Recommendations for HDMI cables specifically for audio quality

@soix I agree and wished they did a 1m. I asked them multiple times about this and they insisted they will only do 2m.

But according to @auxinput he says to not get under 2m, and he seems to have done a lot of testing of these cables.

I’ve been off this site for about 11 months because I kind of got "forum burned out", but I got a email reference that included my name. lol.

That being said, anytime somebody says something like this, I have to bite my tongue on my response.

The Mapleshade Vivlink v3 Plus will leave almost all competing HDMI cables in the dust for only $240 USD. Look up who the engineer was that designed it.

I did review the specs on this cable and the cable looks really thin, plus I read this in the specs: "Substantially thinner gauge wire digital data signal conductors". I have tested a LOT of different HDMI cables and any cable that uses thin conductors just does not perform as good as the cabled that use the larger awg conductors.

Can you expound on the WW Silver Starlight 7 HDMI ? How did you implement this cable in your system? Audio playback or Video playback? I am enjoying the WW Silver Starlight 5.2 for BR/DVD playback only.

I test all my HDMI cables between my Oppo bluray player (with linear power supply) and a Krell S1200U upgraded. This tests both audio and video quality from bluray and dvd media sources. I also test PCM over HDMI using high res music files streamed from my Jriver media server.

I put the "Silver Starlight 7" in my rejected list because, while it performed pretty good, I did detect some video noise in the image. The audio was also adequate, but not superb. Overall, it performed about equal to the cry-treated Neotech NEHH-4200, but was significantly more expensive. The Neotech was going for about $110 per 2 meter compared to something like $400 for the Silver Starlight 7.

On another note, the very old Silver Starlight 5-2 is one of the hidden gems of the HDMI cable world because it was the ONLY HDMI cable that was produced using OCC copper (it’s also solid-core and silver-clad as well). They are rare, but do come up for sale very now and again in the $150-300 range. This cable still beats a most of the current model cables.

But according to @auxinput he says to not get under 2m, and he seems to have done a lot of testing of these cables.

In testing HDMI cables using HDMI audio/video sources as well as PCM-over-HDMI source, anything less than 2 meter will have some reduction of resolution in both audio quality and video images. The audio will lose some of its high frequency response/resolution and video will not be as sharp.

Using a slightly longer 3 or 5 meter cable will also perform just fine.

That being said, if you are using an HDMI cable as an i2s digital connection between a streamer/player and a DAC using the i2s interface, then it is definitely recommended to use the shortest cable possible (like 1 meter or even 0.5 meter). This is because the i2s interface was not designed for long runs.

With normal HDMI sources, the HDMI transmitter chips definitely send a much hotter signal so you are more prone to getting signal reflections back from shorter cables.

It’s well know it’s best to keep HDMI cables as short as possible because the technology wasn’t designed for distance and the signal degrades quickly the longer the length.

This is true to a point. It is why the much longer cables are either large awg (like 24 awg) or have some sort of signal booster chip on the receiving end. In actuality, a non-active "4K" HDMI cable cannot typically be longer than 5 meter. Anything longer than 5 meter requires some sort of active signal booster chip to compensate for the signal loss. However, when you are looking at cables in the 2-3 meter range, you really won’t have any problems.

NEW COUNTRY HEARD FROM

About 11 months ago I tested the WW Platinum 7 HDMI cable for the first time. This cable is also supremely excellent, to the point that it ties for first place. I have hard time deciding which is better (Platinum 7 or Nordost Valhalla).

That being said, anytime somebody says something like this, I have to bite my tongue on my response.

@auxinput

Continue biting your tongue! The Mapleshade cable is not like the Nordost or Wireworld, where things get better simply due to larger gauge wires.

It just a different topology and type of cable. Its WAY better than the Blue Heaven & Heimdall 2, and the Wireworld Starlight and Platinum Starlight, and a host of ’Brits’ HDMI cables I had, i.e CHORD, QED. Atlas e.t.c

Suspend your bias about wire gauge and try it out. Its certainly cheap enough. Designed by Pierre Sprey, AKA father of the F-16 Falcon and A10 Thunderbolt.

The Mapleshade Vivlink 3 Plus is also the only HDMI cable to bring what I consider a noticeable improvement in video quality (even on gaming consoles, not just blu-ray), something that is non-existent or very subtle in other high end HDMI cables. But opening that pandoras box is a troll fest, lets talk about audio performance, and consider gains on the video side, if any, are just a bonus.