HDMI cables - Is it worth buying an expensive one?
When HDMI kit first appeared the only HDMI cable you could buy was a relatively inexpensive Molex cable. They were initially in short supply and very hard to get hold of even if you spent thousands of pounds with a retailer on a Pioneer Plasma and DVD equipped to handle HDMI.
The first quality alternative HDMI cables have arrived from Wireworld, initially the Starlight 5 and more recently the lower priced Ultraviolet 5. The obvious question our customers are asking is whether there a noticable improvement and is the extra money well spent.
To find out the answer we did a test with a Pioneer DV-868AVI-S DVD player and a Pioneer PDP-504HDE plasma screen.
The Wireworld RRP prices for a 1.0M cable are £130 for the Ultraviolet 5 and £200 for the Starlight 5. The first thing to say is that the quality for a 1.0M cable will be more or less identical and the strength of the Starlight 5 is its ability to handle longer lengths. So if you only want 1.0M then the Ultraviolet is your best bet.
So we tried out a 1.0M Molex and a 1.0M Utraviolet 5.
The first thing to say starting out with the Molex is that the quality of this kit in HDMI mode is staggering. The movie Shrek allows the kit to show its potential as the resolution and detail in the CGI generated scenes is amazing. But the other thing that grabs your attention is the way that scenes acquire a 3D depth that we have not experienced in the past.
Swapping to the Ultraviolet the improvement is subtle, but you soon start to notice that the 3D effect we mentioned becomes even more dramatic and the luminosity and lighting effects become noticably enhanced.
The improvement is not as you might expect in the resolution of images which appears to be equally good with both cables.
Changing to a conventional film the differences are less substantial but still there. It's almost as though the quality of the film itself is not high enough to really stretch what this kit is capable of.
When reviewing audio cables we have learned to try and not be too analytical and to simply think whether a product makes the experience more enyoyable. Applying this approach to the HDMI cables we would definitely say that films are more enjoyable with the Wireworld.
Cutting to the chase the ultimate question is whether the extra £100 is well spent on the Ultraviolet. Our answer on that is that the improvment is subtle but in the context of what you will have already spent on a setup like this an extra £100 is almost neither here nor there.
If it helps the person who owns the setup we were using bought one immediately!
You can find the Wireworld HDMI cables here