ARE YOU KIDDING?? This is NOTan objective report! Consider these quotes:

1. " I spent some time on Friday in the listening room of AudioQuest's Irvine, California's test lab and their blind AV test was eye (and ear) opening."

2. "Don't believe the hype with out a blind A-B test at a specialty AV dealer who knows the difference. "

3. "Keywords: All HDMI cables don't sound the same, HDMI cables are not all created equal, AudioQuest cables sound better than others, AudioQuest, AudioQuest Cables, Yamaha HDMI receiver, Sony BDP-S350

This comparison in a biased facility, in a biased test setup, provided by the biased provider of the alternative cable is anything but a "...blind A-B test...".

Your entitled to an opinion but don't sell it as an objective test.

CC

I've known Joe Harley (record producer for JVC music, Blue Note etc...) for more than a decade and to suggest that he cooked up a bogus demo when I saw the demo rig (a cheapie BR player, and cheapie receiver) with my own two eyes is just paranoid.

I have been selling the idea that all HDMI cables are not created equal since the inception of HDMI years ago. I use fiber optic HDMI for my projector to run FULL bandwidth 1080 over a pretty long run. Copper isn't the same.

In terms of audio - you do your own test. Go buy an AudioQuest cable at a dealer where you can return it and do a quick demo. If you don't hear anything - I would be shocked. If not - return it.

If the above article is true, it would seem to defy a law or two of physics. I believe that JREF (the James Randi Educational Foundation) is offering $1,000,000 to anyone who can replicate this type of thing in a DOUBLE blind listening test, under scientifically controlled conditions. Would be interesting to see how a double blind test - with NO ONE involved knowing which cable is being utilized as they are randomly swapped - would come out.

http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/jref-news/102-blake-withdrawls-from-pear-cable-challenge.html

It may be just me, but I don't think I would necessarily trust a test at a "specialty retail dealer" either. I don't know how any test of this type would be valid or truly unbiased when the individuals performing the test have a vested interest in the outcome.

I used to own a specialty a/v retail dealership, and it always worked out that "huge audible differences" disappeared as soon as you a) matched volume levels, and b) asked the subjects to reliably pick which cable / component was being used when they had no idea which one was playing (or when they were being switched). As a dealer, it was obvious that the most important reason to sell "designer cables" was massive profit margin. I had (and have) no problem with the idea of making a good profit, but I could not bring myslef to do so while peddling snake oil.

There is also the possibility that a cable manufacturer may deliberately add colorations to the sound by way of distorting the signal coming through the cable so that it will sound "different" (although not necessarily better) than the sound coming through the less expensive cable. I know this is actually the case with at least one cable manufacturer. Why is it the more expensive cable (or fancier designed cable) always sounds "better"? Unless you have some reference (as in the original recording played back through the original monitoring system, perhaps), there is no real objective way to state which cable actually sounds "better." For this reason I have never understood the claim that vinyl sounds "better" than CD. Unless you were able to directly compare CD or vinyl to the original source recording, how could you possibly know which sounds truer to the original? I don't know of a single test where this has been done (maybe someone could point me to one), yet that has never stopped anyone from authoritatively making the above types of comments.

"If you don't hear anything - I would be shocked. If not - return it."

That is precisely the kind of statement that prejudices a listening test - that somehow the listener "should" here a difference, and that an "expert" in the industry would be "shocked" if they did not. You don't think that kind of thing would pressure the average person to state they heard a difference even if they did not? A much more open statement would be:

"If you don't hear anything, please report that here. If you do, please do the same. In either case, please let us know the conditions of the test."

Better yet, offer to set up a truly controlled double blind test and let anyone interested try it out.

I don't see a downside to the above approaches, while I do see all kinds of issues with stating you would be "shocked" if someone did not hear the difference.

You mean to tell me that the HDMI cables I use (same ones used in recording studios) are inferior to the cables that cost more than a car? WELL! I might as well throw all of my gear in the garbage and get out of this hobby, because I will never...ever...pay that kind of money for some wires.

Completely ridiculous. The only thing shocking here is how easily you were fooled by salespeople and that you wanted to make a fool of yourself by writing about it -- either that or you are an utterly shameless shill. In either case, posting pure nonsense like this severely undermines the credibility of this website.

Considering I couldn't pry a penny from Bill Low's hands these days - how can you call me a shill? AudioQuest is in love with audiophile magazines. You know that. They never advertised on AVRev.com when I owned it and they don't advertise on HomeTheaterReview.com

So if I get no payment - how exactly am i a shill?

I did the listening. I reported my findings. Then I ordered expensive HDMI cables for my system (from another company BTW) and I couldn't be more happy.

Go do the listening yourself. Then post again.

So people can hear differences between well built shielded cables? This is ALL snake oil talk. Just like the 'cable needs to be broken in' bs. This article is a shill and shame on this site for posting it.

Unless the cable is broken or is extremely flimsy then it might have an effect. What coloration happens in a digital connection? This author spent a Friday listening and could hear voices that sounded 'more real?' We have to expose this nonsense for what it is.

This website just went down a few notches in my test of websites. How could they post this nonsense? Do they have a copy editor reading a disguised ad for the high dollar snake oil cable companies. Let them buy an ad.

'Our brains and nervous systems constitute a belief-generating machine, a system that evolved to assure not truth, logic, and reason, but survival.'

Interesting article. I have been to several of Audioquests comparison sessions (analog cables, not HDMI) and I have to say, there's nothing secretive going on. They had a simple boombox with detachable speakers, changed the speaker wires, and that's it. You either could tell a difference or you couldn't. They didn't tell you ahead of time which cable was being used, and most people said they heard a difference in favor of the AQ cables.

In those days, you had the same group of people ("if I can't tell a difference, that means there is no difference, period") saying that it's all snake oil, cables don't make a difference at all, etc. It's funny, now, that that same group of people is now saying 'well, you CAN tell with ANALOG cables, but it's impossible with DIGITAL cables'. What's changed? What's changed is that's what people read on the forums, so that's the new anti-cable talking points.

How can anyone say definitively that I, or anyone, can't tell a difference, when we say we can? And this might sound stupid, but why mention that theoretically you can't tell a difference with digital? Theoretically, all HDMI Components should be able to talk to each other, but that doesn't always work. There's a lot of theories involving electronics that just don't pan out as well in real world as they do on paper. There's so many variables that sometimes can't be accounted for.

Well, I usually don't chime in on these things because I know that there's no convincing people that are set in their ideas before even exploring them, but I know from experience that the Audioquest demo is not a rigged deal, and who are you to tell the reviewer that he didn't hear a difference?

This is weird. The way I understand the digital connection is this: the BR player breaks down the signal into 1s and 0s and sends the data to the amplifier, which turns the data into analog and sends it down to the speakers, which blast the music out.

The only job for the HDMI cable is therefore to reliably send the 1s and 0s to the next component in line. To claim that one HDMI cable sounds better than another as in this article would mean that:

a) the poorer-sounding cable is losing some 1s and 0s along the way; and that
b) it is losing specifically those bits that make the sound "more real and less compressed"!

I can understand (a), but how on earth is (b) even possible? The HDMI cable has no processor to pick and choose which particular bits to send and which to drop!

Let's look at it in terms of video rather than audio. A so-called poorer-quality cable would lose data along the way, which should logically lead to pixellation, audio pops and drop-outs. After all, that's what I've sometimes experienced with a badly-scratched DVD or corrupted digital video.

However, if what this article suggests is correct, a cheap cable would give you a flat, dull image, while a more expensive cable would produce more vibrant colours that jump out at you from the screen.

Frankly, I'm not convinced.

Hmm.

There is NO difference in the audio QUALITY over different HDMI cables. When you can produce an experiment where you take a couple hundred (or even dozen) people, one at a time, in an isolated sound-proof room, and play the exact same sample over a variety of cables, all standard HDMI, both with and without RF interference, then you can support your claims. Until then, it just makes you look like a stubborn fool who is looking for a reason to waste my money, or is trying to promote overly expensive cables.

Here's how it works.
#1. Different cables will, of course, have different levels of quality in terms of their physical durability- how well the connectors fit, how long it will hold up to being walked over, flexed, and things like that. This has nothing to do with audio quality, however.
#2. If the cable you use is HDMI then it is pure digital, and does not have any processors or circuitry that will alter the sound quality. If your cable has such items it is not actually HDMI but a proprietary type, which is a whole different ball game than what we are talking about.
#3. If the HDMI cable is standard, it will use a metal conductor, not fiber optic. Fiber optic HDMI is not really HDMI- it's two HDMI/Fiber optic converters connected with a fiber span, which adds a whole new can of worms to the story, since you have extra processing & conversion. These are usually pretty handy, since you don't have to worry about RF interference and can run them for long spans but should not be part of this discussion.
#4. The only major difference (other than durability) between any two standard HDMI cables is how well shielded they are against RF (radio frequency) interference. More expensive cables tend to have heavier shielding, but in many cases it's overkill.
#5. Here is what happens when you get interference, data loss, etc. over a HDMI cable. Since HDMI is digital, the data either ALL reaches the other end, or else it does not ALL reach the other end. Whenever you lose ANY of the data, you will hear noticeable audio issues. The best example is the jitter, garbled, robotic-sound you get on a cell phone- the sound quality that gets through is the same, but it may be choppy, echo, have drop outs, loud pops or clicks. It's the equivilent to scratching the surface of a music CD- scratches don't make the sound quality poor, they just make the playback have problems.
The tests you mention in the article could be explained by something as simple as someone opening a door, closing a window, walking past you, or simply moving around. Changes in the background noises that you normally don't notice could have drowned out part of the spectrum, etc.

I understand people want the best possible quality, but without REAL testing all you're doing is throwing good money away on the basis of some poorly conducted subjective tests.

Everybody needs to calm down, there is a scientific basis for what Jerry heard at Audioquest.
Copper cables come in 3 impedances, 28 ohms, 24 ohms, and 21 ohms. Its pretty easy to make the one with the lowest impedance sound better because there is dataloss on the higher impedances. Btw, thats why some cost more. The lower the impedance, the higher the cost.

If its a long run, over 15 feet, the impedance is too high and data will be lost along the way no matter which one you use. The solution is to use fiber optic cables and eliminate the impedance completely. HDMI is capable of delivering a one to one copy of the master tape, the best audio content in history, with no compression. However, we believe that using a copper cable defeats that purpose if the length is too long. Most of the readers here are right to be skeptical about claims made by anybody, There is usually some agenda or bias; the audio industry is as bad as any other at selling voodoo and snakeoil, perhaps worse. Its buyer beware out there so be careful.

Ciao,
Bob Rapoport
Sales Director/PureLinkav.com

Wheres all these test results/data from this 'double blind test'? Was only one fool tested? Are we to simply take the word of this guy with no data to follow it up with? What was the length of both A & B hdmi cable? Guage? Since we know an Audio Quest cable was use, what brand was the 'generic' cable? etc

Is this journalism or advertisement? LOL

While you were at Audio Quest head quarters you should of asked Joe Harley why no rebuttal to audioholics discussion on skin effect and how Audio Quest thinks it is responsible for Diode Rectification.

www.audioholics.com/education/cables/top-ten-signs-an-audio-cable-vendor-is-selling-you-snake-oil/audioquest-responds-to-top-10-snake-oil-article/?searchterm=snake%20oil

So lets get this straight. This so called 'blind test' uses a single Sony BD player? So in essence, they had to completely stop the test to switch out the cables?? (did they let you take a potty break?)

If you knew any better, your echoic memory will only last for seconds before it becomes useless.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echoic_memory)

Meaning, by the time they even had a chance to swap cables your listening comparison is null and void. You would need an ABX switcher to swap fast enough to make any believable comparison. But, since they only had one bluray player...switching on a dime was impossible.

Kudos to you Mr. Del Colliano.

(Im sure it didn't hurt Audio Quest' case to compare their cables with Radio Shack's...doh!)

I had lunch with Joe Harley when I was down in Irvine. He was the one doing the demo. I have known him since his days at JVC Music.

Re: the above comment about me "selling out" you MUST be kidding as John McEnroe would say. I couldn't get a penny out of Bill Low's hands right now with a crow bar. They just canned 9 more staff members and they think that advertising on the back page of Stereophile is the way to go. I made fun of them for that when I was there. "Hey Bill, how many more times can you sell to a 62 year old Baby Boomer audiophile that is no collecting Social Security?" Yet they keep buying in TAS and Stereophile. The good news is: I have closed Audio Research, Cary Audio, Balanced Audio Tech, Volo Cable (new, green HDMI cable company) and have a BUNCH of other hot prospects. We also have 123,000 monthly readers up 15.8 percent in JULY (when everyone in the English speaking world is on vacation and NOT thinking about HDTV or audiophile issues). Print is dead. Even Bill Low knows that.

And YES - I will close him. He has nowhere to hide.

I am ALWAYS down for a potty break.

Keep in mind I was trained in the audio demo by the BEST - Mr. Mark Levinson. I don't fall for BS.

Joe did the demo. There was say a 45 second delay for the F-ing HDMI link to reconnect (Not AudioQuest's fault). We didn't speak. We didn't play anything else. I have a degree in Music from USC and its not because I am the next Yngwie J. Malmsteen. I have done a LOT of critical listening in my day. I could hear the difference.

Give it a shot yourself. I promise you that you aren't wasting your time.

And YES - it would have been nice to have a switcher however people would say there was voodoo going on in the switcher. People treat cables like its religion. Just use your ears. If you hear a difference - its there. If not don't buy it. Its that simple. In many ways its no different than wine. If a $16 bottle of Kendall Jackson Reserve Chard tastes great to you then IT IS GREAT (I like it a lot for the $$$). If you need an Aubert or Peter Michael to get off for more like $300 a bottle then your tastes are more refined. That's all. Both are good for what they are.

OK, so Jerry's convinced there's a difference. I'd like to ask the following:

What is the role of the HDMI cable? Is it to transmit the digital data from the Blu-ray player to the amp? Or is there something more it's supposed to do?

Now, if the cable's job is indeed merely to transmit the digital data from point to point, does the Audioquest cable "enhance" the 1s and 0s somehow, making the music sound better?

If so, how on earth is that possible? It's only a cable! It has no digital decoder or processor to perform any enhancement!

If not, then the logical conclusion is that the Audioquest cable is transmitting a higher percentage of the data it is fed, and that cheaper cable is simply losing many more bits along the way. And that makes me wonder: how does the amplifier handle the lossy signal? Does it cause pops and drop-outs, amongst other anomalies we'd usually expect, or does it somehow eliminate these annoyances and make the audio less real and more compressed, to paraphrase Jerry's description? If so, let's try feeding the amp a corrupted mp3 and see (or hear) what happens.

To quote Jerry: "If you hear a difference - its there. If not don't buy it. Its that simple."

Unfortunately, we're arguing not on subjective perception here, but fact. When it comes to audio, subjectivity can be extreme. Perhaps a less controversial way to prove the difference between the HDMI cables would be to use a Blu-ray movie instead. If the claims are correct, Audioquest's cable would produce a sharper, more vibrant and better-looking image... along with more dynamic Dolby TrueHD!

I stopped reading after: "I spent some time on Friday in the listening room of AudioQuest's Irvine, California's test lab and their blind AV test was eye (and ear) opening."

....I spent some time at the Coca Cola test lab in Atlanta, Georgia and let me tell you...much better than Pepsi.

Lets define what a "blind" test is: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_test)

Single-blind describes experiments where information that could introduce bias or otherwise skew the result is withheld from the participants, but the experimenter will be in full possession of the facts.

In a single-blind experiment, the individual subjects do not know whether they are so-called "test" subjects or members of an "experimental control" group. Single-blind experimental design is used where the experimenters either must know the full facts (for example, when comparing sham to real surgery) and so the experimenters cannot themselves be blind, or where the experimenters will not introduce further bias and so the experimenters need not be blind. However, there is a risk that subjects are influenced by interaction with the researchers — known as the experimenter's bias. Single-blind trials are especially risky in psychology and social science research, where the experimenter has an expectation of what the outcome should be, and may consciously or subconsciously influence the behavior of the subject.

A classic example of a single-blind test is the "Pepsi challenge." A marketing person prepares several cups of cola labeled "A" and "B". One set of cups has Pepsi, the others have Coca-Cola. The marketing person knows which soda is in which cup but is not supposed to reveal that information to the subjects. Volunteer subjects are encouraged to try the two cups of soda and polled for which ones they prefer. The problem with a single-blind test like this is the marketing person can give (unintentional or not) subconscious cues which bias the volunteer. In addition it's possible the marketing person could prepare the separate sodas differently (more ice in one cup, push one cup in front of the volunteer, etc.) which can cause a bias. If the marketing person is employeed by the company which is producing the challenge there's always the possibility of a conflict of interests where the marketing person is aware that future income will be based on the results of the test.

...then we read statements from Jerry Del Colliano:

"I spent some time on Friday in the listening room of AudioQuest"

"Don't believe the hype with out a blind A-B test at a specialty AV dealer who knows the difference. "

"Keywords: All HDMI cables don't sound the same, HDMI cables are not all created equal, AudioQuest cables sound better than others, AudioQuest, AudioQuest Cables, Yamaha HDMI receiver, Sony BDP-S350"

"when I saw the demo rig (a cheapie BR player, and cheapie receiver) with my own two eyes"

"I had lunch with Joe Harley when I was down in Irvine. He was the one doing the demo."

Blind test?

Seriously?

Hey Jeremy -

If it makes you happy - please feel free to use crap cable.

I will use Transparent Reference.

Thank you very much.

Jerry

"If it makes you happy - please feel free to use crap cable."

Sorry Jerry but thanks to you, no more crap cable for me. I'm going out to buy myself an Audio Quest cable.

Because they're Magical. :)

(Gonna connect it to my Bose Wave music system! LOL)

Guess all those years of electrical and computer engineering classes are useless when compared to the scientific judgment of a snobbish fanboy.

I'd love to stay longer but I'm off to Redmond, WA to take part in a blind test to see if XBox 360 is better than PS3.

I think It might be difference in the audio QUALITY over different HDMI cables. HDMI is typically used to connect a high-definition device--such as an HD DVR--to an HDTV. It can handle high-definition video of up to 1080p resolution at 60 frames per second, which is the most bandwidth-intensive video format currently available. I have collected informations about all the different cable of HDMI along with prices. I am using The SCART cable to connect my Sony VTX-D800U set-box to TV. A new HDMI standard 1.4 is pretty excellent.

materiel informatique

Hi, I used to think HDMI cable were the same since it only transmited signal digitally. But this is not the case. Different HDMI cable can effect/show different sound and picture. I had been using Monster M1000 HDMI in the past two year and the picture coming through my Bluray players has been wonderful until I tried out the Audio Quest 1(2.5% silver). Both cables show excellent picture with all the details but the AQ has finer details. For examples, in King Kong(bluray) the part where they got off the ocean to the island, the rock/stones wall has different color between the two cables. The AQ shows the stones(slates like color) with darker gray like if someone has pour water onto it and its facets are so much more distintive. The M1000 showed a lighter gray like it has been out in the sun and the color has faded. Another bluray movie "Pan's Labrynth", toward the end of the movie where the stepfather shot the girl and caried his new born son into the front of a group of people, the M1000 showed what covered on his neck between the shirt colar as a thick patch of black hair, the AQ cable showed a lot of hair growing on his white skin. One thing I like the M1000 is the picture is smooth, stable like it has been captured by a stable, non moving camera whereas the AQ made me feel like I am watching a movie recorded by a stable handheld one. I don't have a sound system, only use the speakers build into my TV and again the sound from these cables are not the same. The M1000 sounded full, wide and diffused and not extended in the high frequentcy whereas the AQ has a clear, focus sound but the impact in the low notes is not as full as the M1000. The AQ give me the impression of the music and sound is in front of the TV whereas the M1000 put it behind. That is the case of the AQ with 2.5% silver. AQ HDMI-3(6.1% silver) is a different story. It provides all the qualities of the AQ 2.5% silver with stable and smooth picture. The impact and high notes of the sound on those movies are very extended. For me with what I perceive as exellent details and best color from my TV, the AQ HDMI-3 is an excellent cable and a better choice. I found very good price on ebay for these HDMI-3 cable. One doesn't have to buy it from big stores with all the markup build into the list price. In case if you wonder , I watch these movies on the Pioneer Elite 151FD and 111FD, Pioneer Bluray BD09 and Oppo83.
I really appolize for my English spelling and grammar.