Irrespective of HDMI cable I’ve used over the past few years, what’s taken my Samsung F8000 HDTV’s picture to a much higher level of sharpness, color presentation, etc., and gotten many compliments, including from the cable guys, is the Jensen VRD-1FF CATV isolator - http://www.jensen-transformers.com/product/vrd-1ff/. It installs before the cable box. |
Awhile back, I mentioned the Jensen CATV filter. I had a pair of Mapleshade Vivilink 2+ at the time and initially had problems using them with the Oppo 203. At the time, I and those on the Oppo owners forum thought it a 1.4 vs. 2.0 problem. I don’t know if firmware updates or changing cable boxes fixed it, but by the time I got them back from Mapleshade, they worked. That led me to compare them with decent store bought and Monoprice cables, and I couldn’t see a difference. That’s testament to the Jensen filter (I wouldn’t think it applies to OTA, but don’t know). That’s video only. The best audio I’ve heard from both cable TV and Oppo, both via a DirectStream dac, are the silver cables formerly sold by PS Audio. (Suggestion to Mapleshade owners: If something needs return for technical support, ignore what it says on their website and always send it through the main location, not directly to Pierre S. That way it’s recorded in their system and they feel responsible. I didn’t, and had to threaten to go to the MD Attorney General to get the main office’s full attention and my cables back from Pierre seven months later.) |
