I want to by a new TV and want some advice

aliEnRIK

Marty_J wrote: »

I believe we did have this discussion last year.



Not quite.

Even assuming what he has "discovered" is true, what he needs to prove is that it makes any difference to the resulting signal. I don't know about you, but I listen to music with my ears, not test equipment.

I could prove to you that a 320 kbps mp3 is closer to the original waveform than a 256 kbps one; however, proving that anyone can reliably tell the difference between the two is quite another matter.

Given that these kind of debates have been raging for years, you'd think if they were true, someone, somewhere would have been able to show this to be so. The fact they haven't says it all to me.

Exceptional claims require exceptional proof.



What you say is curious, as he sells "directional cables", and as far as I'm aware, the current down a cable does not change depending on what way you send it down it. The electrons can't see the little arrows he draws on them and then charges extra for.

So he appears to have no problems selling things without any scientific proof to validate his claims. It makes it even more suspect when he'll measure some things but not others. clearly he's aware of some kind of scientific process; why not apply it to all his products?

He proved the 'sound' side of it uyears ago with all of the abx blind tests (Which the ABA (i think) had no interest in)
They wanted MEASURED proof. And hes has got it after spending a shed load of time and money (And only just this month published the findings)

erm. What are you implying he wont measure?

aliEnRIK

BillScarab wrote: »

The Heart Foundation are one fo the few charities who will take electrical items, including TVs. You could give them a ring and they should come and collect it. Freecycle is another option.

I'd be interested to see what difference, if any, the new HDMI cables make. Everything I've read suggests that as HDMI carries a digital signal it either works or doesn't and there's no point in buying expensive ones.

I must admit. Ive done serious digging myself on hdmi cables.
NOWEHER have I found that yet PROVES they make a difference under 2 meters in length
HOWEVER.
Distance is a factor, combined with bandwidth use. they have a definite 'cliff edge', whereby the screen starts to go all 'snowy', then it breaks up before failing alltogether.
I can only tell you my own experience (And others have had the same experience) that the Chord Silver HDMI HAS made a difference (I used the QED before that), as has a wireworld Starlight .
Another factor is 'jitter', which the twisted balanced pair are supposed to fix.
Problems are this ~
Ive known cheapie cables fail to even send 720p over 2 meters
Cheap cables are NOT guaranteed (well, expensive ones too) to be perfectly balanced (Which means jitter will effect it)
And no ones taken EMI into account

which gives us this conclusion ~
EVERY cable has a cliff edge. They vary from less than 2 meters to around 50 meters (but thats EXTREMELY high grade). Upto the point of the cliff edge the cable is inundated with errors by the time it reaches the tv. The reason being the voltage drops (Amongst other things).
Ergo, quality MUST matter on length at least. And im still looking into ABX Blind Tests which also indicate HDMIs DO make a difference well before the cliff edge (They already do to MY eyes, I just want some proof to show people )

Marty_J

Leopard wrote: »

I don't know about those £500 televisions but I'll be sure to tell you all (when I finally get them) the result of connecting some highly rated and respected HDMI leads to my new Sony HDL-52W4000 television (for which I paid £1,115 on eBay two weeks ago) in place of the £10 Tesco leads it is temporarily making do with!

What was wrong with the cables you already had? Were they HDMI cables?

aliEnRIK wrote: »

He proved the 'sound' side of it uyears ago with all of the abx blind tests (Which the ABA (i think) had no interest in)
They wanted MEASURED proof. And hes has got it after spending a shed load of time and money (And only just this month published the findings)

Do you have a link?

erm. What are you implying he wont measure?

That there's a difference in his directional cables depending on which way round they're plugged in.

Ergo, quality MUST matter on length at least. And im still looking into ABX Blind Tests which also indicate HDMIs DO make a difference well before the cliff edge (They already do to MY eyes, I just want some proof to show people )

What difference does it make in your eyes? Do cheaper cables have errors when you use them?

Berty

Good post and its the right answer in repect to the industry aliEnRIK.
I always have to laugh a little at speaker cables.
Do they make a difference before the filter or after the filter(crossover).
What difference do they make and why do speaker maufacturers worry so much about them then they use cheap horrible cable inside their units and then use lead based solder for filter components to pcb connections.
This was on another forum the other day and the response was cables made a difference to sound but no one said what difference. Was it perhaps better seperation and soundstage or lower frequencies are more refined, no one could really explain.

Marty_J

Berty wrote: »

Good post and its the right answer in repect to the industry aliEnRIK.
I always have to laugh a little at speaker cables.
Do they make a difference before the filter or after the filter(crossover).
What difference do they make and why do speaker maufacturers worry so much about them then they use cheap horrible cable inside their units and then use lead based solder for filter components to pcb connections.
This was on another forum the other day and the response was cables made a difference to sound but no one said what difference. Was it perhaps better seperation and soundstage or lower frequencies are more refined, no one could really explain.

Yes, it's quite amusing that people spend so much money on cables when the signal ends up going through the cheapest connections known to man inside their gear.

Berty

to be fair Russ has worked hard to get to where they are and his claims are no more than many and again he has the right to even if we feel they are wrong.
The British hi-fi industry has had a tough time since maybe the late 80's. Gone have the days of huge speakers and large amps and expensive turntables. Even when I showed mine at the show the amount of interest in such gear had fallen flat. Russ has survived and worked hard and fair play to them.
Most people have imported hi-fi, small fit in the room stuff now and sadly the industry was slow to catch up. Many have gone or the name has stayed but under a different group.
I got hammered on my design we produced a filter with over 20000 components and through the filter we could expand and change the soundstage and we also produced a low unit constructed from alum and round in shape and it was like nothing seen before but then wooden boxes were all you could find apart from some American design work and a german company that produced a single speaker that projected sound in a 360 arc.

Marty_J

People seem to want boombox type things for their iPods these days. Convenience takes prescience over quality. There are still stores such as Richer Sounds who are waving the flag for real hifi, but it's certainly a diminishing art.

aliEnRIK

Marty_J wrote: »

What was wrong with the cables you already had? Were they HDMI cables?



Do you have a link?



That there's a difference in his directional cables depending on which way round they're plugged in.



What difference does it make in your eyes? Do cheaper cables have errors when you use them?

Ive changed every cable in my system. More out of interest really as hifi is what love to tinker with.
I originally tried a qed hdmi from both my dvd player and my PS3
I was blown away, but then it IS digital.
Id read about quite a lot of people praising Chord Silver hdmi cables and thought id give it a go.
To be honest, its kinda hard to explain EXACTLY what the difference is. But it just seemed sharper and more 3 dimennsional somehow. Dont ask my why, im still trying to find out

The russ andrews article is an actual article in his magazine. Im currently at work so cant really go browsing fully but certainly the effect of his braided cables is 'somewhere' on his site. Possibly not got round to the effect of RFI in the amp yet though.
(So cant supply a link tonight at least)

Directional cables ~ were talking VERY hi fidelity before they come into it. Its just Russ is a perfectionist. I doubt it would matter a jot in most systems

Cheapie hdmis. They certainly suffer from jitter more and this does create actual errors.
HOWEVER, as theyre tracked one to the other then the error could be anything from a slight colour change to a completely blank pixel. Of course one blank pixel on a massive display displaying millions a minute is nothing. But then ive seen the results with my own eyes, im still looking into all this.
I can only guess what causes problems etc until we can be absolutely sure. But my guess is the cheapie cables voltage drops to a point whereby the display ciruit struggles to understand the difference between a one and a zero. Jitter as ive said creates more errors, then theres the fact the signal can reflect and effect the rest of the signal etc.
It may be a DIGITAL cable, but the cable itself behaves just like analogue and has the exact same problems. Skin effect, susceptible to EMI etc

aliEnRIK

Berty wrote: »

to be fair Russ has worked hard to get to where they are and his claims are no more than many and again he has the right to even if we feel they are wrong.
The British hi-fi industry has had a tough time since maybe the late 80's. Gone have the days of huge speakers and large amps and expensive turntables. Even when I showed mine at the show the amount of interest in such gear had fallen flat. Russ has survived and worked hard and fair play to them.
Most people have imported hi-fi, small fit in the room stuff now and sadly the industry was slow to catch up. Many have gone or the name has stayed but under a different group.
I got hammered on my design we produced a filter with over 20000 components and through the filter we could expand and change the soundstage and we also produced a low unit constructed from alum and round in shape and it was like nothing seen before but then wooden boxes were all you could find apart from some American design work and a german company that produced a single speaker that projected sound in a 360 arc.

What system you got now Berty?
What did you mean by 'I got hammered'?

Marty_J

aliEnRIK wrote: »

Ive changed every cable in my system. More out of interest really as hifi is what love to tinker with.
I originally tried a qed hdmi from both my dvd player and my PS3
I was blown away, but then it IS digital.
Id read about quite a lot of people praising Chord Silver hdmi cables and thought id give it a go.
To be honest, its kinda hard to explain EXACTLY what the difference is. But it just seemed sharper and more 3 dimennsional somehow. Dont ask my why, im still trying to find out

But errors in a digital signal are just that: errors. If there were errors in your QED cable, it would have been immediately apparent when you plugged it in. The picture would not have blown you away.

All I will say is that one's eyes are notoriously easily fooled.