- We told you we would test
the most popular HDMI cables. (energetic music) And we're doing it. But it turned out to be a lot more work than we bargained for. The good news is it was all worth it. 53 cables from 17 different
manufacturers, totaling- - [Colin] A thousand-ish dollars. - $1000. And after painstakingly labeling, testing, and logging all of them, we've got the juicy details for you. Which ones are top notch? Which ones aren't even
worthy of being used as a skipping rope? We're gonna tell you and
also give you some guidelines that you can follow to make sure that you are not getting
ripped off on cables. After this message from
our sponsor, Honey, who helps you not get
ripped off on anything. Honey is the free to use
shopping tool that helps search for some of the best promo codes on lots of your favorite sites. Get it today at joinhoney.com/LTT. (bright jingle) Ask a cable vendor and naturally, they'll claim that their
products does everything from dissipating noise to
reducing EMI interference to turning water into wine.
(energetic music) But you, an intellectual,
you're too smart for that. You should just buy the cheapest
cable every time, right? Well, not quite. The truth, as usual, lies
somewhere in between. You see, on the surface,
an HDMI cable is basic. You've got your plugs on the
ends, 19 conductors in between, and some kind of plastic sheath
covering the whole thing. They're basically a commodity item. But as we learned on this journey, there is a lot that can happen
in between the two ends. And some of the bold
performance claims actually can change the user experience. Also, well over 10% of
the cables that we bought and tested failed to meet their claims. Let's start then with a handful
of things that don't matter. One, while it looks
nice and feels premium, this right here is not a
signal-carrying component of the cable. And as long as it isn't so corroded that it literally cannot fit in the slot, the inclusion of gold plating on the HDMI connector
housing doesn't matter. Two, and this is gonna blow your mind, but I give you my personal
Linus Tech Tips guarantee that anyone selling you a cable based on the conductors inside
is probably BSing you. To be clear, better conductors
or better construction can improve signal integrity,
which will increase the chance that a cable will meet spec. And then we'll talk
about that more in a bit. But that is the manufacturer's
problem, not yours. For digital signals, like
HDMI, all that matters is that the signal
arrives reasonably on time and at a high enough
amplitude that it can be read. What that means is that
whatever materials are used, if the cable meets the
spec, there will be no loss of ones or zeros and therefore, there cannot be any discernible
difference in quality. If you say you believe otherwise, you are a sucker or you are a liar. But here's the thing. That doesn't mean that all of
the marketing is snake oil. In order to meet the spec or
to improve the user experience, there can be numerous physical
differences from one cable to the next, many of which
wouldn't be obvious to the eye, at least not without cutting them open. Category one and category
two cables, for example, both have four twisted
pairs to carry color, sync, and clock signals. But the with Ethernet versions took some of the extra conductors and
added a fifth twisted pair to carry Ethernet. The category three spec, by contrast, includes this fifth
twisted pair as standard. So then are all HDMI cables
with Ethernet the same? No, not even close. Remember how I said
materials don't matter? Well, they do.
(suspenseful music) In theory, because we're still using the same conductor count and connector from nearly 20 years ago, a
cable that was made in 2001 could conceivably carry
a modern 8K 60 Hz signal. Just not very far. The thing is, each new
generation of the HDMI spec has approximately doubled
the maximum data rate, putting much greater
demands on cable quality. That is why certification is so important. Everything from the gauge of the wires to the tightness and
consistency of the twisted pairs to the, yes, the materials,
including both the conductors and the shielding, will
impact the integrity of the signal over a given distance. So a manufacturer who cracks
the code, so to speak, might be able to stay in
spec over a longer distance or create a lighter, more flexible cable using thinner conductors. But from a performance standpoint, if you are comparing two compliant cables at the same length, you don't need to care what's inside them. With that in mind, we set
off and purchased a whackload of cables from the usual
suspects: Amazon, Best Buy, Monoprice, and a few
others for good measure. For the majority of these, we bought three or more of each cable. Why? Well, because one
failure could be a fluke. Two is a coincidence. But three, that's a pattern. Before we get to the results though, one really important note here
is we were initially aiming to test only HDMI 2.1 cables 'cause that's the latest and greatest. But because neither AmazonBasics nor Best Buy's Insignia
brand offer HDMI 2.1 cables, we decided to test those
2.0 rated cables as well. I mean, they're both
category three, right? Maybe it'll work. Wow, Colin, that's a lot of tests. - [Colin] Yeah, it was a lot. - Something is there's more than 53 here. - [Colin] Yeah, I also
went around the office and grabbed some interesting
cables just to see what would happen, they're
down at the bottom as bonus. - Got it, okay. Let's start with the normies though. Of the 53 cable tests, nine failed. These failing cables were made by four different manufacturers:
Belkin, Monoprice, AmazonBasics, and CableDeconn. Doing the math here, that is a 16.9, nice, percent failure rate.
(energetic music) That means that the odds of buying an out of spec HDMI 2.1
cable, even if you shop with reputable brands,
is nearly one in five. Wow. Two of them passed the
signal integrity test, meaning you'd probably never
know something was wrong. Where they failed was on continuity. That means that some of the wires were outright not connected
where they were supposed to be. Pretty lame. The other seven failed on
either signal integrity alone or a combination of the
two at HDMI 2.1 speeds. None of our cables failed
on the third category, DC resistance, which
means that any of them would comfortably power
a low power device, like say an early generation Chromecast. This kind of makes sense
because DC resistance increases with length and most HDMI
2.1 cables are quite short. We found that this is
a much bigger concern with passive cables at
lengths of 25 feet or more. Let's start with the most
surprising of our failures. AmazonBasics was doing really
well until they had one that failed, number 28 here. Now, because this is the
only one that didn't make it out of our batch of three,
it looks more like a one-off. And considering that it's also
one of the 10-foot cables, it's not that surprising. What is surprising though
is that these three, numbers 25, 26 and 27, all
of which are six-foot cables, not only passed the HDMI 2.0
spec, but they also passed the HDMI 2.1 spec at
48 gigabit per second. That's pretty good. That makes AmazonBasics six footers one of the best bang for the
buck cables on the market, but not quite the best.
(energetic music) That throne is reserved
for Infinite Cables, who not only guarantee
their cables for HDMI 2.1 instead of just maybe it'll happen, but they even charge
about 17% less per foot. Our next runner-up in the fail
Olympics then is Monoprice, which hands down had the worst showing out of all the manufacturers we tested. Only 11 of their 15
cables passed our tests. And we're also starting to see a trend with the only failures
coming from either 10 or 15 foot lengths due
to signal integrity. That makes sense. If you remember from our previous video, the longer a cable gets,
the more voltage drop is experienced across its length and the more opportunity
there is for interference. Something else interesting is
that the fails all occurred on the same pair of signal wires, number four and number six. Now, consistency in manufacturing
is usually a good thing, but consistently failing? Well, that's a bad thing. Looking at these fail reports, we also find something very interesting. You know how the best lies have a grain of truth at their core? Well, much of the marketing, particularly around
audiophile HDMI cables, centers around jitter. And jitter is bad, really bad. High jitter means that
even though your signals are being sent at regular intervals, they might not be arriving
at those same intervals. It's terrible for any application but in really different ways. Professor Riley? - In analog signaling, even
a small amount of jitter can manifest as an obvious loss
in audio quality with pops, crackles, and other unpleasant anomalies. Baby snaps.
(energetic music) This appears to be the grain of truth upon which modern audiophile
marketing is built, but where it turns to horse plop is when these same principles are applied to digital signaling. Digital signals are made up
of discrete zeros and ones. Jitter can't change the order of the data, but it can change when it arrives, which can lead to it
being read incorrectly. Let me show you. This is an eye diagram from our tester, and at its center is a
single data sampling point, right where the eye is. A one or a zero is measured at this point. As jitter increases, the variance between our samples also
increases, thickening these lines, causing the eye to narrow. Like this. Lots of jitter takes what used
to be a good signal like this and makes the signal not come in on time, meaning the sampling
point could be at a point where the signal is
still rising or falling to a one or a zero respectively. Once you can't get a clean
reading, your data is garbage. And you will experience
a very obvious failure, either sparklies or more likely,
a complete loss of signal. So there you have it, either
everything arrives in order and on time or nothing does. That's why I mark all late
assignments with a zero. Back to you, Linus, ooh,
nice hoodie, by the way. Lttstore.com. - You better believe it.
(energetic music) WAN Hoodie V2 is awesome
and it's finally in stock, get yours today. Let's move on to the most
expensive cable we tested, this braided HDMI 2.1 cable from Belkin. It costs me a tear-inducing 8
dollars and 41 cents per foot. And it failed miserably
on its continuity checks. We did only get one of them and the signal integrity
technically passed, but at this price, frankly,
one failure is enough for me. Don't take a risk on this. We also tested an ROG cable that we had lying around the
office, and to our surprise, even though it was
included with a monitor, it also failed, though it
was just on continuity. So it probably will work
for most applications. It just goes to show that we
should be checking the cables that come with products going forward to see what kinds of trends we discover. Our last cable that failed
was this short little cute one from CableDeconn. We're assuming that the LED
feature that's in the cable here caused it to fail on the continuity test, but it also failed on signal integrity. So that's just to skip
over this particular cable. So that's some pretty surprising results. Now, if we step back for a sec
and take a more macro view, we start to see some trends. First is cost. Paying more than say about a dollar a foot for an HDMI cable appears to
be a complete and utter waste of money, at least from
a signaling perspective. With that said, there are other attributes that might be important
for your application. Properly rated sheathing, for
example, is probably required for an in-wall installation in your area. UV resistant cables can be
useful for outdoor installations, flat or flexible cables might look nicer in your theater room, and
active cables are great for hitting longer
distances or in the case of optical active cables,
running in environments with a lot of interference. We can also say that if you're
going anywhere over 10 feet with HDMI 2.1, you're asking for trouble. Only 50% of our 15 foot cables passed. And it seems like the
high bandwidth signal just doesn't have the beans to
transmit over lengths like that without the voltage dropping
to unreadable levels. So for those situations,
you're gonna wanna consider going active or even optical active. I think this testing is pretty
definitive at this point and answers the most
important questions about the HDMI cables that you all
are actually shopping for. And turbo nerds can check
out the full data dump on our forum at the link down below. But if you guys disagree and you think that we should blow
hundreds or even thousands of dollars testing extra
snake oily audiophile gear, tell us in the comments who
we should be secret shopping and maybe we'll take another
stab at in a future video. There's still tons of
stuff we wanna get into with our cable tester here,
and we sure hope you guys have enjoyed this deeper
dive into HDMI cable quality, which leaves only one question. What am I gonna do with
all these HDMI cables? Actually, I know. I'm gonna replace all the bad ones that have been causing
intermittent problems for us here at the office
for the last seven years. - [Colin] Woo-hoo. - Woo. I'm actually super stoked. And I'm stoked to tell
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or click the link down below for 20% off and free shipping. If you guys enjoyed this video, go check out our original
cable tester video because it's got a lot more
detail about how you guys can interpret some of the
visuals that you just saw.
I love that they are doing this. Maybe it's wishful thinking but I'm hoping that having such a large audience being aware of this leads to better cables in general.
I wish they had tested Club3D HDMI cables as well.
Wendell of Level1Techs sells a high-end Displayport based KVM. And he has had many of the same issues with reliable Displayport 1.4 cables that people in this thread have with HDMI 2.1 cables.
He's basically come out and said that Club3D's Displayport cables are the only ones he can reliably trust to work anymore.
So I'm wondering whether their HDMI cables measure up to the same level of quality.
Spreadsheet screenshot from the LTT forum
I bought 3x 10ft Monoprice ""HDMI 2.1"" cables a few weeks ago, but prepared for any possible issues. So far I've had success with 4K + HDR + 120Hz but won't be able to try out VRR with them yet (will see in a few days).
From what I've understood from the video, a cable with a weak signal integrity should be susceptible to interference. If my cables turn out fine, I wonder if it could change over time. That said, I ordered from Amazon and can return them by the end of January, but I'm already tempted to order some from the better brands in the video especially with it being cheaper than what I paid per cable from Monoprice.
It'd be great for a publication to put out a buyers guide for cables with constantly updated testing results and prices. Maybe rtings will get one of these machines. Durability tests for interference, flexing (and a flexibility rating), and impacts like rolling over it with an office chair would make sense to do as well.
I was buying an ethernet cable recently and even after sifting out all of the cheap junk that's out of spec it's not obvious whether to go with choices like more shielding or thicker gauge, and stranded or solid wire given a length, use case, and price. At least network cables are cheap and advanced enough it's easy to just over spec and pay a few more bucks.
I'd like to see long, 10/15+ meter active cables tested. Finding one that worked for my Vive was a huge pain.
Didn't they film a video a few years ago about a $1000 HDMI cable that had all the audiophile marketing buzzwords imaginable? Would've liked to see it tested for the lolz. I mean, we all probably know the result, but having scientific proof of it would've been nice.
These are the kind of videos that only LTT can really do. Doing dumb things because they can afford it. Who else on Youtube could spend $10k on a cable testing rig out of the blue just to make video content out of it?
I'd love to see them test very long (and very expensive) active optical hdmi/dp cables. Cables like that can be up to several hundred dollars, so they should be held to a higher standard. Also, there are only a few manufacturers of optical display cables, so it's even worse if one is bad.
What about Startech, Dell etc? Those are the most common over here...