$1,000 HDMI Cable!? - Useless Tech Over $100 Ep. 1
$1,000 HDMI Cable!? - Useless Tech Over $100 Ep. 1
2016-03-30
I made a joke on my most recent episode
of handy tech under a hundred where I
said all the items will be priced at
over a hundred dollars and none of them
are going to be useful so we're going to
kick things off then with the Apple
watch which I'm just kidding it's the
usual thing and then literally hundreds
of you were clearly full of disappoint I
mean I can't think of another reason to
dislike that video so I decided to
follow up with a new segment devoted to
legitimately crappy stuff that costs
more than $100 welcome to useless tech
over a hundred episode one featuring the
wire world star late platinum 7 a one
thousand dollar HDMI cable
cooller masters new master keys Pro L
and Pro s keyboards provide sixteen
point seven million color RGB
backlighting genuine Cherry MX switches
and an industry-leading ARM Cortex
processor learn more on the link in the
video description so why did I spend
this kind of money on a cable because
while it's all fine and good to know
that premium cables are pure nonsense
for digital connections because the
internet said so I felt like before
taking shots at wire world specifically
or the premium cable industry in general
I owed it to my viewers and to myself
given that I'm the proud owner of this
cable to at least try it with an open
mind and give them a chance to WoW me
let's start then with wire world side of
the story at the entry level you're
already getting double the number of
signal conductors they call this their
symmetric on design versus a round HDMI
cable that has a mere 12 signal
conductors you're getting there
HD grip plug including silver with
gold-plated contacts which is very nice
feeling by the way and the conductor
used is 28 gauge ofc or oxygen-free
copper it's of debatable importance for
audio-visual applications given its
identical conductivity to regular copper
but hey it costs more so at least
they're taking your money and spending
it on more expensive materials to build
the cable you're buying rather than just
lighting their cigars with it that's
somewhat noble as you step up to the
chroma series you get thicker gauge
wires and what amazing visual clarity is
this if the cable I mean does it come
with a pair of reading glasses so I can
see it better maybe this one is just
about the colors because it does say
write on the island seven cable
description that you can enjoy all their
words not mine
of the performance benefits with the
entry level one but that doesn't prevent
the higher end ones from existing -
moving on the ultraviolet series now
you're getting silver-plated ofc
conductors which will provide you with
an immediate improvement to your
listening and viewing experience
apparently but probably not as much as
the Starlight 7 which increases wire
gauge to 23 aw gee
and adds another eight silver-plated ofc
conductors in wire world's patented DNA
helix design that twists the conductors
around each other
I mean hey if it's good enough for DNA
it's good enough to 4x the number of
efficient paths for electromagnetic
energy right the silver star light 7
adds a thicker layer of silver over the
copper cables and promises vibrant color
and exquisite sound quality but I mean
come on if you're going to get the
silver star light 7 you might as well
spring for the Big Kahuna the Platinum
star light 7 includes all the benefits
of the previously mentioned designs but
ops use carbon-fiber plugins and solid
silver conductors in place of copper
which sounds like you're getting a
killer value
I mean effectively 24 meters of silver
wire in this one that is until you
actually look up the cost of 23 gauge
silver wire and realize that the bond
cost of this entire package that you
receive including the admittedly
attractive carrying case and printed
signed certificate of authenticity is
around a hundred US dollars and change
but if everything in life was as simple
as covering the Bill of Materials cost
then we'd all be paying 4 to 6 bucks for
dinner at a fancy restaurant so labor
and patented technologies assuming they
deliver a tangible value do justify
spending more sometimes which leads me
finally to my test I sat down in front
of my curved 4k OLED TV from LG tried
first the random cable that I stole from
the office then a wire world 1 and it
did not observe any difference in image
or sound quality but then it hit me I
only have one wire world cable that
means that between my computer and the
receiver I'm still using a standard
quality cable effectively bottlenecking
the data flow so I needed a new test
there are a couple of situations where
higher quality cables have made a
difference for me in the past long runs
where read mirror hdmi cables have saved
my buns and high refresh rate
DisplayPort monitors wear flaky cables
have caused intermittent
flanking issues since I wasn't about to
spend another $9,000 to test
long-distance I settled on the ladder
for my first test I used the cheapest
steno bundled in the monitor box one
meter cable I could find truly
horrendous and I managed to successfully
overclocked the 50 Hertz 3440 by 1440
ultra wide display 261 Hertz a fair
result but nothing amazing so I followed
that up then with a $10 or so retail
cable that I purchased a while back and
no improvement 61 Hertz looks like if it
works it works at least four basic
cables so finally then and with a lot
more anticipation than I actually
expected I plugged in the Platinum
starlight seven silver cable and was
disappointed 61 Hertz
I was actually rooting for it after
reading so much about how they're
designing materials improved signal
integrity which I guess leads us to the
conclusion while I'm sure that someone
will be happy to point out some kind of
a flaw in my testing methodology like
that the HDMI ports on my video card or
the processor in my monitor might be
bottlenecking this magnificent cable but
here's a newsflash for you
HDMI ports are not like cars where
everyone has to have a steering wheel
and an engine but can pretty much find
their own way to roll it down the road
they are built according to a rigid
standard to ensure interoperability and
support for all the cool features like
stereo 3d deep color multi-channel audio
ethernet 4k etc etc etc and if the
processor in a 1440p 100 Hertz monitor
and an nvidia video card in this case a
gtx titan X remember Nvidia is one of
the only devices that I'm aware of that
offers manufacturer supported display
link overclocking can't take advantage
of this cable the only conclusion that I
can draw is that nothing can I didn't
break out an oscilloscope or anything
like that
that would've been super cool and may
have actually revealed the 6%
conductivity improvement between solid
copper and solid silver but what I
wanted to know was whether it may
say real difference even a small 162
Hertz would have been good enough to a
person rather than a machine and the
answer is No speaking of whatever I was
talking about on that day I recorded
this video when I was supposed to be in
the office master opcom if you're not
familiar with math drop guys it's the
site that takes it but deals that their
community requests and goes to the
manufacturers or the authorized
distributors and sources them not just
sources them but at a better price and
the more people buy the better it gets
but math drop does more than just that
these days in fact they've started doing
some exclusive deals including the
fostex
th - x00 headphones that i refute a
little while ago back there but this is
different this time this is the th - x00
with a different type of wood gun is the
mahogany and in is the Purple Heart or
Pelle - gene wood which basically gives
it a darker aesthetic and also slightly
changes the sound signature giving it a
little bit less kick in the lows but a
little bit more clarity in the highs
according to mascot I haven't actually
listened to these personally they are
available for 449 on mass drop they have
already reached the lowest drop and
they've sold over 1,100 pairs so far but
that doesn't mean that you can just wait
around because there's only 2000
available and just a couple of days left
in the drop so check out the deal over
at draw it ups slash Linus we've got
that linked in the video description
thanks for watching guys if you hated
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community forum which is linked in the
video description now that you're done
doing all that stuff you're probably
wondering whom what should I watch next
well maybe check out channel super fun
where we've got this video over there
and I guarantee you is worth watching
that's assuming that you haven't already
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