HDMI Cable comparisons

When I set up my HT about a year ago, I bought four Audioquest HDMI-X cables at $100 each. Later I bought by mom/dad a TV for Christmas and bought HDMI cables from Monoprice.com after reading about them over at AVS. Out of curiousity, I swapped out the Audioquest cables in my system with the Monoprice cables and honestly couldn't tell a difference. I'm a believer that audio cables make a difference (to a point) in a quality two channel setup, but for video I would suggest that you try the Monoprice cables before you sink a wad into high priced HDMI cables. At least they would give you a point of reference if you decide to experiment. Just my two cents.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10240&cs_id=1024008&p_id=3992&seq=1&format=2

Have a look at the video story at this link. It's an investigative journalism story from a consumer affiars show.

http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/packing_the_deal/

I would conclude that there are no differences in cables in terms of data transmission. They all have to meet the HDMI standard. There would be differences in quality of construction. So a more expensive cable might have better strain relief around the connector or it may be more durable for repeated connection and disconnection. Whether that is worth the extra cost of the premium cable is your own judgment.

I have lots of premium aftermarket cables from various price ranges, and I hear the differences pretty easily. I also have three or four sets of component video cables, and in the analog video realm it's also easy to spot the differences.

But HDMI is digital. It either transmits the bits or it doesn't. It seems to me that HDMI cables would be the easiest to review and test, because you could take screen shots of signal passed through one vs. another, and it would be easy to determine if one cable had more dropouts than another, or better color saturation, or whatever. It could also be done to determine which cables work better for the longer runs, which booster links keep the signal intact over long runs, and all that jazz.

But to my knowledge no one is doing this. When you consider that there are Sound & Vision, Ultimate AVMag, The Perfect Vision, Home Theater, and others, HDMI is de rigeur for HDTV, and HDMI 1.3a-compliant cables range from $4 from PartsExpress to several hundred from AudioQuest, that it would be ripe for reviewing.

I suspect there's so little difference that the mags don't dare publish a comparison test or shootout and lose a significant amount of advertising revenue that they'll otherwise keep simply by keeping their mouths shut.

Cynical, yes. But given that you can find reviews on all manner of interconnects, speaker cables, power cords, demagnetizers, and power conditioners, why aren't there any comparison tests of HDMI cables?