Malcolm Steward: journalist

It says on the packaging “improves sound and picture quality” quite clearly. What it does not say is quite how dramatic that improvement is going to be. Even I, a hardened old cynic, was taken aback by the way the picture on my Hitachi 42-inch plasma very obviously gained from being connected to the system through this directional cable, which, it seems, was patently designed for the committed video enthusiast (and I make no claims to be such).

Watching a high definition broadcast the picture, compared to that of a run-of-the-mill HDMI cable, showed dramatically improved contrast making every element in the frame appear more crisply defined; colour rendition was noticeably enhanced; the picture was ‘cleaner’ – with less noise and fewer artifacts apparent. Ultimately the presentation was far more believable. Skin tones on the previous cable were shown to be pasty and artificial looking, and colours in general were more vivid and true-to-life with the Chord Company offering. This enhanced realism, naturally, benefits all types of programmes but my family was particularly impressed by a HD broadcast about extreme skiing, which featured people wearing ludicrously coloured anoraks dashing about against a backdrop of vast expanses of snow. This is hardly the easiest of pictures to portray accurately but the Chord HDMI Active 1.3b Silver Plus Cable took it in its stride and delivered a remarkably clean, clear and very naturally coloured picture.

The Chord Company says “Interestingly, the most significant improvements with the HDMI Active is the sound quality.” It is certainly improved with this cable, which made a slight set-up problem in the system that was going unnoticed painfully obvious. It was as though someone had cranked the clarity control to ’11′. On music and speech programming the sound, like the picture, seemed to have a more natural, vibrant and dynamic quality. Unlike some competing cables, which tend to force feed their audience with unnecessary brilliance and a disjointed performance that is polished but flawed, this Chord design appears to major on balance and naturalness, on delivering a presentation that is vivid but coherent and easy to enjoy.

I have tried ‘performance’ HDMI cables from other manufacturers before with varying degrees of success. Most promised far more than they delivered. The Chord Company has, though, produced a cable that does exactly what it says on the box. I can’t wait to watch the next Grand Prix broadcast using it: shame it won’t be in HD but SDTV enjoys just the same improvements as its more advanced sibling! And with a price of GBP 115 for a 1.5m cable (or GBP 95 for 0.75m), Chord’s HDMI Active 1.3b Silver Plus Cable is hardly ridiculously expensive. In fact, I’d say it’s one of those purchases that genuinely qualifies as a ‘no-brainer’.