HDMI cables yeah I'm at it again.

What's up everyone?
As most of you know I'm a Audioquest only user now and have been for quite some time.
Over the years I have slowly moved away from everything else I have been using and now my system only has Audioquest cables in it.
HDMI is something I have been looking at that improvements really can't be had here once you get the design , transfer and no loss done. But something happened when I upgraded to a higher end cable that I didn't expect.
So I started out my HDMI quest with Binary. They are a company that makes custom Installer grade stuff and it's usually pretty good. I had my entire system wired with their HDMI cables as I didn't think it would make any difference to go with a higher end cable from anyone.
One thing I noticed about the Binary HDMI cables is that IR transfer over IR emitters got interfered with when you got to close to the HDMI cable. Also the RF antenna would go crazy and make your RF remote not work anymore. So I decided to re wire with Audioquest and see if that would make any difference at all.
My RF interference issue went away and my system seemed like it sounded better. I went with Cinnamon and found an amazing difference. On my Blu ray player ( Cambridge Audio at the time) I tried some SACD and I couldn't believe that I could hear a clarity difference. I thought " I must be elfin nuts to think a HDMI digital cable could do anything to the audio as it's digital. I've been down this road before with Optical and Digital coax and came to the conclusion that there is NO difference at all with Optical vs Coax of the same level quality. Then I went further and noticed that if you got much higher end Optical or Digital coax cables , you got NO improvements at all. I went into Kimber , Cardas and Transparent as well as Monster , Straight wire and Tributaries. None of their higher end digital cables made any improvements in audio even using 100k costing systems and beyond. I spent countless hours listening with Krell and Dynaudio , B&W and what have you back then and none of these extremely high end systems seemed to be able to revile any sonic benefits to buying higher end digital cables over good quality well built models. Now I did hear a difference with entry level quality Optical and digital cables as they didn't properly carry the signal from A to B so some kind of loss what happening causing the sound to be lost or cloudy.

So back to this HDMI thing. I recently been trying out the Carbon Level HDMI cables. I added a Chocolate level HDMI cable to my system and compared to the Cinnamon , I didn't notice or hear any difference. I was considering upgrading to Chocolate for the sheer hell of it but since I didn't notice any improvements , why spend the money right?
But the Carbon level is a thicker cable , more Silver and has Silver ends. OK Silver is a better conductor then Gold Plated Copper , Silver Plated Copper should yield something right?
So I got a 1m Carbon for my Blu ray player ( BDP62FD ELITE) and just decided to watch a few movies over time to 1 break in the cable and 2 see if there is any improvement at all over a Chocolate and Cinnamon level HDMI cable.
Well there is the black levels seemed to be more stable and more even. It's not like it was night and day but I noticed something looking different. It was as if the gray scale was just a tad more controlled. I put the Cinnamon back in and it didn't look much different if at all so I thought maybe it was me. I did the same with the Chocolate and didn't notice any difference with the Cinnamon. I put the Carbon back in and everything looked like I changed the mode or something. I checked my TV's settings ( 60 inch Elite KURO) and nothing was changed or different. But the Carbon changes something and without my ISF gear here to test it with my meter, I have really no idea whats really going on. I will find out as I'm gonna bring home my ISF gear and test this video as it shouldn't change especially since I was already using high quality HDMI cables both with Silver plating over Copper conductors and built correctly.
Audio wise I also noticed a clarity upgrade. I was ever so slight but I noticed pings and cracks to be more pronounced. Nothing else really seemed to change but small things where sticking out after a few changes back and forth between the 3 cables.
When I went from Binary to Cinnamon I noticed audio only differences. Never any video that I could see. I had a Futijstu 50 inch Plasma then before my Kuro and that tv was just about as good as the Elite , it was very close in quality. But now these Carbon cables are making small differences in my system , I put one on my Apple TV and Cable box and I noticed the black levels improve slightly. Honestly I feel crazy even talking about it as I'm a very firm believer that once you get it right , there is no improvements that can be made. I've seen it so many times over my time in the field and in my personally systems over the decades that with HDMI once it's right , thats it your done.
Now as far as cost to increase performance is concerned , there is just about NO value here at all. The amount of money one has to spend to get such tiny benefits I feel is totally not worth it. I can rewire my entire system back with Cinnamon and not miss the Carbons at all. It's so tiny in improvements I don't think I would even consider ever going any higher or really spending the money to climb the ladder of HDMI to the top and see what they could do. It just in my very strong opinion just isn't worth the price. maybe those very small differences would be worth it in a much higher end system that what I own and if I had that kind of cash to spend thousands of dollars on HDMI cables I would. But honestly I just don't see any value in putting my money there. I'd rather get a better speakers or better amps etc.
maybe getting a 4K tv at some point makes sense when the content gets to 4k and 1080p is used less and less. I'm so still loving my Kuro I don't see any reason to get a new TV except I wouldn't mind a larger screen. 60 inch is very nice but I've been doing 65 inch and larger TV's and thats just really nice having those extra inches. I'm not willing to go quantity over quality so it's why I stay with the Kuro.

So to sum up this HDMI thing , I think and still believe that when you get into quality HDMI cables like any Audioquest level , you have properly built HDMI cables. Super small improvements can be had when you get into Silver conductors but the cost heavily out weighs the benefits. It the cost was much smaller, I would only use the top quality HDMI cables and go to bed knowing I have the best possible signal transfer.
This is also something I suggest anyone performs on there system to see if there is any value to them in spending crazy amount of money on HDMI cables. Crazy is relative to the person spending the money. If you have no issue spending a few hundred bucks on a single HDMI cable then hey go for it. But if your like me and want to get the most out of your system without going insane on things like cables and wondering if the benefits could be better if you took that money and got better stuff.
I'll snap some pic's of all this madness.