I prefer to buy used, and resell what I don’t like. For HDMI cables my approach will be to pick up one or two cables in the $250 range for 30%-50% of MSRP used. Then I’ll ask pink faun to send me one of their cables on trial, and if it is worth the extra $$$ I’ll bite the bullet and keep the pink faun’s.
That is the best you could do. Great plan!
I’m curious already about your findings.
ted_b said Erik,I am quite taken by the older Nordost Silver Screen HDMI cable I use with the Rendu. It is quite stiff is it’s only downfall. I mention it cuz it is likely OOP and maybe therefore cheap on the audio markets.
I have only compared it to standard stuff I have like BlueJeans and Monoprice.
Spooky. I typed in HDMI on audiogon a few hours ago, and nothing there. Two hours later a Nordost Silver Screen was listed. I scooped it up immediately. The audio God’s are looking out for me. Let the cable shootout fun begin!
It was meant to be.
And we look forward to your report!
I did the math. If one such cable shows up say every six months, the probability of it showing up withing 2 hours of me starting to look for it is 0.046%.
Just realized I can do a complete real time apples to apples HDMI cable shootout. I can map channel 1/2 to channel 3/4 on my MCH I2S card (in Jriver), so I’ll have identical digital I2S output signals on these channels. I then run channel 1/2 into I2S input 1 on the DS, run channel 3/4 into I2S input 2 on the DS using different HDMI cables. I’ll ask my wife to randomly select the cable connection.
Now I play music and toggle between I2S input 1 and 2. Complete real time double blind testing! I’ll even throw a $5 monoprice cable into the mix. I’ll pick the winner in a series of A/B shootouts. If I can’t pick the winner I keep the cheapest. More shootout fun ahead!
edorr said Just realized I can do a complete real time apples to apples HDMI cable shootout. I can map channel 1/2 to channel 3/4 on my MCH I2S card (in Jriver), so I'll have identical digital I2S output signals on these channels. I then run channel 1/2 into I2S input 1 on the DS, run channel 3/4 into I2S input 2 on the DS using different HDMI cables. I'll ask my wife to randomly select the cable connection.Now I play music and toggle between I2S input 1 and 2. Complete real time double blind testing! I’ll even throw a $5 monoprice cable into the mix. I’ll pick the winner in a series of A/B shootouts. If I can’t pick the winner I keep the cheapest. More shootout fun ahead!
interesting experiment!
don’t forget to reverse the setup and re-do the shootout, just to make sure your observations are consistent regardless of the input/output used
Good thinking. I’ll ask my wife to switch the cables and see if I prefer the same cable after switching inputs. I don’t want to know what cable I am listening to - this would invalidate the test.
Funny. I knew I was violating the golden rule of computer audio - never touch anything that is working properly - by taking out the SotM card and installing the I2S card. Installing I2S went very well. Now, I needed to go back to USB, and predicably nothing was recognized / working anymore. 2 hours of reinstalling drivers, rebooting etc. and I back live. Fininishing touch was having to reboot the DS to get the SotM card to see it again. Not for the faint of heart …
Cold feet about putting the I2S card in my MCH server now… Probably won’t do it and just buy the Pink Faun audio streamer without a proper comparison against Lynx as leap of faith…
Hi Edorr,
Wasn’t it possible to go back to a recovery point? The Pink Faun audiostreamer is only for the stereo bridge. according your posts you have the surround bridge? The surround bridge will not fit into the audiostreamer. So I guess you will need the AV-Streamer which has far better sound than the audio streamer.
In my opinion it wil only be a proper A/B test with the bridge build into the AV-Streamer. I have two bridges one in a very strong dedicated desktop PC and one in the AV-streamer. The sound of the desktop PC is Silver, The Audiostreamer is Gold but not pure Gold, But the AV-Streamer is the Diamond.
I’m tired of fiddling with PC’s. Spend another 2 hours trying to get my BR drive to work properly after the card surgery. I hate this. I’ll probably roll the dice, order the A/V streamer and assume diamond performance come up as you are suggesting.
Yes I dumped mine except for Spotify and moved to my NAS/Bridge, guessing I now have 1-2 hrs more a week for actually listening to music 
Can’t dump the PC. I need my DRC. The trick it to never touch a setting or change a configuration on a stable machine. I had no issues for months, changed one card and predictably was right back in PC hell. Some folks enjoy fiddling with PCs and troubleshooting so they think nothing of it. I don’t.
That’s a source of never ending frustration. If only I could leave things as they are …
A warning to people using foobar2000, use only DS output. There’s something wrong with foobar’s WASAPI and ASOI output, they just are devoid of all emotions for some reason.
What do you mean exactly, coli. I just want to make sure I understand. Can you maybe post a screen shot of your settings?
sound from best to worst
foobar with DS
foobar with WASAPI/ASIO (I suspect an issue with foobar architecture)
Your experience with foobar2000 certainly isn’t universal. There’s no difference here between various outputs methods. You might use the bit perfect test to verify that there isn’t some buffer size problem (or perhaps OS DSP, etc. going on on some outputs.):
http://www.psaudio.com/ps_how/how-to-run-a-bit-perfect-test-with-directstream/
Don’t get me wrong, I know that many people experience minor differences depending on a lot of PC configuration differences including output method. These differences are very system specific, but usually ASIO comes out on top and DirectSound on the bottom.
Well this is interesting, foobar + ASIO through jplay sounds perfect…
Edit to add some perspective.
I’ve noticed for some time now foobar sounds different than MPC-HC/BE in a bad way, I was using HDMI -> Onkyo.
With Directstream I tried the different outputs again. Same experience. DS sounds way better than WASAPI/ASIO.
Until I tried jplay. Wow. BTW, I’m starting to notice that things that work in the high end tend to have detractors. I’ll be using them as a guide in the future 
coli said BTW, I'm starting to notice that things that work in the high end tend to have detractors. I'll be using them as a guide in the futureAn interesting phenomenon, this. And it can indeed be a good guide to things to check out.
