of a blu ray player (see separate thread), I'd now appreciate some advice on what HDMI cable to buy (it's not included in the set).

I don't want to spend a lot of money on this (definitely under £20, preferably under £10, if possible) but am also mindful of the 'if you buy cheap, you buy twice' school of thought.

Any advice? I'm pretty much in a sea of ignorance where this is concerned.

I think you've answered your own question, but I wouldn't go over the top and spend a great deal, because the improvement is likely to be minute.

[MrGongGong]

Don't waste your money on cheap rubbish
The reviews say it all

http://www.amazon.com/AudioQuest-Diamond-52-49-Braided-Cable/product-reviews/B00IL3TZSQ/ref=cm_cr_dp_qt_hist_five?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addFiveStar&showViewpoints=0

(gives old Russ Andrews a run for his money ..... WOO WOO )

[Dave2002]

I think you've answered your own question, but I wouldn't go over the top and spend a great deal, because the improvement is likely to be minute.

I think you can easily get good ones for under £10, and indeed the cable that comes up as a number 1 seller on am.uk at present is very cheap - though I don't know how good it is.

The last cable I bought was under £7 - http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B...rch_detailpage - though that cable doesn't seem to be available any more. It, and similar and slightly similar ones I have bought, are good.

Nowadays some of the cables are very thin - whether that's a bad thing I can't say - possibly re picture quality, though they will probably have the advantage of flexibility. Some of mine have what looks like a braided outer covering and are thcker. I have one cable with a rather thick covering which is also not very flexible. The cable is good, but if you want to bend it into position you may find that difficult. Also some of the thicker, heavier and less flexible cables may put a strain on the socket if that is horizontal, and the cable falls off behind, or they may just simply fall out. Some really thick cables may just not fit easily into position with some TVs.

I also bought this pack for under £8 - http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B...ef_=sr_ph&sr=1 though I've not tried any yet. It can be useful to have cables of different lengths if you plug in different devices, and you may need an HDMI switch as well.

If you go for cheapness this seems to get some five star reviews - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wired-up-Pla...rds=hdmi+cable and is also the #1 best selller, but also read the reviews including the most helpful 1 star one - http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-revi...owViewpoints=0

[richardfinegold]

Don't waste your money on cheap rubbish
The reviews say it all

http://www.amazon.com/AudioQuest-Diamond-52-49-Braided-Cable/product-reviews/B00IL3TZSQ/ref=cm_cr_dp_qt_hist_five?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addFiveStar&showViewpoints=0

(gives old Russ Andrews a run for his money ..... WOO WOO )

13 K for an HDMI cable? The markup must be 10,000 percent. Those must be pretty looking 1s and 0s going through that wire.

[richardfinegold]

I think you can easily get good ones for under £10, and indeed the cable that comes up as a number 1 seller on am.uk at present is very cheap - though I don't know how good it is.

The last cable I bought was under £7 - http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B...rch_detailpage - though that cable doesn't seem to be available any more. It, and similar and slightly similar ones I have bought, are good.

Nowadays some of the cables are very thin - whether that's a bad thing I can't say - possibly re picture quality, though they will probably have the advantage of flexibility. Some of mine have what looks like a braided outer covering and are thcker. I have one cable with a rather thick covering which is also not very flexible. The cable is good, but if you want to bend it into position you may find that difficult. Also some of the thicker, heavier and less flexible cables may put a strain on the socket if that is horizontal, and the cable falls off behind, or they may just simply fall out. Some really thick cables may just not fit easily into position with some TVs.

I also bought this pack for under £8 - http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B...ef_=sr_ph&sr=1 though I've not tried any yet. It can be useful to have cables of different lengths if you plug in different devices, and you may need an HDMI switch as well.

If you go for cheapness this seems to get some five star reviews - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wired-up-Pla...rds=hdmi+cable and is also the #1 best selller, but also read the reviews including the most helpful 1 star one - http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-revi...owViewpoints=0

Lots of sensible recommendations there.
I checked the U.K. Amazon site, and the manufacturers that I have bought here don't seem to be available. Fundamentally, they all do the same thing, so don't worry about going cheap.

[umslopogaas]

Just spoke to my local hifi expert and he said an Audio Quest Pearl at £25 for one metre would do the job. He says dont go cheaper, you lose sound and picture quality with cheap cables.

[Bryn]

Just spoke to my local hifi expert and he said an Audio Quest Pearl at £25 for one metre would do the job. He says dont go cheaper, you lose sound and picture quality with cheap cables.

How? I very much doubt there will be any significant data loss or corruption in a 1 metre run of a reasonably copper-laden cable for considerably under £10. We are not dealing with analogue signals here. I would expect the greatest possibility of data loss/corruption to occur at the connectors, and most I have come across on 1 metre cables prices between a fiver and £10 have been well built and make secure contacts.

[Dave2002]

How? I very much doubt there will be any significant data loss or corruption in a 1 metre run of a reasonably copper-laden cable for considerably under £10. We are not dealing with analogue signals here. I would expect the greatest possibility of data loss/corruption to occur at the connectors, and most I have come across on 1 metre cables prices between a fiver and £10 have been well built and make secure contacts.

Seconded!

One word of warning though - 1 metre may not be long enough - depending on where you site the TV, where the connectors are on the back etc. With a large TV even 1.8 metres isn't always enough, and some cables which are sold with a particular length are sometimes shorter than specified. 2 metres is usually good for a large telly, while 3 metres is generally ample if you need to connect other kit (e.g connect a laptop to a TV) - though you never can tell. There might be a use for 5m or even 10m. Longer cables may be more problematic, and then some better quality cables may start to show advantages, but always beware of "WOO" and "better" quality cables - not to mention the virgins who come along with them.

Even a 10m cable can be had for not much more than £10. If you need to put a long cable under a carpet, there are some flat ones.

[Gordon]

How? I very much doubt there will be any significant data loss or corruption in a 1 metre run of a reasonably copper-laden cable for considerably under £10. We are not dealing with analogue signals here. I would expect the greatest possibility of data loss/corruption to occur at the connectors, and most I have come across on 1 metre cables prices between a fiver and £10 have been well built and make secure contacts.

Thirded!!! HDMI is digital it doesn't matter a hoot what the wire is in principle, as long as it's not bell wire, it's just twisted copper pairs, just like USB is. However if the balanced pairs are screened, as the connector set requires, with an earthed outer cover it makes a thicker cable which might be better at keeping out RF interference and crosstalk between the pairs. However there is more to HDMI than one might think so read on:

One way to cheat and make a cheap cable is to use very thin wire, leave out some of the screens or perhaps share them across the data and clock pairs. Another way is for the driver electronics to send at the bare minimum voltage and for the receiver end also to be marginal thus putting pressure on the cable. Anyway the pair is also balanced and so should have a very good immunity to hum etc. Dave's thick wire may well be fully screened but he's right that the connectors may fall out if the cable is not dressed well ie bent around tight corners.

There is a limit on the distance that HDMI will work and that is an implied part of the spec but not explicitly stated so have a read of the "Cables" section of the link below where UP TO 15 metres is suggested BUT only i f the cable is up to the right standard of construction. So a thicker wire in the pairs may be useful and in the case of long distances extenders are available to boost the signals part way. One has to assume that the HDMI driver devices at each end are well designed and to full spec appropriate to the specification. Cables are like Ethernet ones, they should be labelled according to the variant of the spec they meet [or don't].

There are variants of HDMI for different applications as there are for USB with the later variants supporting higher bit rates for HDTV - and in the future no doubt UHDTV so there needs to be care taken to separate HDMI's that link ordinary SDTVs and DVD players from HDTVs and BluRay where the transfer bit rate is very high compared to SDTV. See here for the details:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI#Version_comparison

As you will see it is not as simple as you might think because HDMI is a multi-purpose spec. To quote MrGG there is a lot of Woo around cables but for HDMI there does need to be care IF you are carrying HDTV rather than SD for example. As a rule therefore if you use a cheaper cable make sure it's as short as possible for your needs. Conversely if you need a goodly length you'd best be spending some money.

[umslopogaas]

Well, I dont know how you lose quality with cheap cables, but I trust this guy, he doesnt sell snake oil, and as Gordon says, HDMI isnt simple, so perhaps it is worth spending twenty five quid to get the best results, having spent probably several hundred on the equipment.

Arent cables to some extent analogous to water pipes? Cheap ones are analogous to using a pipe with too narrow a bore, they impede the flow. Cheap cables might, for example, slow down or choke off a sudden very loud climax, because they couldnt get the sudden surge in signal to the speakers all at once. Although, if it is a digital signal, will loud bits just be the same 0 and 1 combinations as every thing else? Dunno, technical people, is this all nonsense?

[Gordon]

Well, I dont know how you lose quality with cheap cables, but I trust this guy, he doesnt sell snake oil, and as Gordon says, HDMI isnt simple, so perhaps it is worth spending twenty five quid to get the best results, having spent probably several hundred on the equipment.

Arent cables to some extent analogous to water pipes? Cheap ones are analogous to using a pipe with too narrow a bore, they impede the flow. Cheap cables might, for example, slow down or choke off a sudden very loud climax, because they couldnt get the sudden surge in signal to the speakers all at once. Although, if it is a digital signal, will loud bits just be the same 0 and 1 combinations as every thing else? Dunno, technical people, is this all nonsense?

NO the water pipe isn't good enough! The amplitude of a stream of bits bears no relation whatever to the loudness or softness of any audio passing through them.

The performance of the cable is primarily to do with bandwidth and to retain the shape of the digital pulses as they travel along so that they can be reliably detected at the receiver end. To do that a cable needs a wide bandwidth which is related to the bit rate it is required to carry. In extremis and for HDMI one pair of wires is not enough and so several are used in parallel.

A given cable has a bandwidth determined by it's construction and by its length and the latter relationship is not linear ie twice as short is not twice the bandwidth. The Driver/Transmitter and Receiver electronics and the cable needs to be matched by design - the electronics assume certain cable performance such that eg a larger drive voltage and/or a more sensitive receiver will allow a longer cable or a less well specified one that is shorter. The bandwidth of a single twisted pair of wires also depends on the wire thickness, the conductor material and to some extent the insulation material - so silver or gold coated solid copper or a pair of bundles made up of many many thin strands [called Litz wire] will provide optimum bandwidth. So a more exotic and thus more expensive construction will provide better performance for a given length BUT beware of over specifying, good enough for the application is more relevant.

Your HiFi man said:

....dont go cheaper, you lose sound and picture quality with cheap cables.

Not strictly true and it is not automatically so. Unlike analogue systems there is no proportionality between performance/cost and quality. The sound and picture quality is embedded in the digit stream not in the cable. Provided the bits are transferred intact - see above - the cable has no impact. In the right context a cheap cable can be perfectly adequate.

[Dave2002]

As you will see it is not as simple as you might think because HDMI is a multi-purpose spec. To quote MrGG there is a lot of Woo around cables but for HDMI there does need to be care IF you are carrying HDTV rather than SD for example. As a rule therefore if you use a cheaper cable make sure it's as short as possible for your needs. Conversely if you need a goodly length you'd best be spending some money.

Good points in that one Gordon, though I still think that for fairly short lengths, with good kit at either end, that most of the cables mentioned so far should do for the Blu Ray application.

When we get on to even higher spec systems in the future I expect that distributors will try to sell us "our cables" all over again, just as music distributors have been accused (not completely fairly at times) of selling us "our music" back all over again

Some other issues take us into slightly controversial areas - not for me - but for others. That is "where to buy?" and "who to buy from?". Buying from local experts or local shops, unless they have offers, is unlikely to give the best price. Also, buying cables in places like Tesco and Sainsbury's will probably not get high quality cables either. On the other hand PC World/Currys type shops will sell good cables, but at a significant markup. For anyone who is not averse to shopping online, perhaps at that emporium which some have dubbed "the tax dodgers" it should be possible to get either a very cheap cable which may turn out to be perfectly satisfactory, or a slightly more expensive one which should be good and perfectly acceptable quality. I really don't think it's necessary to spend £25 - certainly not from online sources.

One slight caveat there - in case anyone calls me on that. We do have several hi-res video devices. One is an HD-DVD machine with some discs which I think still play, and one is a Sony Blu Ray. We hardly ever use either of those, but when we do we are aware of the higher video quality. Others are a HD Freesat and a HD Youview device which we use daily, which may not give such good quality video, though I suspect it often depends on what is being broadcast. We also have an Apple TV and an HDMI output from my Macbook. I've not compared broadcast HD with HD from media such as Blu Ray on the same programme material, though before HD broadcasting I did compare DVDs with SD broadcasts. On some material (e.g BBC Monty Don garden videos) the DVDs were better. High quality DVDs are less good than high quality Blu Rays, largely because of the resolution, though if the original material is not high quality there's not a lot to choose between them.

I gave up worrying about the cable once I'd bought several, and if I do notice problems which I suspect might be due to the cable or the HDMI switches we use, I simply swap them, or switch them out. I suspect that the difference between a good cable and a very poor one will be obvious, but that it will be very hard to tell between two good cables. Other factors, such as whether the cables bend, or whether the plugs fit into the sockets are often more important.

[mahlerei]

Ah, that old conundrum. I bought a van den Hul HDMI cable for my Denon 2012/LG setup and there was a distinct improvement in picture sharpness/solidity compared with a bog-standard one. Ditto the Furutech USB cable I use for my Mac/M-DAC; a distinct improvement in clarity, perceived 'space' and extended - but not overblown - bass. On the assumption that pricey kit uses good-quality maetrials why let the sde down with the equivalent of bell wire?

I'll get me coat...

[umslopogaas]

Gordon, I think I misrepresented my hifi man. He didnt actually say that you will automatically lose quality with cheaper cables, only that there is a risk that you might ... with which I guess you agree?

He does run a shop with a lot of very expensive (and good) equipment, so I guess he is used to customers to whom twenty five quid for a cable would not cause any raised eyebrows.