DH Labs great sounding cable I'm using on my OPPO.
Recommendations for HDMI cables specifically for audio quality
I want to replace the analogue cables from my OPPO Blu ray 203 to a Denon AVC X8500 with an HDMI cable and improve or equal the SQ. Suggestions would be welcome. I have checked previous posts and most of them are a few years old now and an update may be required Please and Thank you
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lol, I was just going to jump in. Make sure you get a 2 meter HDMI cable. You can get longer, but never get something under 2 meters. Basically, it comes down to: 1 - Nordost Valhalla 2 HDMI 2 - Wire World Silver Starlight 5-2 3 - Wire World Starlight 5-2 or 6 4 - Nordost Heimdall 2 5 - Wire World Ultraviolet (any generation) 6 - Neotech NEHH-4200 cryo-treated from Audio Sensibility in Canada Even though some of these cables are really old and are "certified" only for HDMI 1.4, they still outperform many newer cables. Cables I have tested and rejected: Wire World Silver Starlight 7 (and any HDMI cable using DNA Helix design). Wire World Chroma Audioquest Vodka Furutech HDMI-xv1.3 Purist Audio Design HDMI (previous generation) Transparent Audio Wire World Sphere Tributaries Titan UHDT |
Thanks I had checked the previous forum and wasn’t sure if the Wireworld 5-2 would be able to transmit 4k or 8 k. The platinum Wireworld 7 cost is half what I paid for the Denon so maybe its a bit too much for my budget. Dh Labs looks interesting and price-wise is enticing. If the Wireworld can move 4k its most probably 1st choice. My only misgiving is buying online the chance of forgeries. I purchased some table tennis rubber off Ali Express once and although it was still a good rubber at a good price, as I had been using the real thing it didn’t quite match it.I located a seller with Wireworld 5-2 2mfor about $200 US which is fine on my budget but just need to be sure the price sounds about right. |
That pricing is about right. The Starlight are typically $100 to $300. The Silver Starlight are typically $300 to $500. There isn't many up for sale used right now. The old Starlight / Silver Starlight are built with exactly the same design as the current Ultraviolet cable. The Ultraviolet is 4K certified by DPL Labs. Several of these cables should be fine at 4K. The reason these cables are so good is that they are heavy silver clad and use large 24awg conductors. The Heimdall uses 25awg and the Neotech uses 26 awg, but they are still excellent. Many cables use smaller conductors (such as 30awg in the Audioquest vodka). The sound just doesn't have as much oomph and the video is not as good. |
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. |
@agisthos The Vivilink looks interesting, but I’m surprised they only offer a 2m length. 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. Maybe they’d be open to making a shorter cable? |
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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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.
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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. |
@auxinput Excellent point, and that is what I was referencing when I thought Mapleshade should offer shorter lengths. I’m currently using a cheap 1-foot HDMI cable from Monoprice (using it just to get started with i2S) from my DDC into my DAC and DANG it sounds really good. I’m sure it can get better, but I’ll be damned if I can criticize the sound I’m getting currently. I’ve heard others say they don’t hear big differences between HDMI cables in an i2S application so maybe that has something to do with it. Thinking I’ll try a DH Labs HDMI at some point, but given what I’m hearing now I’m in no rush. |
Have you actually compared these cables side by side in your own system? I would not take the word of the manufacturer on statements like this.
Anyways, I'm happy with my cables. HDMI cables is not the only cable I have tested with, so I don't feel any need to go out and chase this Mapleshade invention.
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I will have to admit that my statements on i2s are all based on hearsay. I have not done any testing with i2s because of the restriction on cable length (it would not work in my scenario). That being said, based on my experience with S/PDIF, I would guess that larger awg solid core conductors would work better and if you can get solid-core pure silver that would perform even better as well. I see that Wire World has released a new version of their Platinum 8 HDMI cable. This may be the best result you can get for i2s (but I'm only guessing). At $800 for a 0.6 meter, it is definitely expensive, but not the most expensive cable. I have seen previous versions of the Platinum 7 HDMI cable up for sale, but those are extremely rare. Using solid core pure silver for S/PDIF (and i2s I would guess) is extremely revealing. This means that a pure silver cable -could- sound worse and make your system too bright because it now reveals flaws in other areas of the system (such as other analog cables, or switching power supplies, or certain capacitors that manufactures use, etc.). But in my audio system, an 18awg solid-core OCC silver AES/EBU digital cable presented the absolute best results (after testing around 6 different wire/connector configurations).
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I have owned all these HDMI cables I listed, plus many many others, and all 3 versions of the Vivlink, and compared them all in my system and especially on my ISF calibrated OLED tv’s, in a totally obsessive OCD manner. |