1) since you are saying wii2dhmi sound quality is crap how can you call it better than component cables? Plus I don't want to fumble with a headset when I play party games and so on...
2) it's technically impossible for wii2hdmi to have 'better' image quality than component cables. Unless you bought crapy third party component cables... Always get oem or hyperkin component cables.
So yeah all you are saying contradicts itself and is just untrue...
What are you talking about?
The HDMI Sound is perfect, its completely clean digital. I have component cables and the sound is pretty close, if you dont know the difference, you dont notice it.
Also the "problem" is that the HDMI outputs too high of a pitch. Which can be lowered by putting audio port into the jack of the HDMIadapter.
You dont need to listen via headphones, you just leave them in the jack.
I even build a small adapter for that to just leave it permanently. Its just a jack with 2x22ohm resistors. The same as any generic headphones.
I assume the guys from those HDMI2WII adapters had the idea to output always both hdmi and 3.5mm, so when one is not connected the other port gets to much power.
With this change the audio is really good and never crackles or overshoots or is muffled or anything.
Also about Image Quality. The HDMI is noticeably better than even ORIGINAL WII NINTENTO Component cables. I have those. Those are the gold standard for component cables for the WII. And the HDMI Image is better on a modern tv. The pixels are completely sharp.
My understanding is that the current versions of WII2HDMI Adapters use a form if the the GCVIDEO Mod.
Which reverses the Digital to Analog Conversion of the WII completely (I dont know how exactly it does it
https://github.com/ikorb/gcvideo).
It should be the best possible looking picture that the WII can ouput if its a good adapter with proper tech.
As far as I can say, the Portholic HDMI Adapter does work perfectly, so I assume its a proper implementation of the tech and the output is as close to 100% perfect Digital as possible. If not, I couldnt yet spot any difference.
There is ofcourse another even better MORE PERFECT version which is a Digital HDMI Mod like this.
https://www.retrorgb.com/wiidual.html
So you add a pcb to the Wii internally to get the digital signal before any conversion happens.
Thats probably the ultimate way to do it. That should be as good of a picture as the CPU of the WII is possible to generate.
But ofcourse its not a 12bucks mod. Also its not widely available.
I think the HDMI adapter is the best for any moderately modern TV.
If you are using a CRT, then the component is the best. Analog with anlog, digital with digital.