WireWorld HDMI: Starlight 6 VS Island 6

I had the Redmere HDMI cable from my Oppo BDP103 to my Marantz 8801 pre/pro. Recently I purchased the WW Starlight 6 because I was offered a trial purchase with 30 days to return. I expected to not tell a difference and honestly felt it was a waste of money to consider upgrading from the redmere.

On the video side I could tell no difference. I have a very capable 1080p projector; a Marantz VP15s1. If there was any improvement offered I believe my projector would have exhibited the difference.

On the audio side it was a different result. The bass was a bit tighter and lower, and, the top end seemed to open up a bit more. The differences were only subtle at best, but, there was still an improvement. I decided to keep it. Would the average person with low to mid-fi equipment tell a difference? I don't know. I use proceed for amplification and Aerial Acoustics speakers. My sub is a Seaton Submersive.

I would only suggest you give it a try and see what difference you can tell. I am curious what differences you can discern.

Got Redmere in yesterday.
My ht system:
Pioneer sc-79 AVR
Oppo 105
Def tech bp7000s, 8080hd center, 4 in wall 75 running full range
Cardas Neutral Ref bi wire cable

Audio test: steely dan gaucho multi channel SACD
Results similar to Jdlynch: AQ Diamonds exhibited slightly fuller mid and bass, but most noticeable was finer resolution of highs. Very evident in first track babylon sister where the wind chimes go back and forth across the rear channels and no other music is present. About 1.5 min into the song.

I listened to this section 5 times.

Although not earth shattering, the audio advantage is enough for me to keep the AQ diamond, especially since i only paid $500. I don't know if I could get the same advantage over the Redmere with lower price AQ offering.

Video testing:
Did not a b between my oppo105 , only did the test between my cable box on hd channels, since that is what I watch majority of the time. I don't believe this is full 1080p hd.

Results: Swapping Redmere for the AQ diamond brought back the same distortion I experienced with the stock cables when viewing my 70 elite LCD. So I am keeping the loaner AQ diamond for the cable box to AVR.

I think the Redmere are a great bargain for their price, and especially how easy to work with for light components. That said, with my full array, local dimming LED set, they did not perform any better video wise compared to my stock generic hdmi cables for hd cable tv.
So, unfortunately for my budget, the AQ diamonds were a significant improvement video wise and are staying.

The one caveat here is that the redmere was put in right out of the package, where as the AQs were used and fully burned in.

I will let the Windmere run in for couple days straight in my oppo and see if there is any difference in pic quality between the cable hd compared to the non burned in performance.

Could you try running direct to your Elite from both your box and then again from the Oppo and let us know? There's always gonna be losses thru an AVR, not to mention the degradation thru your generic HDMI you're running from AVR to Elite.

Fla

I will eventually try that but I suspect the issue is not the AVR - it is most likely noise on the cable box that the AQ diamond does a better job of filtering.

I am currently burning in a 1 m and 2 m redmere from the oppo to the AVR and then to the Elite. The pic looks very good with Jeff Beck blueray.

The distortion on the cable HD comes back when I swap out the AQ diamond for the Redmere, even with the Redmere 2m between the AVR and the Elite. Hence my suspicion on cable box generated noise causing the picture distortion.

I will let that go for a week and then check the redmere against the AQ Diamond from the cable box. I will also check the AQ against the Redmere from the Oppo to the AVR.
In both cases I will run the Redmere from the AVR to the Elite

After running in the redmere 1m between the Oppo and AVR and redmere 2m between the Pioneer SC-79 AVR and my 70" Elite, I swapped out the redmere's for AQ diamond between the Oppo to AVR and AQ Diamond 2m between the AVR to Elite TV.

Oppo Sound quality w AQ Diamond on SACD continues to beat the redmere per my earlier comparison. Slight but noticeable. Not worth the price delta in lower price systems but since I got the AQ cable at 50% off, I'm keeping the AQ diamond.

The bigger surprise was the picture quality improvement when swapping out the AQ Diamond 2m for the redmere between the AVR and Elite TV. Colors were richer and blacks were improved. Not as major a difference as the noise reduction with the AQ between cable box and AVR, but noticeable enough on my Elite TV that I'm keeping the AQ diamond.

While the Redmere is a really good value, it didn't clean up a noisy signal like the AQ Diamond did in my system.

Redmere is a really good value for long runs like for a projector but I would highly recommend the AQ diamond for high end systems between sources and AV processor.