Sep 03 2007

The myth of expensive HDMI cables

Posted by Rogue as Accessories, TV, Television

There has been a great debate regarding the use of generic cables and branded cables. Look at any online forum on speakers or audiophiles and you will always find long forum threads that just deals with this subject.

The contention about this topic is simple. There is a camp that says quality cables or wires produce better results. For example, better video quality (if you use video cables) or sonic characteristics (if for example, the topic are speaker wires). The opposing camp, on the other hand, contends that there really is no significant difference. A wire is a wire and all the talk about difference sonic characteristics or better overall quality when using very expensive cables is just marketing and BS at work.

I am on the fence on this matter. On the one hand, I do have a pair of expensive speaker wires on my HiFi setup. I did notice a slight difference in the quality of audio when I used the QED Silver 25th Anniversary Edition speaker wire compared to my old pair of generic coppper speaker wire. But then, I also use cheap speaker wires that I have used for my receiver – speaker connection and I also think the sonic quality sounds good. The same goes for the video cables that I have at home.

The debate has now entered the digital video domain. HDMI cables are still expensive but moreso the branded cables that are three to four times more expensive than generic cables. But according to exhaustive research done by the people at Gizmodo, the quality of the HDMI cables used does not significantly alter quality if used over short distances. The only time expensive cables *cough” Monster Cables *cough* actually showed any improvements over the generic cable is when the cable has to run through long distances of about 30 to 50 feet.

Since only a few people use projectors (these require the long cables to run between the receiver and the projector) then using generic HDMI cables is quite okay.

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Comments (3)

3 Responses

Mr Butterscotch
17|Sep|2007

30-50 feet? That’s one long cable!
Saitir
29|Dec|2008

You missed the key point, I think.

HDMI/DVI/DisplayPort and anything else all send a digital signal.

As such, the data either gets there or it doesn’t.

Thus a cable either works or it doesn’t!

Of course, longer cables have higher resistances, more chances of defects and so on, so better quality materials should allow a signal to travel further before degrading.

In other words… if cable A works at all, then its as good as cable B. The decompression artefacts (audio or video) will be horrible if things are broken.
george
14|Dec|2009

So what must we look for when we seek an HDMI cable? Look for the cheapest price or not?

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