Jamz3k

I'm with Telboy, cables be it HDMI, Component or Audio make a huge difference. I should know i used to punt them and was able to show/hear the difference!

Using an three "audio" cables for component is a complete waste, I use 3 semi decent quality digital coaxial cables and the difference is there to be seen.

Same can be said for my HD-DVD player when running the basic HDMI cable it looks great, using a Ixos HDMI it looks FOOKING Superb!!!!

and i wont even start on audio cables, it makes a difference end of.

mart360

well ive narroved it down to these items.

will they suffice, or is one better than the other

or should i be looking at something else




Techlink 680083 3m Flat Cable Scart Lead Gold Plated OFC Wires CR Only £21.99 at TVCables

Profigold PGV783 3m Flat Cable Scart Lead Only £22.49 at TVCables

mart

Jamz3k

Amazon.co.uk: Thor Scart to Scart 1.5m: Electronics & Photo

Phelix Thor Scart cable, doesn't cost the end of the earth and it a great cable in my opinion

Coffin Dodger

No - Digital

Yes - Analogue.

Of course, you'd want you customers to buy the most expensive cables so yes to your ears / eyes they were the best.

This makes no sense whatsoever. Coaxial cables with phono plugs on the end are all essentially the same, there is no difference between "audio" and digital coaxial cables. Individual cables will have their own merits, i.e. better screening, conductors, connectors, good quality soldering etc. It could be argued that it would be wise to invest in better quality cables to carry a component video signal than audio as the bandwidth is higher and therefore may be more susceptible to interference. Your money is best spent on coaxial cables as follows:

Digital audio interconnect - cheapest will be fine.
Analogue audio interconnect - mid range best.
Component video interconnect - mid to high end range best.

Not sure why you think using cables designed to carry digital ("3 semi decent quality digital coaxial cables") would be good for component though. Get a proper component video cable if you want to spend the cash.

Of course it does in your eyes because you've just spent £50 on a cable when a £5 one was just as good. You have to justify it. However I can guarantee you that the 1 & 0s will be arriving at, and be decoded by, the TV in exactly the same manner be it down a cheap cable or an expensive one.

Agreed it will make a difference but the returns are ever diminishing. A lot of it is down to individual perception and the expensive cable you've bought will of course sound better than the previous one

corradoboy

I'm with CD. I used to be seriously into hi-fi, with several thousand pounds worth of quality British equipment. In those days days of analogue interconnects I fully appreciated the difference a quality cable made, spending £120 on an Audioquest Quartz Hyperlitz 3 to connect my CD to my amp, and around £100 on Cyrus bi-wired solid core speaker cable. A delicate and massively fluctuating analogue audio signal can be influenced or degraded by the cable greatly. The resistance of the wire, the shielding, the quality of the connection, everything combines to say whether the top end is bright, harsh, dull, muted, or the bottom end hollow, focussed, deep, shallow or whatever.



The peaks and troughs can be significantly altered, and with so much information being open to so much influence, the cable can and will alter the sound.

Digital on the other hand is a string of eight 1's and 0's, or on's and off's.



Whether the peak for the first '0' is a tiny amount too high, or the following '1' trough is ever-so-slightly too low, the resultant signal is identical, time after time, no matter what ! As long as their actually is a signal, it is correct, END OF DISCUSSION !!! 10011010 will be the same through a £1 Lidl HDMI cable, through a £2.80 Kenable cable, through a £10 Amazon cable or through a £90 Ixos/QED or whatever.

Keep your money for a better telly, a better AV amp or better speakers. Because the digital data read off the disc is sent unprocessed to both the TV and amp as a digital data stream, there is no real justification for an expensive player either, they are all just disc readers. As long as the laser reads the info and sends it on, the job is done, no better or worse than a cheap machine, barring error correction. When you use an analogue cable then they still have work to do and thus quality will come at a premium, but once all digital, save your money.

GC8

My digital phono lead must have cost all of 10cents to make and ship from the far East.

Ive made this arguement countless times.....

StickyMicky

FPMSL @ remembering about this chap due to this thread

YouTube - I am audiophile Part 2/7

iirc this chap blew all his equipment up due to him covering everything in toilet rolls and "ERS paper"

i think he chops some of them "vahalla" cables up as well in some videos


btw i used to use twincore mains cable to hook up my speakers "back in the day" worked like a charm

StickyMicky

his "system"

YouTube - Swedish Audiophile - Genesis

and his power cable

YouTube - This is my Valhalla power cable

now that is some ****ed up ****

mart360

Well i got to the bottom of the problem, and cured it.

however its petrol on the fire time.


The cure cost me absolutely nothing, (apart from a post on another forum)

I didn't have to replace any of the cables, or move them to new locations.

The cause of the problem was the scart lead, but not due to the quality or

type of lead. It was the composite signal being picked up by the Panel, and

bleeding through.


The fix


snip pin 19 at the Tv end of the cable.


Thats all i did , and now i have interference free sky+ recordings and no

bleed through on the tv.


So now the question is...


would a better cable have cured it?


Given that pin 19 would still be wired up.


Mart

Shark Man

Don't think it would. From my experience, I think the problem is internal on either the TV or Sky box.

As I did the exact same with our old Philips TV. The problem remained no matter what quality leads I used (unless my mates expensive leads which I borrowed were rubbish as well ).

The specific problem was when watching an AV input (say, from a Sky box), the TV's own internal analogue tuner remained active, and would still output video and audio on the Scart ouputs. Somewhere, the audio output signal ended up crossing over and going back to the audio input on the TV. The result is I could faintly hear the audio of a analogue terrestrial TV program in the background whilst watching Sky.

The cure was pretty much the same as you, I chopped off the scart connectors, and put my own on, only connecting up the signal wires that were needed.

The drawback was the scart cables were no longer Bi-directional, so had to be connected the right way round (RGB out --> RGB in. Audio out-->Audio in).