Recommendations for HDMI cables specifically for audio quality

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

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.

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).

 

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

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.

 

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.

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).