AudioQuest cable goes bad?

Geoff4rfc

Anyone have an AudioQuest HDMI cable go out?? I have a 4K, chocolate I believe. I first started noticing that my display was reading "no signal" from the bluray player. Then the display had flickering lights on full screen on dark scenes and sometimes one third of the screen, horizontally from edge to edge would be total snow. I thought my LG was going out I checked the connection from processor to display, then from brp to processor. All looked good. Then I swapped out the cable from brp to processor and presto. I've had the cable for about 6 months now, brand new purchase from local audio/theater store. I think these are warranted. Any truth to that rumor? Thanks

jbreezy5

I have had a Audioquest HDMI malfunction. Disclaimer though, I purchased it at a thrift store, so I can’t know if the original owner damaged it in some way or not. I didn’t notice any cosmetic signs of abuse, though.

The picture was very dark on my tv when using the cable. Swapped a no name HDMI cable and it looked fine.

Again, can’t claim to know the reason mine failed.

Clipdat

Contact AudioQuest directly and they will take care of you.

F1nut

Any cable can go bad.

VR3

Audioquest Thanos

Just snap your fingers have hook up

msg

Geoff4rfc wrote: »

Anyone have an AudioQuest HDMI cable go out?? I have a 4K, chocolate I believe.

Melting, likely. TX heat. Seen it a million times.

msg

In all seriousness, yeah, I'd get in touch with them on that.
does look like lifetime warranty for original owners, non-transferrable.
https://www.audioquest.com/warranty
https://www.audioquest.com/resource/1296/AQ-Product-Warranty-General-US.pdf

mantis

I'm an Audioquest dealer. I have been using and installing Audioquest cable since like 2003 or 2003. In all the years I have been installing and using their cables, up until just recently, I never seen any of them ever fail. I have cables from them from the 90's and they all work, all of them.

Audioquest in my experience has been the most reliable cable company period. I have used all the top brands and many of the not so popular brands on the market for the last 30 years. I have seen so many failures from other companies and is one of the biggest reason I have been using Audioquest for so long and basically dropped all other brands. I only hold 3 companies close and they are Audioquest, Kimber Kable and Cardas. Those are the top 3 companies to me in the world of home audio, professional audio Mogami is where it's at. I'm a guitar player and there cables are top notch followed strongly by Whirlwind.

So with all that said, I have seen the Cherry cold long Fiber Optical cable fail out of the box and after it was installed for months or years since that cables release. It's the only cable Audioquest makes that I have seen fail.

I had a full system of Chocolate in my personal main system and have sold and installed hundreds of them with no failure. Cables usually don't just fail. It's when you bend them and twist them when then fail. Audioquest does have one flaw that can cause failure in the fact they rely on solid conductors and I don't think it's the best idea. First off, most if not all Audioquest HDMI cables are a pain in the **** to use. They are so stupidly stiff and not easily to use and this is where failure could and can occur. You most of the time have to twist and bend them what feels un naturally to get them to route the way then need to between your equipment.

If you have a bad HDMI cable from Audioquest , call them and get a replacement. They will help you they take great pride in their cables. I have only called in Cherry Cola cables so I have no experience with failures from Chocolate. Hell I might still have some Chocolate laying around. I have so many of them personally owned from Pearl to Carbon. I stop there as Im all out on the batteries, try routing Batteries with stiff HDMI cables and an angry Mantis you will see.

Emlyn

HDMI cables are quite complex inside. They may ask for it to be returned to figure out what happened to it that caused the failure. Limited lifetime warranty on cables is cool.

A good dealer would take care of the problem for you.

Geoff4rfc

UP DATE:

So, the cable was a cinnamon cable. I got them from Bjorns when I worked there. I had a second cinnamon cable and installed that one in place of the bad one from brp to processor. Issue solved. I took the failed cable back to Bjorns and instead of replacing it, turned that one in for a 5M forrest cable and used it to replace the monoprice cable from processor to display.......oh my gosh, what a difference I didn't expect. What's that "The Monkeys" song, Now I'm a believer.......

gudnoyez

Run Choclates in two different rigs, for quite sometime never had an issue. Good advice above try getting a hold of Audioquest on said issue good luck.

pitdogg2

I got two of Dan's old chocolates work as intended. The only problem I've had was the older cinnamon would turn sticky as glue at the connection ends. Nasty sticky!

msg

99% ISO and a shop towel should fix that up, Ivan. I run into that problem with a lot of stuff, but first discovered it for cleaning old URC remotes, which would get like that.

I've found sometimes that the trick here isn't necessarily to wipe it all completely clean, but sometimes just to give it a wipe to remove the "outer" film. Sounds weird, but sometimes, if you keep going to try to remove it all, it just keeps going forever and ever, and stays tacky. You'll know which situation you're in once you get started.

I found old Squeezebox remotes to be this way, but just recently discovered that if I just gave them a good wipe with the shop towel and alcohol and let the alcohol evaporate, the tackiness would go away, and they'd be back to their usual matte feel.

pitdogg2

WD40 on a shop cloth did the trick for me. Yes you're correct that you definitely can go too far trying to get perfectly clean and it goes on like the Eveready bunny.
I'll remember the 99% ISO alcohol next time. It definitely will evaporate better than WD40. I did use the plastic HDMI covers to keep out of the ends.

mantis

pitdogg2 wrote: »

I got two of Dan's old chocolates work as intended. The only problem I've had was the older cinnamon would turn sticky as glue at the connection ends. Nasty sticky!

I noticed that to with those older design heads. They put some kind of soft touch material on them and it did exactly that. But they didn't fail due to that.

Geoff4rfc

@mantis in retrospect, this could have been a bad cable that squeaked by QA.

Shortly after I installed this cable, within weeks, I started getting snow across the bottom of the screen. I thought it was the TV, I'd turn off the display and turn it back on then it would be fine. So all along, this cable would work fine for the most part, occasionally doing it's thing, making me think my display was acting weird. And now, a year later, the cable is saying, I've had enough. What honed it in for me, was when the Marantz would say, "no signal" when accessing the BRP. I'd toggle back and forth between TV AUDIO and back to BRP and get the signal....and of course now I'm thinking my BRP HDMI port is going out on the Marantz. That's when I swapped out the cable. The rest is history

msg

pitdogg2 wrote: »

WD40 on a shop cloth did the trick for me. Yes you're correct that you definitely can go too far trying to get perfectly clean and it goes on like the Eveready bunny.
I'll remember the 99% ISO alcohol next time. It definitely will evaporate better than WD40. I did use the plastic HDMI covers to keep out of the ends.

Interesting. I'll have to give the WD40 a try. Could follow up with the alcohol after to remove the WD40. Whatever one uses, don't let it be brake cleaner or acetone, lol Acetone works GREAT! The problem is with some plastics, at least, it never stops working lol

It's funny, shortly after I posted that last message, I was reorganizing some stuff in my main 2ch, and found that the back ports bezel on my SBT was sticky like that. Had to remember to follow my own suggestion.

Also, adjustment - shop towels aren't great for this, because the alcohol and stickiness causes them to break down, and bits get stuck. An old t-shirt works much better.

pitdogg2

mantis wrote: »

pitdogg2 wrote: »

I got two of Dan's old chocolates work as intended. The only problem I've had was the older cinnamon would turn sticky as glue at the connection ends. Nasty sticky!

I noticed that to with those older design heads. They put some kind of soft touch material on them and it did exactly that. But they didn't fail due to that.

No they have not failed in any way. Just a nuisance. In my case once cleaned it has not happened again

Scott my shop rags are old wash cloths, dish towels and such.
Old T-shirts are saved for bore cleaning 😉

treitz3

I just use the wig of my 3rd mistress. The strands act like ultra fine sandpaper. If it's really stubborn I'll use her teeth to scrape off the debris and return them to her.

I just tell her that I am cleaning them and the old hag hasn't caught on yet, so I guess I won't fix what ain't broke. She has complained in the past about strange tastes in her mouth before though. Bless her heart.

Tom

mantis

Geoff4rfc wrote: »

@mantis in retrospect, this could have been a bad cable that squeaked by QA.

Shortly after I installed this cable, within weeks, I started getting snow across the bottom of the screen. I thought it was the TV, I'd turn off the display and turn it back on then it would be fine. So all along, this cable would work fine for the most part, occasionally doing it's thing, making me think my display was acting weird. And now, a year later, the cable is saying, I've had enough. What honed it in for me, was when the Marantz would say, "no signal" when accessing the BRP. I'd toggle back and forth between TV AUDIO and back to BRP and get the signal....and of course now I'm thinking my BRP HDMI port is going out on the Marantz. That's when I swapped out the cable. The rest is history

Sorry you had to deal with that.

mantis

pitdogg2 wrote: »

mantis wrote: »

pitdogg2 wrote: »

I got two of Dan's old chocolates work as intended. The only problem I've had was the older cinnamon would turn sticky as glue at the connection ends. Nasty sticky!

I noticed that to with those older design heads. They put some kind of soft touch material on them and it did exactly that. But they didn't fail due to that.

No they have not failed in any way. Just a nuisance. In my case once cleaned it has not happened again

Scott my shop rags are old wash cloths, dish towels and such.
Old T-shirts are saved for bore cleaning 😉

That's good to hear.

DaveHo

treitz3 wrote: »

I just use the wig of my 3rd mistress. The strands act like ultra fine sandpaper. If it's really stubborn I'll use her teeth to scrape off the debris and return them to her.

I just tell her that I am cleaning them and the old hag hasn't caught on yet, so I guess I won't fix what ain't broke. She has complained in the past about strange tastes in her mouth before though. Bless her heart.

Tom

Ya gotta do what ya gotta do. I've not met you, but if the pics are true, no scouring material shall be obtained from your glistening dome... 😀

Geoff4rfc

mantis wrote: »

Sorry you had to deal with that.

Aw man, thanks for the sentiment, seriously, but I've only been involved with H.T. for a relatively short while so all experiences are a learning experience, and.....it led me to the audioquest upgrade on my display

treitz3

None at all, Dave. LOL

That's why I borrow the wig.

Tom