![]() It seems the engineers at AudioQuest have figured out a way to do some advantageous digital signal processing on the data stream during the transmission. Curiously, it doesn’t have the sharp corner at 17500 Hz. In other words, it’s much louder (by as much as 10 dB!) than the baseline or inexpensive HDMI cable. The AudioQuest “Pearl” model starts at the same amplitude at the low frequencies but at around 2000 Hz it doesn’t have the same roll off as the generic cable. It shows a continuous attenuation as the frequencies increase with a sharp corner at about 17500 Hz. Note the red line on the plot, which shows the spectra of the “baseline” generic cable. I haven’t posted a spectragraph for a number of months so let me briefly describe what the producers of this video did with each music sample. Take a look at the plot that I created from the Adobe tool:įigure 1 – The spectra of the tune played in the AudioQuest promotional video on YouTube. I downloaded the video and extracted the soundtrack to a 96 kHz/24-bit WAV file, which I opened in Adobe Audition to get a peek at the spectra and amplitudes of the music clips. Well, it turns out it’s not possible…no real surprise. This goes against everything I know as an engineer. Somehow the digital information was changed to include higher frequencies, louder amplitudes, and smoother equalization. But in this remarkable video, the fidelity of the sound was improved with each new cable. If the cable meets their specs, then it’s capable of accurately passing the digital ones and zeros from the source to the destination. These are digital cables designed and manufactured to meet a rigid set of standards set out by the people behind the HDMI specification. He was talking up the “fidelity” produced by a short HDMI cable. As the the price of the cables increased, so did the fidelity of the playback. MONSTER CABLE SOUNDSTAGE VS MONSTER CABLE STREAMCAST FULLThe AudioQuest HDMI cables were much clearer, detailed, full fidelity, and louder. ![]() Each successive cable type…Pearl, Forest, and Chocolate…is described in glowing terms and then the tune is played.Īnd I can attest to the fact that each cable sounded better than the last one…even through my desktop computer audio system! The generic cable was dull, lifeless, lacked high-frequencies, and was much quieter than the others. ![]() He starts by describing a “generic” HDMI cable…the baseline…and then plays the tune as it sounds through that cable. This marketing video would probably not have caught my eye or made it to several audiophile groups that I belong to except that it includes short excerpts from a song following the discussion of each cable. ![]() wires with lots of strands, about the directionality of cables (apparently they listen to them in both directions and pick the one that “sounds” the best), and the different materials that they use to make the cables (copper or silver). According to the AQ website they make lots of different HDMI models, including the “Diamond” that will set you back $1000. He tries to make the case for three different models of AudioQuest HDMA cables ranging in price from $25 to $200 (for one meter). The 6 minute video is presented by David Ellington, who is apparently a member of the AudioQuest marketing team. It purports to demonstrate that different qualities of their cables can improve…even dramatically improve…the fidelity of your music. If you pay attention to any of the usual audiophile sites or FB pages, you’ve probably seen the Youtube video by Home Entertainment by D-Tronics that promotes several different AudioQuest HDMI cables. ![]()
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