PC's Shunyata HDMI Cable review...
 

I've had my Shunyata HDMI cables for over a week now, so I thought I would post a review of my impressions of them.

First things first. Like all Shunayta products, the the Venom HDI cables have superb build quality and fit 'n finish. A very nice touch are the metal appointments near the HDMI connectors. The metal appointments provide a luxury feel in contrast to the plastic plugs that are ubiquitous on HDMI cables in this price class.

I ordered two 1 meter pairs, and in addition to being beautifully made, the cables are very flexible and easy to dress, unlike my previous reference, which are ridiculously stiff and difficult to dress.

I compared the Shunyata Venom HDMI cables to the Audioquest Carbon and the Monster M1000 cables using three different video sources: My DirecTV set top box, my Apple TV and my Oppo BDP-83SE Blu-Ray player. The television is a new 46" Samsung UN46F6350 with LED backlighting and 240 Hz scan rate. I just bought it a few weeks ago, and was very pleasantly surprised just how much better it looks than my older Samsung LCD backlit TV from 2008. LED TVs have become just astonishingly good over the last five years. :eek:

I should also mention that the TV and Oppo use Shunyata Venom 3 power cords plugged into a Shunyata Hydra 8 power distributor. Using these Shunyata power cords and distributors alone make for very notable improvement in video and audio quality for a home theatre system; you can literally see the improvements. I'm using a Venom3 Source with an el cheapo IEC/C7 adapter for the TV until Shunyata puts out a C7-based power cord.

Using my reference Monster M1000 and the DirecTV set top box with a 1080p source, the set looks just gorgeous, excellent detail, very natural color rendition and black levels. Substituting in the Audioquest Carbon, I see a slight improvement in detail, color saturation, and deeper blacks, but nothing that is really earth-shaking. Switching out the AQ Carbon for the Venom HDMI, there is a similar degree of improvement over the AQ Carbon that the Carbon provided over the Monster cable. Slight increase in detail, color saturation and accuracy, and slightly deeper blacks.

Switching to my Apple TV and going through the same order of cables (Monster, AQ Carbon, and Shunyata Venom HDMI), the improvements are the same in degree and kind to that realized on the set-top box: slight improvements in detail, color accuracy and saturation, and deeper blacks, with the Carbon slightly better than the Monster and Shunyata slightly better than the Carbon. The difference are visible, but again, not what I would term as dramatic.

Now we get to the Oppo and a Blu-Ray source. The test disc is the first Transformers movie, which has a superb digital transfer. The Monster, just as I've known for the last five years, looks gorgeous. Nothing like Blu-Ray to bring the best out of HD TV. Switching in the Audioquest Carbon, I see a somewhat larger improvement in detail, color saturation and accuracy and black point over the Monster than with the set top box. Clearly the increased resolution is eliciting a more visible difference between the cables.

Now for the Shunyata Venom HDMI. To quote Will Smith in Men in Black, "That's what I'm talkin' about!" :thumbsup: The improvement over the Carbon is immediately noticeable. Again, improvements in detail, color, and black point, but also in contrast, "clarity" and "dimensionality"...at times the video looks 3-dimensional. Surfaces and textures that your eye didn't notice before are apparent, and it's like you're looking outside directly, rather than out a window, as if a slight haze or veil has been lifted. Once again, the superior source shows more clearly the improvements the better cable brings.

Like with most Shunyata products, one quickly becomes acclimated to the improvements, they bring so much naturalness to the reproduction of music or video that you don't think about what they are doing once you have used them for a while. The big test is when you take them out and go back to the original cables...the degradation in performance is then very noticeable.

Lastly, I should mention that the Venom HDMI, at $95 for a 1 meter cable, was the least expensive evaluated. The Monster M1000 cost $160 five years ago, and the Audioquest Carbon cable is $204 for a 1.5 meter cable. Once again, the Venom series cables provide a superb value proposition.

In summary, the Venom HDMIs get a :thumbsup: from me, and are staying in the system. And, I have to order one more, for the Apple TV! ;)

Does the Oppo cable go straight to the TV? My Oppo goes to my pre/pro which then goes to the TV via another HDMI cable. That cable is 5 meters, which is longer than what Shunyata offers. However, a 1 meter Shunyata from the Oppo to the pre/pro is viable if it makes a difference.

BlueFox,
Yes, I plug my HDMI cable from the Oppo straight into the TV. No advantage in going to the Arcam AVR as it does not support audio over HDMI.From what I've read, shorter HDMI cables are always preferred over longer ones, so if you can make a 1 or 1.5 meter cable work, I would definitely do that. The Venom3 HDMI is a screamin' deal at $95 for the 1 meter cable. All of the Venom series of cables really provide an incredible price per dollar value proposition.

:tresbon:

Excellent review. Thank you, Stephen. I especially appreciated the three tier approach you took and your description of the improvements along the way.

I'd been using originally WireWorld Chroma 6 HDMI cables from my Oppo 95 and cable box to my Samsung 46" TV (just a plain old LCD) and thought they were very good, especially for the price ($60/1M). They were very stiff and a visually obtrusive bright yellow though. So I tried the Maplehade Vivilink Plus cables which only come in a 2M length for $165. They're super thin and a shade of blue which doesn't stand out as much as the WireWorld. I saw the same type and degree of improvements you noted when going from Monster to AudioQuest: noticeable but nothing earthshaking.

Now you've got me wondering about the Shunyata. :scratch2:

Fantastic review, Stephen! Wish all gear reviews were this clear and balanced.

Stephen.......Enjoyable review. It is always fun to discover a cost to performance ratio that delivers true value.

Thanks Puma for the review. I will try these.

Happy Holidays!

Thanks, Lee. Happy Holidays back!

Great write up but what about the audio side of things?

Can't speak to the audio side of things because my Arcam AVR does not support audio over HDMI.