HDMI cable for I2S


Well, the old upgrade itch had to be scratched, and even though it's a little behind the times now, I've invested in a refurbished PS Audio PWT and a used PWD MKII for my redbook CDs. The former is currently being assessed by the folks at PS Audio because it seemed unnaturally noisy when I received it, and the DAC hasn't actually arrived yet but should be here in the next day or so. So now that I can connect the two via HDMI using the I2S protocol, I need to stir up the old question of whether I'll get any advantage by shelling out some money for a high-quality HDMI cable? There's been a lot of verbiage devoted to this debate, but I would like to hear some real-world experiences. Have any of you compared different HDMI cables in this application, and did it make any difference? Of course one can carry this to its logical extreme, but I was thinking more along the lines of Audioquest Carbon (I use the coax versions of these in my system and think they're very good) or even their very modestly-priced Pearl cable. There's a Wire World Silver Starlight 7 available here on Audiogon just now, but I just can't work out whether it would make an audible difference over a standard (read: cheap) high-speed HDMI cable. Thanks for any input you may have on this.
BTW, speaking of logical extremes: http://www.audiolab.com/audioquest-diamond-hdmi-digital-audio-video-cable-with-ethernet/?utm_medium=...

cooper52
As auxinput said, i2s is a different interface than HDMI. But an HDMI cable is used to carry the clock signal separately from the data stream. The advantage is less jitter than SPDIF, which combines all data.
Update: the PWT has been repaired and returned to me (high praise for PS Audio's customer service for how they handled this issue), and I'm currently listening via I2S through an old Monster HDMI cable I already had. Haven't really made my mind up yet about the combination of PWT/PWD hooked up this way, but the things I'm unsure about might not be the fault of the cable. I'm starting this journey at the ground floor (so to speak), awaiting a Pangea cable I ordered from AudioAdvisor. We'll see if it sounds any different. I'll give it at least a week or two before making any judgments.
I'm actually in the exact same situation as cooper52, except I'm waiting for my PWD 2 to come back. I got about a month of listening before sending it to PS Audio, to me it sounded pretty good with a cheap 1/2 meter monoprice hdmi cable. This was after using Audio Alchemy v3/v2DTI hooked up with a silver I2S cable for the past 20+ Years. I'm  back to AA dac with PWT and it sounds good, but I sure hope they get the PWD2 figured out. I did a lot of research before purchasing the ps audio dac/transport and remember reading on there forum somewhere that power cables and interconnects have a big influence on the performance. I've got the bug so I have been buying some used power cords from Shunyata and Anticable. I just found a new audioquest  vodka hdmi for about 1/3 the normal cost, unfortunately it was only in 2m version at the best price, I'm sure 1/2m would be better. I'll try and do a comparison between the mono price and aq vodka when I get my pwd2 back. Please let us know if you hear a difference between the Pangea and monster hdmi, I've always been curious about them since I think the designer has worked for quite a few hi end cable cable companies in the past?
Further update: the Pangea cable has been in the system for a while now and to be honest, I can't hear any differences between any of my various HDMI cables. Maybe doing so (if any such improvement is to be had) would require a really big step up the price ladder, but as it stands I'm not very happy with what I'm hearing. These issues will be addressed in a separate thread in the Digital section where I think that discussion would be more appropriate.