Or any other peripheral with a detachable cable. A warning about a good peripheral having a bad cable packaged with it would be nice so I don't return the peripheral itself instead of replacing the cable.
Would love a whole array of testing through the common cord brands you find online. All the amazon best sellers, the best buy brand, newegg, memex, etc, and stack them all up together in a battle royale.
I'd love to see a publicly available spreadsheet of brands who's cables you've tested and found are in or out of spec. It'll help people avoid giving money to dishonest companies and help them avoid the same issues you've had.
@@Klokopf52 The one mentioned here: ua-cam.com/video/Zgy5fX-VPCs/v-deo.html is one with solid silver core, and isn't active. But maybe there is also one with signal processing though, havn't watched all ltt vids ;D
It would be super interesting to see that test. I would expect it to pass, but also have no real world advantage over a random $10 cable of the same length that also passes.
As an electrical engineer, I approve of the over simplification of the eye diagram. It was well done for the non electrical engineer common folk. I did not expect to hear differential signal jitter being mentioned on this channel ever. Well done Riley.
@@gl4989 It shows even someone who's job uses this kind hardware everyday, that he recommends this for someone who didn't go through the learning that this person went through.
@@gl4989 Because it's relevant to the point of his comment. As someone who fully understands the issue he is in a better place to judge how well Riley was at explaining in a simplified form (and I do agree, it gets the point across enough for a general level understanding of it which really helps if anyone who watched this later wants to dig deeper into the field. Having a way to mentally realize the subject you are studying does wonders for retention).
I would like to see a "budget brand" vs "premium brand" cable test covering each of the cable types you can test. I'd suggest the cables to be tested to come from Best Buy, Newegg, Amazon and so forth. It would be very nice to see which type is really better and when we *SHOULD* spend more on a cable vs less on the same type of cable.
I lost an insane amount of time troubleshooting "premium" very expensive DP cables for my 1440p 144Hz new display. It actually was making my PC not even power on. In the end i learned that many manufacturers cut cost on DP cables by sorting PIN 1 to +5V while it should have +3.3V something along these lines. Long story short i tried a few premium cables and non did 1440p/144Hz/Freesync/HDR. In the end the most inexpensive cable i bought was the most reliable and it actually had specs on max bandwidth supported. I find it ridiculous how many cables had no info on the box on what exactly they support bandwidth wise or if they did had weird pin out on "non-essential" pins.
Because they know most people don't know/care. I bet you that the average person doesn't know that there is such thing as a new standard of HDMI from the first version
I even know people, who don't have 4K TV, cause it's pointless to them, when their 1080p Full HD display work fine just fine. I may be because 4K television per se is having a very hard time arriving around here tho...
They're not, Amazon Basics are invariably inferior versions of products that Amazon is having ripped off over in China.
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I don't know if they are better standardized now, but I remember buying a pair of HDMIs, and while one of them worked normally the other one got affected by electric interference any time someone flicked a light switch.
Might be tricky as the tester machine probably needs a bespoke tester head that has 'usbc + hdmi' ports on it...otherwise you'd have to introduce 2 adapters, one to test the cable, and another to test the adapter - at which point you have more points of failure and couldn't be sure what caused the problem.
Would love to see this. I get massive signal integrity problems using wireless peripheral dongles on USB hubs with power pass-through like USB PD. Massive headache.
Theoretically, it shouldn't at all. Since the signal is first digitized and then reconstructed from it's samples. Where the issue might occur is if the receiver is of bad quality and the signal is not sampled correctly before being reconstructed.
I really love that you offered to do testing. The only thing to be wary about is your sampling size. Pulling a single model of cable from a manufacturer SHOULD give us a good idea of what they're generally putting out, but it could technically have some variances that put it above or below spec. To really "stick feet to the fire", as it were, you'd pull several of the same cable, preferably from different locations so you theoretically could be getting items from different manufacturing runs/lots. Alternatively, getting a new one and thus testing the same model across time could give us a semblance of a "sample", with better consideration for consistency, improvements, or degradations.
Was just gonna comment the same. Saw the eye diagrams and was like "oh cool, eye diagrams!" ... and then came the unexpected, and frankly really quite good, Rileysplanation.
Not really to be honest... That was not a definition of an eye diagram, you sampling instance in the x not time.... And again you are looking at the effect of ISA generated by the cable filter response. Also I'm not sure how that thing can generate that bitrate with just that two fast ADC and DAC. I would have imaged a big multi thousands dollar FPGA with on board driver for such applications. I don't wanna say bs bit I think that box is "cheating" in some sense. Driven such high borate produce heat and don't see heatsink smell BS to me...
I agree. I have spent a lot of time at a LeCroy scope taking measurements such as these and I am not sure I could describe eye diagrams any more succinctly than this. Bravo, Riley!
Here's an idea: When doing a product review for products that generally come with a cable (such as monitors), throw in a blurb about the bundled cable (pun not intended but not avoided either) and its quality. Sometimes those cables can be real garbage and you actually do better keeping the one you already have. Other times, the one you already have is garbage, and the one included is pretty decent. Just a little thing to throw into your already existing content.
This is definitely solid. An easy way to add value to their existing stuff. This is the first stupidly expensive niche product linus bought that I actually think will be worth it for him.
I love what LMG has become. Seeing things grow and evolve through the years has been really gratifying. Quickbits, tech news, the main channel, heck even the merch. The success is obvious but do you guys really understand what that success means? That's success is (the meta-organism that is society) saying hey we really like you!
I would love to see just a google sheet of what brands/cables pass or fail. Then, when your fans (US!) are looking for a cable for our setup, we can pop open the sheet and know what is safe or unsafe to buy based on the standard we're looking for
I would love to see you guys include cable tests for any included cables when you're reviewing a product. Like if a monitor comes with an HDMI or DP cable you can test if it's actually worth using. I love this kind of granular tech stuff and I am glad to finally see someone doing testing on a very grey area of the market.
Or you could do an episode wherein you show all the brands and see if it's worth paying more for the mainstream brands if cheaper cables function to the spec they specify.
The cables they have might be years old and they probably can't at this point guarantee that they've all seen the same kind of usage. They'd have to buy new cable.
Yes, I've sworn by Anker USB A & C cables for a while now but are they really that much better? I just know they work and am worried to try anything else so would be nice to see any alternatives with just as good/better quality
I love the premise here, doing actual scientific testing on products that consumers realistically cannot. Will separate fact from fiction when it comes to reputation vs value. Just beware of companies sending you golden samples, or downgrading their product to increase profits after receiving a "mark of approval" on your test.
I'd love to see the Quality of peripherals for a monitor for example, just add something about whether or not one should buy a separate cable or if the included one is fine.
That's actually a great idea. So many of the devices LMG reviews, unboxes, or features contain cables that may or may not be sufficient for the product they're bundled with. It'd be interesting to find out which brands bundle quality cables and which cheap out.
my friend was a very early adopter of this standard and got many cables that were all apparently validated with one of these machines but lo and behold they mostly didn't work properly at HDMI 2.1 speeds. most of them would not give him full resolution/hz/colour depth, or would only work with heavy chroma subsampling etc. the most common issues were the cables with active components. testers only run small burst tests and would not find overheating issues. he suspects that even some of these machines themselves are not configured to test the bandwidth of HDMI 2.1 correctly due to the confusion over this new standard. I hope when you do these reviews that you test every cable hooked up to real hardware too
This is supposed to be a quick and dirty test. I don't know how much the box in this video actually costs but I don't imagine it's consumer-level pricing, however it's still only quick-and-dirty level in terms of industrial certification standard. A full rigorous test for certification takes 30 minutes (edit: it's actually closer to 2 hours if checking every resolution) and involves a EMI-free chamber with rotational capabilities. ua-cam.com/video/QpRnAdC3NNE/v-deo.html
This is probably the most exciting piece of equipment I've seen LMG pick up. Knowing my past experiences with awful cables, I can't imagine the wasted time and diagnosing you have had there. Very very handy tech to have. I'm looking forward to seeing you test cables. Amazon basics, included cables with monitors, but also adapters (DP to HDMI) if it supports that.
This tool can make for some very eye-opening videos! At the office, when we released this tool, everyone came and tested their cables to find out almost half our cables sucked. Glad you enjoyed the content! Linus and his team is GREAT!
@@totalphase I know I'd certainly haul my box-o-cables up to test. Glad to see you in the comments, I know I'd be proud of this tester. I felt underwhelmed when I first saw the unit and was expecting a basic pass/fail. But the detail in the web UI, with the port breakdown, signal captures, and other details was really impressive. The module options you have available are really slick too. While certainly out of the price range and use case for normal consumers, I think you have a killer product for the price. Too bad there isn't a viable way I can think of to bring this into normal consumer hands. But hopefully this paves the way for some UA-cam reviews for 3rd party validation for cables. Thanks Total Phase!
Seeing all the content Gamers Nexus has done since they got their PSU machine and their upcoming fan tester, I am VERY stoked for all the LTT videos to come out of this
@@angerthosenear_yt Thank you for the kind words! The Advanced Cable Tester v2 is meant for factory applications. Our goal with the tool was to put pressure on the large cable producing factories for higher quality production. We are pushing to get factories to test EVERY cable off the production line to ensure on-spec production. Of course this is ambitious but is starting to happen! We were tired of troubleshooting users devices only to find out the issue with the device is actually not with the device but with the cable. This is extremely frustrating! Hence the Cable Tester was born! We hope creators, like Linus Tech Tips, continue to use and love our tester while also providing useful cable information for their viewers.
@@totalphase Absolutely. I think you nailed the market segment. As some others here in the comments mentioned, a public online resource to view tests would be really neat. Either through you, or up to each 3rd party tester (but might have too much overlap / testing the same cables). That's a whole spiral of planning however. Especially due to sample size and batches of production, this may be one of the biggest problems. Similar to GamersNexus covering some recent PSUs that failed spec after the initial run within spec. Linus's face when he got the reassurance of the red FAIL summed it up perfectly. Hours of frustration wasted in all the wrong place. I appreciate you showed the data results from the test too. It's a technical device, so seeing the technical results without hiding things is a breath of fresh air. I've seen some technical equipment dumb things down and avoid using terms which only introduces confusion when trying to diagnose an issue. Great job there.
So are we going to find out if Anker is actually the best brand? I would like to see the difference in the different Anker Powerline USB-C to USB-C cables, I went with the PowerLine II 10Gbit, becuase it supports ultrafast speed and also the full 100W USB-PD. So my ultimate question I want answered is which is the best cable in terms of electrical resistance of the power wires.
@@TheCarpenterUnion sure, anyone with a basic knowledge of electricals can do that, but this is us chiming in to Linus asking which brands does the audience want to have an insight on in terms of quality of cables.
@@TheCarpenterUnion yea I do have an LCR meter and various USB meters/loads, but it would be nice if LTT put cables head to head, or gave it to GN and they can spreadsheet it up!
I had a terrible time with the Amazon basics HDMI cord my school provided for me when my cable broke. The next few months it would cut out at least two times during class for like 30 seconds totally killing the flow of class. I finally gave up and bought my own.
I came here to say exactly this call out brands that send bad cables with their products or at least if they have anything that says something like a 4k monitor that says it includes a HDMI 2.1 cable
Good or bad feeling? I imagine it's exciting. I'm disappointed that people take advantage of most people's inability to test cables. On a similar note, I've overloaded a thiiiick 16g electrical extension cord because I thought thicker simply meant better. At least I learned to read gauge and wattage from that near disaster.
@@andrekz9138 What is your industry/field? Also I cringed when you said you thought "thicker simply meant better". This entire trend of "thicker/fatter/heavier/heftier/bigger/beafier (or whatever you wanna call it) is better" is like one of the worst things to hit engineeering as a whole. All the chinese have to do is put some rocks in something and fools will believe it's "hIgHeR qUaliTyyyy" because it's "heavier". What's worse is when youtube reviewers say "umm it's heavy, so it feels good quality". Sorry for the rant but stupid consumers get stupid managers to force engineers to make stupid products. Cables are one such field. Don't take any of this personally. It's a long pent up rant with a real problem.
@@monotrope It's an annoying trend because heavier is often a side effect of high quality / more durable products. 12AWG is not exactly light, and for products thicker more dense plastics are also heavy. Just people know the affect, and don't bother to look for the cause.
OMG. Every cable manufacturer is probably shitting bricks right now because LTT can test their cables now. This is gonna be great. Can finally know what cables to avoid and what cables are actually worth the money. Would love to see that 1k HDMI cable tested. Also, would love a video of testing different cables on a test bench to see if there are frame differences possibly. Though I know it'd probably be minuscule and more typical deviation between tests than an actual real difference.
There wont be frame differences at all if a cable cant to 4k 144hz for example the monitor will say insufficient signal cant establish a 144hz link and downscale to I dunno 120hz 75hz
@tan j maz making a device like this is very expensive, since it needs collects very huge amounts of data in a very little time in order to test the cables. The oscilloscopes that are able to measure these stuff can cost up to millions of dollars, and it doesn't have such software that can measure and sort the measurements like this. I guess it's relatively cheap because it's very specifically designed for HDMI cables.
@@ArmiaKhairy It is a generic redriver/retimer from TI. It has nothing in common with set multi ghz equipment. And no one in their mind would use a real time oscilloscope for that kind of job. There are VNA/BERT testers for that.
This. I would love to see this, considering that tech manufacturers could very well cheap out on the cables they bundle with the consoles to save money.
I'm curious if that rediculously expensive "diamond" cable is still in stock. I'd love to see that on the machine. The $1000 cable from wireworld featured in "useless tech over $100"
Would love to see a video about the cables that come with monitors. I find the process informational and relaxing. Also, keep a log of companies cables to see who consistently meets specifications.
"There's a lot of good we can do by casting light on brands or product lines that are not adhering to the standards." OH GOD YES! Please rip the cable industry a new one. It's bad enough that we need a spreadsheet to understand USB standards, but having the countless crappy Chinese manufactures lying through their teeth about their cable specs just makes it all the more frustrating when shopping for them. In fact, I would be glad to donate money to send Gamer's Nexus one of those testers too.
That would be a good idea, showing if Amazon can deliver valid cables would make the selection process easy for people around the world, but it would make sense to test a number of them to get an averaged result.
Wonder what would happen if he tested those $100+ cables that give you better pictures quality and have a USB port for powering something. Sounds like snake oil to me
Would be great to have a comparison/test of Active and Fiber Optic Hdmi Cables. These are often the only solution for longer HDMI runs for 4K/8K (For a projector install for example).
I'd be curious to see the results of Linus' Thunderbolt over fiber cable that he has at his house. Not entirely sure if that would be possible, but it would be interesting nonetheless.
Honestly, this is such a good move. Just the fear of being called out is going to drive some manufacturers back to their suppliers, and I can see a lot more of these testers coming to market.
As someone who's not an electrical engineer, I really liked Prof Riley's section. I really like that this channel tries to make complicated parts of their videos simple for noobs like me, but they don't brush them aside like most channels. Love it
I friggin' love when Riley is... like this. As for the device, obviously not something I - a certified rando - could justify getting, but it would honestly have come in handy a number of times. And why wouldn't you just test every cable with it if you had access to one. Really cool and well made product.
at $15k it is definitely not a certified rando product. Maybe certified professional rando. I just threw away half of my cables within the last couple months because I kept having issues with my monitor-dock-laptop setup. It sure would have been nice to be able to actually test them instead of pluggin in cables until one kinda worked consistently.
I would love a big Excel document with all cables you've tested. Including as much information as possible along side whether they pass or fail. This would allow for quick searching before buying a cable in future! Tho I understand this would be a huge amount of work, it would be the dream.
@@theRPGmaster Heck yes! Expand this to an international project would be awesome. With the reach LTT has, some companies will have an awfull time while others will have many many more customers in future.
6:05 - _"The next big reorg, I want us to take every bin and every cable and run them through the cable tester. We take all the ones that don't pass and we throw them away."_ God I wished I had a manager that thinks about efficiency like Linus does. The workplaces I end up people keep everything that is damaged, broken or build outside product specification. I've asked to stop ordering 10 to 15 meters DP and HDMI cables, I've asked to threw away broken or damaged tools and equipment, yet nothing changes. Even something as cheap as a scissor isn't replaced when the handle broke of, they tape it back onto it and each time I need a scissor it just bends around the handle... I've tried throwing away things myself, but they magically end up in the storage room again... It even came to the point where I started putting my foot on death pcb's to break them in half, so nobody could pick them out of the container and put them back between other working parts... Massively annoying!
@@iAmTheSquidThing Does throwing it inside a bucked labeled "trash" count? Not sure why someone would deliberately take some broken stuff out of a trash-bin to be honest...
@@92kosta yeah, I know that, but companies sometimes tend to cheap out on things like these, so a video idea would be comparing the quality of cables manufacturers include with their monitors, because bad cables lead to more ewaste
idea: keep using the cable tester for your own internal purposes, but log all the data of which cable suppliers passed and failed, then release an occasional report on those
that could be rude, when Linus drives a car over a cable for a stunt, then finds it in a box months later and then complains on air about the cable. Swiss parliament had high quality Ethernet wire installed, but it failed signal integrity test. It took a few weeks before they figured out that someone store a heavy crate on top of the cable spool, deforming the inner isolator, degrading signal integrity. Note: The cable spool was clearly labeled as "do not stack". So, the cable manufacturer and the installer where not at fault, but a random contractor caused a lot of damage, as the wire had to be replaced.
March Madness... get 64 cables, seed the most expensive ones in each of the four brackets, and make a competition of it. I am sure the viewer with the most accurate predictions would love to win whatever extra goodies are laying around your work tables.
This output should be on an independent site for all cables. Knowing what you're actually getting without having to guess (minus the manufacturer dropping quality after a test) is super helpful to the buyer.
I agree, have a thread on the forum or somewhere similar that has each brand/series of cable and compare their rated spec with their actual validated spec, like for HDMI or USB-C cables. It'd be very useful to know which HDMI cables are rated as one spec, but actually another (for better or worse) because who knows, there may be some high quality HDMI 2.0 cables that can hold a 2.1 signal
It would be interesting to see some "Audio-Voodoo" cables, especially the digital ones, like LAN, that are supposed to improve your audio streaming signal for so called "audiophiles"...
for analog, cable quality matters. for digital, not so much. Either the signal is clean enough to read or it's not. As long as the cable meets the bandwidth requirements, it will perform as well as all other cables that also meet it. A digital audio cable built to spec that degrades the signal such that it can not be perfectly captured on the receiving end is broken and should not be used. Full stop.
@@lethalantidote No. Digital cables affect sound way more noticeable than Analog cables becuase how overlooked they are. Supra cables are very cheap and the improvement is huge. Their $40 USB cable is very close to Audioquest Diamond performance.
@@allansh828 This is the exact reason, why LLT should test audio cables. I would like to see a comparison between XLR and Jack because of the countless argument of "what sounds better"
@@hellterminator Another reason to make sure they really are :) Factories could scam the brand so badly. Make some good ones first and then start putting cheaper shit in the box after they get established.
Not just that, for every time they review any product they normally would. If the product comes with a testable cable (except power cables probably), I would love to see them briefly cover the data for that cable as a brief segment, because that's part of the product and thus pertinent to the review. Maybe they edit out the testing time but it looks fast and easy enough to test the odd included cable or two for product reviews going forward.
The hand soldered wires at the board, shown in the beginning of the teardown, are called bodge wires I think. They're normal and appear quite frequently in equipment that's produced in small quantities (usually industrial). Running two extra traces in your case would mean extra engineering time to design a new pcb and ofc (probably massive) extra cost to produce new ones instead of a tiny job that can be done in 2 minutes with a soldering iron. Those wires will probably not be there in the next version of the product.
Don't forget "intentional broken design". A common method to protect your valueable product from being stolen. It's for some products cheaper to hire some guys to solder the traces back together than getting it copied. However, there comes a pitfall. In Germany for example, if your product got stolen and you had an "intentional broken design", having this case come to court might be a bad awakening for you. That is, if the party who copied your design did actually "fix" that /broken part/ in their copy then it is ruled as "technical improvement" and therefore no copy anymore. In short: case dismissed.
the engineering time of making the bodge wire drawing is more expensive then the engineering time to change the board. The problem is supply chain and inertia: That board can be ordered, patched and sold. Maybeb there are even 20 laying around the shop, ready to b e sold with just a patch wire, Changing the board requires a new prototype, new approval, new qualification, .... and binning the old b oards. As you say: Next product revision and they will resolve that. But also: Do not worry about it.
I'd like to see you testing all the "high-end" "top of the line" cables for niches like home cinema and audiophiles. Their prices are a lot higher than other "standard" products. So is it worth it?
@@ExistentialWolfe that’s actually a great idea for a video too. Cable quality from companies over time. If there was a way to validate what year a cable is from
You should test the difference between "High End" cables and low end cables, like AudioQuest's higher end ones that use "Silver"(i.e. Thunderbird). I know there is a lot of cables out there that claim they are "superior" to cheaper cables simply because they use "better quality" materials inside, however is there "really" a difference that a user would notice?(and not referring to distance capability, but quality of the data received since most higher end consumer cables are between 1m-3m).
Yes, display port please! Exactly two of my many many cables work on my ultra widescreen, plus one mini displayport-to-displayport cable that works with dropouts but I NEED for work because the surface dock sucks
@@djenson Shame this wasn't mentioned in the video, now everyone will be neurotic and think their cables could be "degrading signal" in a literal sense. These are digital connectors, not analog. Analog cables can physically degrade in quality, digital ones cannot. It either works or doesn't, as the receiving end of the cable reads the signal and reconstructs the digital bits (1's and 0's) that were originally being sent, and can detect through a checksum if the bits were altered in transit
You asked what I want to see, so here it is. Include cable testing in every monitor review/unboxing (preferably also in showcases, but that might be harder) and maybe a video testing mayor cable brands including a recommendation for an actually good cable brand.
A lot of monitors, particularly gaming ones, come with DP or HDMI cables. I’d like to see if the cables that are shipped with high end monitors can really support the product that you buy.
My experience with electronics devices from major brands is that the included cables (whether display, power, USB, whatever) are usually excellent. I mean think about it. Do you want people returning your expensive TV or writing bad reviews on it because you included a crap cable? Of course things can change when you get to cheap, generic Chinesium stuff.
Hilariously: no. They cheap out hard with the provided cable. My 4k samsung TV came with an HDMI cable and for the longest time I thought I could only do 4k 30 on it from my computer. After "losing" and finding a different cable, I discovered that 4k60 is absolutely possible.
I have 2 things to say: 1. Can't believe you didn't test the internal cables of the cable tester. 2. We need more Professor Riley. Tech Quikie would be perfect for him!
Do you still have that $1000 HDMI cable that used something like .997 silver wires? I'd like to see the signal integrity test of that one. Also, will this machine tell whether my DVI-to-DisplayPort cables are active or passive?
--- The way Jamie (P.) said "Yeah sure" with slight gasp / in a out-of-breath-style gave the whole line a "Oh dear god..."-vibe; uncertain if it was intentional or not. But it certainly added some classic comical flavour to whole conversation especially when considering the amount of upcoming workload ( I mean, I for one personally genuinely like doing monotonous work as long it is actually productive. So chances are at least some of Linus Media Group might also get super giddy about this reorganization / inventory-clearance-project ). ---
--- @@Sanskar_S_Ratnawat What you hear: "Yeah, sure." Inner-Monologue: "( Oh dear lord / oh no, this is going to be a long night... )" Yeah, I guess that pretty much sums it up. ---
@@PaveMentman Since people love LMG inside baseball: they were filming the podcast at the other end of the warehouse and I was being quiet for that. Also why we were in the dark. Thanks for watching!
I am an "Entertainment Technician", and this tester could save me SO MUCH TIME... You have no idea how often I have to diagnose problems with video signals between multiple systems on a show or event. Normally everything works well, but when it doesn't a giant headeache is had and it's next to impossible to know what part of the signal path is at fault.
This is like Christmas. I've had and gone through so many friggin' cables. I need one of these. But, until i'm in a position where dropping $15k is better than wasting $10-$20 on cables and shipping is a reality...i'll stick with watching videos featuring this tester. Thank you and TotalPhase!
Would love to see the fuss about audiophile grade USB cables, I've heard the difference on very high end systems, but always been sceptical of the almost random pricing differences of the cables, ground noise and DC presence excluded I'd be super excited to see the signal integrity and jitter these 'grade' of cables provide (or not).
I have always heard it doesn't matter with USB as it's digital, but it would be interesting to confirm that. though proving anything high end audio is damn near impossible, and I love high end audio
I guess the thing that most of us skeptics want, is to quantify jitter performance.. We know that benchmarks only paint a part of the picture, synthetic or not we at least have some framework to make decisions from. Both $50 and $1000 cables are generally sold using adjectives and metaphors..
The USB protocol is based on packet-switched data, not analog signals. Considering audio jitter on USB sounds nonsensical, so long as data makes its way through the USB cable, the audio after decoding will not be affected. The only way USB can botch an audio signal is if the hardware itself is designed poorly and cannot deal with noise coming from the computer to its ground planes (power planes are also considered ground planes, as they both ground signal traces).
@@christofos I buy cable matters cables all the time because I've never had a bad experience with them lol, literally just bought a new dp cable for my PC, and some sata cables for a server I'm building (and can't find where all my sata cables went post-move). At the cost of sounding like a fanboy I'll also say I love their mini HDMI to HDMI cable that I use for my Raspberry Pi lol
I’d love to see a video on Apple lightning cables. Apple phones will often call out cables as “uncertified”, and it happens on Apple brand and certified cables for me (even fairly new ones.) by contrast, a couple off brand cables I’ve had have lasted forever… (Lightning cables still awful btw)
I'm loving all the reviewers branching out recently, first GN with the power supply reviews, now Linus thinking about cable reviews, and I'm pretty sure GN is also about to do case fan reviews as well. there's no reviews on this stuff, but everyone uses them all the time
Well.. if by "about to" you mean in a year or so. They got their new testing rig shipped in, but they still have a loooong road of learning how to use it, then devising a testing methodology that meets Steve's rather high standards, and finally some validation that their method is both working as expected and providing useful data. But it's coming!
DUDE! This is awesome. Like he said "snake oil" BS with these cables is still a big problem. So many times I've been afraid of going with a certain brand or lable because I justr wasnt sure if it did what it said it would do. The placebo effect is strong too, "yeah, that looks clearer I think".
That's a really good idea! 👍 Don't just test a cable in a brand new condition, but also check how it holds up with a bit of wear and tear! I always frown a little when I see a badly bent cable, this way I could know how much of an issue it really is!
There's something called the "reverse coil" method of wrapping up cables for storage. Audio engineers use it when they're tidying up mic and guitar cables. It's a method that causes less stress on the inner wires as it's being wrapped in a circle, so reduces the chance of the cable causing interference whilst recording.
@@Dempsey1504 I was graded on wrapping cables this way in college last year (for audio courses) and ever since then I wrap ALL my cables like that, no hesitation. It's SOOOO much nicer and easier.
I would also like revenge. He should test all brands and all the cables. I have a 3rd party FireWire → USB 2.1 cable that was never very fast, at least compared to the listed specs.
Not just this video, but every time you hear that metal scraping a chip or solder point, I grate my teeth. Not only for the nails on a blackboard sound but potential damage.
In a later video he had an old Mobo he tried to start it by jumping the header pins with the LTT screwdriver and apparently the coating wasn't conductive or something I think
I'd love to see durability testing on different cables -- evaluating how much wear or damage the cable can take before it fails to deliver adequate performance. Some cables might fail internally well before you'd expect, while others might keep delivering intact signals even after the outer sheath has cosmetic damage.
OH. BOY. This. Not to mention, something like TV Boxes. Like the Xiaomi Mi Box S. The HDMi cable that came with it is gutter trash. To the point where image quality saw a full fledged quality reduction when using it. That thing is 100% barely ready for HDMI 1.2. HDMI 1.4? Huge maybe. HDMI 2.0 for 4K 60 and even HDR? Nah. Signal will go through but you will see random bugging left & right.
generally those cables are among the best, the monitor manufacturer has a vested interest in sending a cable that works as faulty cables are often mistaken with faulty monitors
@@deathbe4me Tell that to Samsung who decided to include a DP cable with the ground switched with the 3.3 volt that shorted out my new 34" G5 and nearly caught fire. They told me is was a bad batch of cables that "somehow" passed their own testing and was shipped to retailers.
It was so cool to see you guys stepping up to a great industrial piece of gear like this. I have never used this device but cables can be a real problem for anyone. We had to use a way more expensive network analyzer for the same thing. Not only did it cost 10X it really did not do as good of a job. It was always SOP to test every cable in a test setup prior to testing. Super creds to LTT
When you review a monitor you should run any included cable through the tester.
100% this
Or any other peripheral with a detachable cable. A warning about a good peripheral having a bad cable packaged with it would be nice so I don't return the peripheral itself instead of replacing the cable.
big YES
Great Idea!
The included cables are probably actually really good
Would love a whole array of testing through the common cord brands you find online. All the amazon best sellers, the best buy brand, newegg, memex, etc, and stack them all up together in a battle royale.
@@MrGamelover23 +1
Also be interesting to call out BS manufacturers who slap VESA certified labels on garbage.
yes
This comment will RISE
I would watch an hour of that! It would have everything, twists, betrayals, and drama!
I'd love to see a publicly available spreadsheet of brands who's cables you've tested and found are in or out of spec. It'll help people avoid giving money to dishonest companies and help them avoid the same issues you've had.
yes, PLEASE!
Hire me! I'll do it! 🤘
I would like to see that as well, but that doesn't help the company sell these bad boys.
YESSSSS
Or even a website at that point
Do they still have that $1,000 HDMI cable they did a review for a long time ago? That would be a great cable to test.
that would be a fail FAIL
I'd love to see that cable tested
wasn't that like an active cable with video processing build in? Or am i mixing something up? Active Cables would never pass a tester like this.
@@Klokopf52 The one mentioned here: ua-cam.com/video/Zgy5fX-VPCs/v-deo.html is one with solid silver core, and isn't active. But maybe there is also one with signal processing though, havn't watched all ltt vids ;D
It would be super interesting to see that test. I would expect it to pass, but also have no real world advantage over a random $10 cable of the same length that also passes.
As an electrical engineer, I approve of the over simplification of the eye diagram. It was well done for the non electrical engineer common folk. I did not expect to hear differential signal jitter being mentioned on this channel ever. Well done Riley.
Why mention you are in electrical engineering ?
@@gl4989 It shows even someone who's job uses this kind hardware everyday, that he recommends this for someone who didn't go through the learning that this person went through.
@@gl4989 ?
@@gl4989 Because it's relevant to the point of his comment. As someone who fully understands the issue he is in a better place to judge how well Riley was at explaining in a simplified form (and I do agree, it gets the point across enough for a general level understanding of it which really helps if anyone who watched this later wants to dig deeper into the field. Having a way to mentally realize the subject you are studying does wonders for retention).
I felt smart until I realised it was simplified :/
I would like to see a "budget brand" vs "premium brand" cable test covering each of the cable types you can test. I'd suggest the cables to be tested to come from Best Buy, Newegg, Amazon and so forth. It would be very nice to see which type is really better and when we *SHOULD* spend more on a cable vs less on the same type of cable.
Sounds like a fun video idea!
test them by manufacture brand, most cable have a manufacture , even it it ever som hard to find sometimes
@@mareli82 this would be the best way. No use in saying "brand A's HDMI is perfect, but its DisplayPort sucks". I want "ignore brand A, trust brand B"
Especially Walmart. House brand. That should be real entertaining.
I tried a lot of cables. Honestly, even the super fancy ones were pretty disappointing. Go cheap.
If you guys still have the $1000 HDMI cable lying around, you could test them to see if they have something unique in them.
Definitely this one
They should I remember Linus buying a super expensive super fast best in class cable
Holy shit, i was going to say that too
yeah they should test the apple luxury cable
If he doesn't, and he's perfectly willing to lose way too much money on a video, he could redo it with a bunch of different scam cable vendors.
I lost an insane amount of time troubleshooting "premium" very expensive DP cables for my 1440p 144Hz new display. It actually was making my PC not even power on. In the end i learned that many manufacturers cut cost on DP cables by sorting PIN 1 to +5V while it should have +3.3V something along these lines. Long story short i tried a few premium cables and non did 1440p/144Hz/Freesync/HDR. In the end the most inexpensive cable i bought was the most reliable and it actually had specs on max bandwidth supported. I find it ridiculous how many cables had no info on the box on what exactly they support bandwidth wise or if they did had weird pin out on "non-essential" pins.
preach
So in the end the best option is still to buy the cheapest and pray. Great, I've been doing that forever.
Because they know most people don't know/care. I bet you that the average person doesn't know that there is such thing as a new standard of HDMI from the first version
I even know people, who don't have 4K TV, cause it's pointless to them, when their 1080p Full HD display work fine just fine. I may be because 4K television per se is having a very hard time arriving around here tho...
Which brand?
I’d like to see LTT cover the Amazon basics cables to see if they are worth buying.
I used to swear by these, so I hope so.
Facts
Yeah, Monoprice and Amazon Basics are the obvious and low hanging fruit.
They're not, Amazon Basics are invariably inferior versions of products that Amazon is having ripped off over in China.
I don't know if they are better standardized now, but I remember buying a pair of HDMIs, and while one of them worked normally the other one got affected by electric interference any time someone flicked a light switch.
Oh yeah, can't wait for the LTT cable tier list! Very exciting stuff.
Id actually love more cable videos
Honestly though this would be really useful
me. isnt . bot..........,.
just kidding but i would love a cable tier list
no joke
I'd love to see how different adapters can affect signal rigidity, like usb-c hubs to HDMI, or display-port to USB-c
Might be tricky as the tester machine probably needs a bespoke tester head that has 'usbc + hdmi' ports on it...otherwise you'd have to introduce 2 adapters, one to test the cable, and another to test the adapter - at which point you have more points of failure and couldn't be sure what caused the problem.
Would love to see this. I get massive signal integrity problems using wireless peripheral dongles on USB hubs with power pass-through like USB PD. Massive headache.
Theoretically, it shouldn't at all. Since the signal is first digitized and then reconstructed from it's samples. Where the issue might occur is if the receiver is of bad quality and the signal is not sampled correctly before being reconstructed.
it'd be interesting to show the difference between simple adapters and active adapters that have to reprocess the signal
@@pietheijn-vo1gt theoretically, maybe. However, as this video shows, sometimes the specs ain't up to snuff. You make good points though!
I really love that you offered to do testing. The only thing to be wary about is your sampling size. Pulling a single model of cable from a manufacturer SHOULD give us a good idea of what they're generally putting out, but it could technically have some variances that put it above or below spec.
To really "stick feet to the fire", as it were, you'd pull several of the same cable, preferably from different locations so you theoretically could be getting items from different manufacturing runs/lots.
Alternatively, getting a new one and thus testing the same model across time could give us a semblance of a "sample", with better consideration for consistency, improvements, or degradations.
Wow, as an electrical engineer I was impressed with "prof Riley" - the eye diagram and the explanation were on point.
Yeah sometimes i wish i was taught by people who gave a shit about teaching . That's something rarely you see in electrical engineering .
Was just gonna comment the same. Saw the eye diagrams and was like "oh cool, eye diagrams!" ... and then came the unexpected, and frankly really quite good, Rileysplanation.
Not really to be honest... That was not a definition of an eye diagram, you sampling instance in the x not time.... And again you are looking at the effect of ISA generated by the cable filter response.
Also I'm not sure how that thing can generate that bitrate with just that two fast ADC and DAC. I would have imaged a big multi thousands dollar FPGA with on board driver for such applications. I don't wanna say bs bit I think that box is "cheating" in some sense. Driven such high borate produce heat and don't see heatsink smell BS to me...
Alberto Vaudagna its really not that difficult to test a cable
I agree. I have spent a lot of time at a LeCroy scope taking measurements such as these and I am not sure I could describe eye diagrams any more succinctly than this. Bravo, Riley!
Here's an idea: When doing a product review for products that generally come with a cable (such as monitors), throw in a blurb about the bundled cable (pun not intended but not avoided either) and its quality. Sometimes those cables can be real garbage and you actually do better keeping the one you already have. Other times, the one you already have is garbage, and the one included is pretty decent.
Just a little thing to throw into your already existing content.
They should 👍
So many people buy new expensive monitors, only to find out there's something "wrong" with it, but many find out that it was a bad cable.
and ofc ps/xbox cables
Can confirm the cable that comes with serious x is definitely 2.1
As I have a 8k tv
That can run in 4K 120hz
And can do so
This is definitely solid. An easy way to add value to their existing stuff.
This is the first stupidly expensive niche product linus bought that I actually think will be worth it for him.
Linus's excitment over throwing away crappy cables, i resonate with that.
I was really hoping he would take a pair of scissors to them, but alas...
The pain of a cable that is intermittently failing. THE PAAAAAIIINN.
I love what LMG has become. Seeing things grow and evolve through the years has been really gratifying. Quickbits, tech news, the main channel, heck even the merch. The success is obvious but do you guys really understand what that success means?
That's success is (the meta-organism that is society) saying hey we really like you!
I like the random videos about his home improvement projects where he rants about the glossiness of paint or those broke azz smart light switches.
Half a semester of electrical engineering in less than a minute with Riley. Amazing segment.
Riley is so cringy. He's about as funny as a rubber crutch. He's such a try hard.
@@littlejackalo5326 Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
We were thinking the same thing!
@@littlejackalo5326 you got ratio'd
Jitter analysis, I still shudder at the memories
I want a video of you testing all the cables you have, I don't care if it's 97 hours long I'll watch it
This made me laugh
I fully agree
oh a sick live stream would be nice
Public database of all cables tested with all test results for FTW
yes
Riley’s whole bit was pure perfection. You better never let this man leave LMG
Agree, great explainer.
Yeah he was great, flawless performance
It was so amazing well done Riley! You’re so much better than that engineering guy who thinks he’s funny!
Riley is such a dork, I love him
I was just thinking the same! pay that guy double!
I would love to see just a google sheet of what brands/cables pass or fail. Then, when your fans (US!) are looking for a cable for our setup, we can pop open the sheet and know what is safe or unsafe to buy based on the standard we're looking for
I would love to see you guys include cable tests for any included cables when you're reviewing a product. Like if a monitor comes with an HDMI or DP cable you can test if it's actually worth using. I love this kind of granular tech stuff and I am glad to finally see someone doing testing on a very grey area of the market.
I don't think the device had a DisplayPort connector. Would've been pretty sick
@@seasesh4073 It has interchangeable testing ports.
Also test USB cables included in phones to verify PD
I’m actually shocked there don’t seem to be any dedicated cable testing websites 🤔
Big cable conspiracy
On an unrelated topic, as a Spanish speaker, I always read your name as Uncle Joe
🤔
Hi thio :)
weren't you the one who used to make all the troll videos of "how to increase your wifi speed" and all that
Or you could do an episode wherein you show all the brands and see if it's worth paying more for the mainstream brands if cheaper cables function to the spec they specify.
The cables they have might be years old and they probably can't at this point guarantee that they've all seen the same kind of usage. They'd have to buy new cable.
Yes, I've sworn by Anker USB A & C cables for a while now but are they really that much better? I just know they work and am worried to try anything else so would be nice to see any alternatives with just as good/better quality
i've wondered that about "generic" brand hdmi 2.1 cables vs any name brand gold plated ones
Great idea!
@@dr_tails658 maybe they should try testing the amazonbasics also... cheap price cheaper quality?
I love the premise here, doing actual scientific testing on products that consumers realistically cannot. Will separate fact from fiction when it comes to reputation vs value. Just beware of companies sending you golden samples, or downgrading their product to increase profits after receiving a "mark of approval" on your test.
I'd love to see the Quality of peripherals for a monitor for example, just add something about whether or not one should buy a separate cable or if the included one is fine.
That's actually a great idea. So many of the devices LMG reviews, unboxes, or features contain cables that may or may not be sufficient for the product they're bundled with. It'd be interesting to find out which brands bundle quality cables and which cheap out.
I concure just throw in a little section about the quality of the cables included in the review
This. For every product LMG reviews, just a quick line on whether the included cables are Good or Not Good.
my friend was a very early adopter of this standard and got many cables that were all apparently validated with one of these machines but lo and behold they mostly didn't work properly at HDMI 2.1 speeds. most of them would not give him full resolution/hz/colour depth, or would only work with heavy chroma subsampling etc. the most common issues were the cables with active components. testers only run small burst tests and would not find overheating issues. he suspects that even some of these machines themselves are not configured to test the bandwidth of HDMI 2.1 correctly due to the confusion over this new standard. I hope when you do these reviews that you test every cable hooked up to real hardware too
Hi DeSinc!
@@Vladislav_0001 hello
The flying funny half life man is on a lmg video about a cable tester talking about hdmi 2/2.1 cables that do not meet the standard
This is supposed to be a quick and dirty test. I don't know how much the box in this video actually costs but I don't imagine it's consumer-level pricing, however it's still only quick-and-dirty level in terms of industrial certification standard.
A full rigorous test for certification takes 30 minutes (edit: it's actually closer to 2 hours if checking every resolution) and involves a EMI-free chamber with rotational capabilities.
ua-cam.com/video/QpRnAdC3NNE/v-deo.html
I love the occasional interaction DeSinc has with all of my favourite UA-camrs
This is probably the most exciting piece of equipment I've seen LMG pick up. Knowing my past experiences with awful cables, I can't imagine the wasted time and diagnosing you have had there. Very very handy tech to have. I'm looking forward to seeing you test cables. Amazon basics, included cables with monitors, but also adapters (DP to HDMI) if it supports that.
This tool can make for some very eye-opening videos! At the office, when we released this tool, everyone came and tested their cables to find out almost half our cables sucked. Glad you enjoyed the content! Linus and his team is GREAT!
@@totalphase I know I'd certainly haul my box-o-cables up to test.
Glad to see you in the comments, I know I'd be proud of this tester. I felt underwhelmed when I first saw the unit and was expecting a basic pass/fail. But the detail in the web UI, with the port breakdown, signal captures, and other details was really impressive. The module options you have available are really slick too.
While certainly out of the price range and use case for normal consumers, I think you have a killer product for the price. Too bad there isn't a viable way I can think of to bring this into normal consumer hands. But hopefully this paves the way for some UA-cam reviews for 3rd party validation for cables. Thanks Total Phase!
Seeing all the content Gamers Nexus has done since they got their PSU machine and their upcoming fan tester, I am VERY stoked for all the LTT videos to come out of this
@@angerthosenear_yt Thank you for the kind words! The Advanced Cable Tester v2 is meant for factory applications. Our goal with the tool was to put pressure on the large cable producing factories for higher quality production. We are pushing to get factories to test EVERY cable off the production line to ensure on-spec production. Of course this is ambitious but is starting to happen!
We were tired of troubleshooting users devices only to find out the issue with the device is actually not with the device but with the cable. This is extremely frustrating! Hence the Cable Tester was born!
We hope creators, like Linus Tech Tips, continue to use and love our tester while also providing useful cable information for their viewers.
@@totalphase Absolutely. I think you nailed the market segment. As some others here in the comments mentioned, a public online resource to view tests would be really neat. Either through you, or up to each 3rd party tester (but might have too much overlap / testing the same cables). That's a whole spiral of planning however. Especially due to sample size and batches of production, this may be one of the biggest problems. Similar to GamersNexus covering some recent PSUs that failed spec after the initial run within spec.
Linus's face when he got the reassurance of the red FAIL summed it up perfectly. Hours of frustration wasted in all the wrong place.
I appreciate you showed the data results from the test too. It's a technical device, so seeing the technical results without hiding things is a breath of fresh air. I've seen some technical equipment dumb things down and avoid using terms which only introduces confusion when trying to diagnose an issue. Great job there.
So are we going to find out if Anker is actually the best brand? I would like to see the difference in the different Anker Powerline USB-C to USB-C cables, I went with the PowerLine II 10Gbit, becuase it supports ultrafast speed and also the full 100W USB-PD. So my ultimate question I want answered is which is the best cable in terms of electrical resistance of the power wires.
Seconded! Shopping for quality USB-C cables is awful.
Thirded!! Interested to know how Anker cables test as well.
If it's just resistance you could probably rig something up in an hour, not spend 100grand
@@TheCarpenterUnion sure, anyone with a basic knowledge of electricals can do that, but this is us chiming in to Linus asking which brands does the audience want to have an insight on in terms of quality of cables.
@@TheCarpenterUnion yea I do have an LCR meter and various USB meters/loads, but it would be nice if LTT put cables head to head, or gave it to GN and they can spreadsheet it up!
The Professor Riley segment was actually great. We cover this in engineering classes, both electrical and for fiber optics
Yes I love professor Riley
I’d be interested to know about how Amazon basics long hdmi cables fair
I want to see all the Amazon Basics cables tested, including USB A and C
I have had nothing but success with Amazon Basic tech, especially cables, both video and pro audio. Id be interested in that video too.
Just so you know, it's 'fare'
English homophones are low-key fucked
@@deadnamemcdonald8601 As long as I don't have to read "should of"
I had a terrible time with the Amazon basics HDMI cord my school provided for me when my cable broke. The next few months it would cut out at least two times during class for like 30 seconds totally killing the flow of class. I finally gave up and bought my own.
Idea for testing cables: When reviewing a product with a included cable run it though the tester and let us know of a pass or fail
I came here to say exactly this call out brands that send bad cables with their products or at least if they have anything that says something like a 4k monitor that says it includes a HDMI 2.1 cable
Maybe the cables that come with consoles or monitors even phone charging cables would be nice to know more about
I want a place that makes this device available for the public so that I can test my cables.
Find your nearest makerspace and you'll be testing your cables in no time at all.
I would watch a cable testing stream just fyi
I second this.
@@brandondavid321 yeah...totally willing to 'keep score' while someone at LMG is running cables through their specs.
+1
If you could make bets it would be better
@@Mack_Dingo next project for floatplane devs lol
That feeling when Linus starts covering things you deal with in your industry.
:)
Yup, happens whenever he does networking stuff for me. lol
Good or bad feeling? I imagine it's exciting.
I'm disappointed that people take advantage of most people's inability to test cables.
On a similar note, I've overloaded a thiiiick 16g electrical extension cord because I thought thicker simply meant better. At least I learned to read gauge and wattage from that near disaster.
@@andrekz9138 What is your industry/field? Also I cringed when you said you thought "thicker simply meant better". This entire trend of "thicker/fatter/heavier/heftier/bigger/beafier (or whatever you wanna call it) is better" is like one of the worst things to hit engineeering as a whole. All the chinese have to do is put some rocks in something and fools will believe it's "hIgHeR qUaliTyyyy" because it's "heavier". What's worse is when youtube reviewers say "umm it's heavy, so it feels good quality".
Sorry for the rant but stupid consumers get stupid managers to force engineers to make stupid products. Cables are one such field. Don't take any of this personally. It's a long pent up rant with a real problem.
@@monotrope It's an annoying trend because heavier is often a side effect of high quality / more durable products. 12AWG is not exactly light, and for products thicker more dense plastics are also heavy. Just people know the affect, and don't bother to look for the cause.
OMG. Every cable manufacturer is probably shitting bricks right now because LTT can test their cables now. This is gonna be great. Can finally know what cables to avoid and what cables are actually worth the money.
Would love to see that 1k HDMI cable tested. Also, would love a video of testing different cables on a test bench to see if there are frame differences possibly. Though I know it'd probably be minuscule and more typical deviation between tests than an actual real difference.
@tan j maz actually, that's quite cheap compared to other products that can measure in the range to 10ths GHz
There wont be frame differences at all if a cable cant to 4k 144hz for example the monitor will say insufficient signal cant establish a 144hz link and downscale to I dunno 120hz 75hz
@tan j maz It's industrial equipment, you are not meant to buy these, obviously it's worth the money for LTT because of what they do.
@tan j maz making a device like this is very expensive, since it needs collects very huge amounts of data in a very little time in order to test the cables. The oscilloscopes that are able to measure these stuff can cost up to millions of dollars, and it doesn't have such software that can measure and sort the measurements like this. I guess it's relatively cheap because it's very specifically designed for HDMI cables.
@@ArmiaKhairy It is a generic redriver/retimer from TI. It has nothing in common with set multi ghz equipment. And no one in their mind would use a real time oscilloscope for that kind of job. There are VNA/BERT testers for that.
Never change Linus, never change ... ... this pure good energy and vibes. Through all those years :-)
That section with Riley was downright delightful, loved everything about it!
And his eye diagram sweater was a nice touch too!
I'm not sure I've ever seen Riley on-screen without being delighted, honestly
How is a diamond a hexagon?
dude gimme a whole series with that. that gen Z bill nye material right there.
I'd like to see a test for the HDMI cables that comes in the new consoles (PS5, Series X, Switch)
In the same vein: HDMI cords that come with popular gaming monitors.
@@DemonWolf100 most come with display port
This. I would love to see this, considering that tech manufacturers could very well cheap out on the cables they bundle with the consoles to save money.
I'm curious if that rediculously expensive "diamond" cable is still in stock. I'd love to see that on the machine.
The $1000 cable from wireworld featured in "useless tech over $100"
I am absolutely shocked that this wasn't even mentioned in the episode. : /
tbh I did forget that episode. But hell ya, I guess we all wanna see that cable.
You might see that it actually conducts and insulates better, even though it doesn’t matter at all.
Immediately thought this too
@@smogstreaming i wonder if linus even remembers that episode that's some OG shit
Would love to see a video about the cables that come with monitors. I find the process informational and relaxing. Also, keep a log of companies cables to see who consistently meets specifications.
"There's a lot of good we can do by casting light on brands or product lines that are not adhering to the standards."
OH GOD YES! Please rip the cable industry a new one. It's bad enough that we need a spreadsheet to understand USB standards, but having the countless crappy Chinese manufactures lying through their teeth about their cable specs just makes it all the more frustrating when shopping for them. In fact, I would be glad to donate money to send Gamer's Nexus one of those testers too.
My first thought after seeing this is how did they beat Steve to the punch!
I'd love to see an investigation of so-called "certified" HDMI and Display Port cables from Amazon 🤔
That would be a good idea, showing if Amazon can deliver valid cables would make the selection process easy for people around the world, but it would make sense to test a number of them to get an averaged result.
would fail miserably, amazon has a bad cable track record, remember when all those chargers and surge protectors just melted and caught on fire?
Wonder what would happen if he tested those $100+ cables that give you better pictures quality and have a USB port for powering something.
Sounds like snake oil to me
@@bland9876 yes or those overly expensive audiophile USB cables, like the Curious Cable
Almost anything that says "certified" is probably BS
you should retest the unbreakable HDMI kabel and see if it passes before and after destruction testing!
Great idea :D
@@Creekie1337 shut up grammar nazi
@@norkshit It's actually spelling
What about the made out of silver bitch cable
Put it to the test!
Would be great to have a comparison/test of Active and Fiber Optic Hdmi Cables. These are often the only solution for longer HDMI runs for 4K/8K (For a projector install for example).
I'd be curious to see the results of Linus' Thunderbolt over fiber cable that he has at his house. Not entirely sure if that would be possible, but it would be interesting nonetheless.
Honestly, this is such a good move. Just the fear of being called out is going to drive some manufacturers back to their suppliers, and I can see a lot more of these testers coming to market.
Seems like a galaxy-brain move on Linus' part if that was his goal here... and whether intended or not, that may yet be the result. Let us hope.
As someone who's not an electrical engineer, I really liked Prof Riley's section. I really like that this channel tries to make complicated parts of their videos simple for noobs like me, but they don't brush them aside like most channels. Love it
LOVE the Prof. Riley segment. Didn't love how yellow he looked there, the white balance was a little funky in my layman's opinion
idea: whenever you test a monitor/tv, test the included cables.
That idea is actually super helpful
I don't think it is needed, since manufacturer standardized them so that the device you are buying give you optimum performance.
Good idea
@@chocolatecandybar4319 Thats right. A manufacturer would never cheap out on cables. They only care about our experience.
Along the same lines, perhaps a video showcasing different company's included cables. I'd love to see how the new xBox and PS5 cables stack up
I’d kill for a video seeing if the “Amazon basics” recommended cords are up to task
yes!!! lmaoo
Narrator: "They weren't"
Nah they're not. It's just a basic cable.
The USB 10 gig cables from Amazon are some of the only ones I can get to work
@@zxcvb_bvcxz Then you have many problems with your hardware, its not the cables.
I friggin' love when Riley is... like this.
As for the device, obviously not something I - a certified rando - could justify getting, but it would honestly have come in handy a number of times. And why wouldn't you just test every cable with it if you had access to one. Really cool and well made product.
at $15k it is definitely not a certified rando product. Maybe certified professional rando. I just threw away half of my cables within the last couple months because I kept having issues with my monitor-dock-laptop setup. It sure would have been nice to be able to actually test them instead of pluggin in cables until one kinda worked consistently.
And do this day 2+years later, No video has been made reviewing/testing cables
I would love a big Excel document with all cables you've tested. Including as much information as possible along side whether they pass or fail. This would allow for quick searching before buying a cable in future!
Tho I understand this would be a huge amount of work, it would be the dream.
I second this. Also including cables available internationally, not just in NA.
@@theRPGmaster Heck yes! Expand this to an international project would be awesome. With the reach LTT has, some companies will have an awfull time while others will have many many more customers in future.
It would be a really smart idea, especially if they link an affiliate link to each cable they tested. Can make a lot of money from this
definitely a pass fail list. Would be super helpful.
GIMMIE A MICROSOFT POWERPOINT
Oh man, I would love one of these :O
You can have one too... For the low low price of $15,000. 😁
6:05 - _"The next big reorg, I want us to take every bin and every cable and run them through the cable tester. We take all the ones that don't pass and we throw them away."_
God I wished I had a manager that thinks about efficiency like Linus does.
The workplaces I end up people keep everything that is damaged, broken or build outside product specification. I've asked to stop ordering 10 to 15 meters DP and HDMI cables, I've asked to threw away broken or damaged tools and equipment, yet nothing changes. Even something as cheap as a scissor isn't replaced when the handle broke of, they tape it back onto it and each time I need a scissor it just bends around the handle...
I've tried throwing away things myself, but they magically end up in the storage room again... It even came to the point where I started putting my foot on death pcb's to break them in half, so nobody could pick them out of the container and put them back between other working parts... Massively annoying!
What kind of company do you work for lmao
I get trying to save costs but eventually you get diminishing returns and it becomes not worth it.
Have you tried just putting labels on things which say "Faulty"? At least that way they're not going to cause unexpected problems.
When someone needs a pair of scissors, give them the faulty one.
@@iAmTheSquidThing Does throwing it inside a bucked labeled "trash" count?
Not sure why someone would deliberately take some broken stuff out of a trash-bin to be honest...
Paused video to say Riley's class on cable signals was superb and taught me so much in such a small time. Bravo sir, 👏
Testing OEM HDMI or DP cables that usually come with monitors would be nice, since that is the most likely thing people will use for their systems
Facts right there using cables that came with my monitor as we speak
@@92kosta yeah, I know that, but companies sometimes tend to cheap out on things like these, so a video idea would be comparing the quality of cables manufacturers include with their monitors, because bad cables lead to more ewaste
idea: keep using the cable tester for your own internal purposes, but log all the data of which cable suppliers passed and failed, then release an occasional report on those
just like back blaze does for hardrives.
that could be rude, when Linus drives a car over a cable for a stunt, then finds it in a box months later and then complains on air about the cable.
Swiss parliament had high quality Ethernet wire installed, but it failed signal integrity test. It took a few weeks before they figured out that someone store a heavy crate on top of the cable spool, deforming the inner isolator, degrading signal integrity. Note: The cable spool was clearly labeled as "do not stack". So, the cable manufacturer and the installer where not at fault, but a random contractor caused a lot of damage, as the wire had to be replaced.
Test the cables bundled with the monitors you guys review. Would be interesting to see if they skimp on the cables.
March Madness... get 64 cables, seed the most expensive ones in each of the four brackets, and make a competition of it. I am sure the viewer with the most accurate predictions would love to win whatever extra goodies are laying around your work tables.
This output should be on an independent site for all cables. Knowing what you're actually getting without having to guess (minus the manufacturer dropping quality after a test) is super helpful to the buyer.
I agree, have a thread on the forum or somewhere similar that has each brand/series of cable and compare their rated spec with their actual validated spec, like for HDMI or USB-C cables. It'd be very useful to know which HDMI cables are rated as one spec, but actually another (for better or worse) because who knows, there may be some high quality HDMI 2.0 cables that can hold a 2.1 signal
Yeah, that could be a problem. I would imagine many of the brands that are just sourcing cheap stuff from china might change sources now and then.
@@BriBCG Of course, but you'd at least know at the time of testing that the cable was good. Having some information is better than nothing.
yeah our connections are getting faster and faster so inferior cables are a real issue now
It would be interesting to see some "Audio-Voodoo" cables, especially the digital ones, like LAN, that are supposed to improve your audio streaming signal for so called "audiophiles"...
for analog, cable quality matters. for digital, not so much. Either the signal is clean enough to read or it's not. As long as the cable meets the bandwidth requirements, it will perform as well as all other cables that also meet it. A digital audio cable built to spec that degrades the signal such that it can not be perfectly captured on the receiving end is broken and should not be used. Full stop.
I looked up the JPS Labs cables that dms brought to demo his Abyss headphones. The high end power cord costs 10k/meter.
@@lethalantidote No. Digital cables affect sound way more noticeable than Analog cables becuase how overlooked they are. Supra cables are very cheap and the improvement is huge. Their $40 USB cable is very close to Audioquest Diamond performance.
@@allansh828 This is the exact reason, why LLT should test audio cables. I would like to see a comparison between XLR and Jack because of the countless argument of "what sounds better"
@Olivia Olivia nobody here is gonna give you money for taking your clothes off go away
When reviewing products, please test the cables that come with them as well. Curious how many companies are saving pennies by using cheaper products.
+100
that was a surprisingly good "dummies" coverage of an eye diagram.
Gamers Nexus would have a field day with this thing 😂
I was thinking Dawid does tech. He loves buying stuff on Wish and testing it.
@@megan_alnico You can bet Steve is getting sent this by this team with a pleading face emoji asking him to get them one
lol you reeeely don't like new egg do you. lol do you much trolling they can do>
I would like you to test the cables that come with high end Monitors and see if theyre up to spec.
They almost certainly are. The main point of bundling cables is avoiding RMAs due to customers using bad cables.
@@hellterminator Another reason to make sure they really are :)
Factories could scam the brand so badly. Make some good ones first and then start putting cheaper shit in the box after they get established.
Not just that, for every time they review any product they normally would. If the product comes with a testable cable (except power cables probably), I would love to see them briefly cover the data for that cable as a brief segment, because that's part of the product and thus pertinent to the review.
Maybe they edit out the testing time but it looks fast and easy enough to test the odd included cable or two for product reviews going forward.
Test HDMI active extenders and see how far you can go with good cables before the signal becomes junk!
Revisit all the HDMI/Ethernet you've reviewed over the past few years. Especially the EliteCore Ethernet Cable.
The hand soldered wires at the board, shown in the beginning of the teardown, are called bodge wires I think. They're normal and appear quite frequently in equipment that's produced in small quantities (usually industrial). Running two extra traces in your case would mean extra engineering time to design a new pcb and ofc (probably massive) extra cost to produce new ones instead of a tiny job that can be done in 2 minutes with a soldering iron. Those wires will probably not be there in the next version of the product.
or they are there because of a broken trace. again they can't afford to have a board not be functional because of that small quantity you mentioned.
Έτσι ακριβώς. We see that in lots of prototype consoles and stuff too, or hobby projects that are not worth re-ordering.
Don't forget "intentional broken design". A common method to protect your valueable product from being stolen. It's for some products cheaper to hire some guys to solder the traces back together than getting it copied. However, there comes a pitfall. In Germany for example, if your product got stolen and you had an "intentional broken design", having this case come to court might be a bad awakening for you. That is, if the party who copied your design did actually "fix" that /broken part/ in their copy then it is ruled as "technical improvement" and therefore no copy anymore. In short: case dismissed.
the engineering time of making the bodge wire drawing is more expensive then the engineering time to change the board.
The problem is supply chain and inertia: That board can be ordered, patched and sold.
Maybeb there are even 20 laying around the shop, ready to b e sold with just a patch wire,
Changing the board requires a new prototype, new approval, new qualification, .... and binning the old b oards.
As you say: Next product revision and they will resolve that. But also: Do not worry about it.
@@andrewblake8797 Of course.
I'd like to see you testing all the "high-end" "top of the line" cables for niches like home cinema and audiophiles. Their prices are a lot higher than other "standard" products. So is it worth it?
@@xenoklash Precisely! Audiofoolery is the field that needs it the most.
I wan to see monster cable. I think they have gotten worse.
@@xenoklash i
@@ExistentialWolfe that’s actually a great idea for a video too. Cable quality from companies over time. If there was a way to validate what year a cable is from
You should test the difference between "High End" cables and low end cables, like AudioQuest's higher end ones that use "Silver"(i.e. Thunderbird). I know there is a lot of cables out there that claim they are "superior" to cheaper cables simply because they use "better quality" materials inside, however is there "really" a difference that a user would notice?(and not referring to distance capability, but quality of the data received since most higher end consumer cables are between 1m-3m).
No there won't be a difference you can see. A cable either works or it doesn't.
Would love to see cables included with products tested so we know whether we need to buy a separate high-quality cable with a product or not.
display port would be great, wondering if affects high hz gameplay somehow.
nope. A cable with either work 100%, or work with dropouts (that are very obvious) or not work atall.
@@djenson and those dropouts will most likely result in a blackout and the monitor downscaling to a lower HZ automatically
Yooo, didn’t think I’d find you here. I claimed the aimbot too hehe
Yes, display port please! Exactly two of my many many cables work on my ultra widescreen, plus one mini displayport-to-displayport cable that works with dropouts but I NEED for work because the surface dock sucks
@@djenson Shame this wasn't mentioned in the video, now everyone will be neurotic and think their cables could be "degrading signal" in a literal sense. These are digital connectors, not analog. Analog cables can physically degrade in quality, digital ones cannot. It either works or doesn't, as the receiving end of the cable reads the signal and reconstructs the digital bits (1's and 0's) that were originally being sent, and can detect through a checksum if the bits were altered in transit
You asked what I want to see, so here it is. Include cable testing in every monitor review/unboxing (preferably also in showcases, but that might be harder) and maybe a video testing mayor cable brands including a recommendation for an actually good cable brand.
A lot of monitors, particularly gaming ones, come with DP or HDMI cables. I’d like to see if the cables that are shipped with high end monitors can really support the product that you buy.
My experience with electronics devices from major brands is that the included cables (whether display, power, USB, whatever) are usually excellent. I mean think about it. Do you want people returning your expensive TV or writing bad reviews on it because you included a crap cable? Of course things can change when you get to cheap, generic Chinesium stuff.
Exactly, every monitor that they test from now on should get a tick if the cable is upto scratch
Hilariously: no. They cheap out hard with the provided cable. My 4k samsung TV came with an HDMI cable and for the longest time I thought I could only do 4k 30 on it from my computer. After "losing" and finding a different cable, I discovered that 4k60 is absolutely possible.
@@calvindibartolo2686 was your computer a macbook? Because I have encountered some known issues with 4k outputting only 30hz with some cables.
@@Z3DZ3R0 nope. Custom build X99 xeon with 32gb ram and a AIO cooled 1080
This was basically the origins of The Lab
I have 2 things to say:
1. Can't believe you didn't test the internal cables of the cable tester.
2. We need more Professor Riley. Tech Quikie would be perfect for him!
Do you still have that $1000 HDMI cable that used something like .997 silver wires? I'd like to see the signal integrity test of that one.
Also, will this machine tell whether my DVI-to-DisplayPort cables are active or passive?
YESSSS THIS, that cable is literally the first thing I thought of in this video
Bro this the first thing I thought of. They should've tested it
We mean Marseille Inc. mCable 🤣
If your DVI-DP cable has extra USB input - it is active, otherwise passive.
@@lategamingwithiainjarvis WireWorld cable
I like how the logistics team agrees to Linus's request like parents while listening to their toddler's random stories and requests
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The way Jamie (P.) said "Yeah sure" with slight gasp / in a out-of-breath-style gave the whole line a "Oh dear god..."-vibe;
uncertain if it was intentional or not. But it certainly added some classic comical flavour to whole conversation especially when considering the amount of upcoming workload
( I mean, I for one personally genuinely like doing monotonous work as long it is actually productive. So chances are at least some of Linus Media Group might also get super giddy about this reorganization / inventory-clearance-project ).
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@@marcogenovesi8570 Agreed...
@@PaveMentman Bruh... I am here trying to relate to this situation and you did a whole analogy!?!? RESPECT!
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@@Sanskar_S_Ratnawat
What you hear: "Yeah, sure."
Inner-Monologue: "( Oh dear lord / oh no, this is going to be a long night... )"
Yeah, I guess that pretty much sums it up.
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@@PaveMentman Since people love LMG inside baseball: they were filming the podcast at the other end of the warehouse and I was being quiet for that. Also why we were in the dark. Thanks for watching!
I am an "Entertainment Technician", and this tester could save me SO MUCH TIME... You have no idea how often I have to diagnose problems with video signals between multiple systems on a show or event. Normally everything works well, but when it doesn't a giant headeache is had and it's next to impossible to know what part of the signal path is at fault.
This is like Christmas. I've had and gone through so many friggin' cables. I need one of these. But, until i'm in a position where dropping $15k is better than wasting $10-$20 on cables and shipping is a reality...i'll stick with watching videos featuring this tester. Thank you and TotalPhase!
Teacher Riley is the secret sauce we've been missing all these years
Honestly I do like the character. Erudite, overly dramatic, yet vulnerable and charismatic 🤌
And he's only allowed to use big pieces of paper
Gave a thumbs up just for that to this video hah.
Nice camo tactleneck he's rocking too. Blends right in as a teacher.
@@johnnypopstar tactleneck 🤣
Would love to see the fuss about audiophile grade USB cables, I've heard the difference on very high end systems, but always been sceptical of the almost random pricing differences of the cables, ground noise and DC presence excluded I'd be super excited to see the signal integrity and jitter these 'grade' of cables provide (or not).
I have always heard it doesn't matter with USB as it's digital, but it would be interesting to confirm that. though proving anything high end audio is damn near impossible, and I love high end audio
Usually the claim with audio grade cables is low jitter, so he can certainly determine that.
"Audiophile" cables are for the most part snake oil
I guess the thing that most of us skeptics want, is to quantify jitter performance.. We know that benchmarks only paint a part of the picture, synthetic or not we at least have some framework to make decisions from. Both $50 and $1000 cables are generally sold using adjectives and metaphors..
The USB protocol is based on packet-switched data, not analog signals. Considering audio jitter on USB sounds nonsensical, so long as data makes its way through the USB cable, the audio after decoding will not be affected. The only way USB can botch an audio signal is if the hardware itself is designed poorly and cannot deal with noise coming from the computer to its ground planes (power planes are also considered ground planes, as they both ground signal traces).
That segment with Riley was just brilliant. Informative and hilarious
Answer the question: "What is the cheapest actually good HDMI 2.1 cable?"
The only company I haven't had issues with for HDMI 2.1 full bandwidth is cable matters, for what it's worth
As soon as he publishes that answer to his 10+M subscribers, it won't be the cheapest any more.
@@DPortain it may already not be, now that it’s been posted here.
Probably some random unbranded 1$ one from AliExpress
@@christofos I buy cable matters cables all the time because I've never had a bad experience with them lol, literally just bought a new dp cable for my PC, and some sata cables for a server I'm building (and can't find where all my sata cables went post-move). At the cost of sounding like a fanboy I'll also say I love their mini HDMI to HDMI cable that I use for my Raspberry Pi lol
I’d love to see a video on Apple lightning cables. Apple phones will often call out cables as “uncertified”, and it happens on Apple brand and certified cables for me (even fairly new ones.) by contrast, a couple off brand cables I’ve had have lasted forever…
(Lightning cables still awful btw)
I'm loving all the reviewers branching out recently, first GN with the power supply reviews, now Linus thinking about cable reviews, and I'm pretty sure GN is also about to do case fan reviews as well. there's no reviews on this stuff, but everyone uses them all the time
Well.. if by "about to" you mean in a year or so. They got their new testing rig shipped in, but they still have a loooong road of learning how to use it, then devising a testing methodology that meets Steve's rather high standards, and finally some validation that their method is both working as expected and providing useful data. But it's coming!
Reviewing the "next best thing" every day im sure make linus a very dull boy.
DUDE! This is awesome. Like he said "snake oil" BS with these cables is still a big problem. So many times I've been afraid of going with a certain brand or lable because I justr wasnt sure if it did what it said it would do. The placebo effect is strong too, "yeah, that looks clearer I think".
I’d love to see if things like coiled vrs uncoiled and sharp turns or when crushed what really happens to the performance
That's a really good idea! 👍 Don't just test a cable in a brand new condition, but also check how it holds up with a bit of wear and tear!
I always frown a little when I see a badly bent cable, this way I could know how much of an issue it really is!
There's something called the "reverse coil" method of wrapping up cables for storage.
Audio engineers use it when they're tidying up mic and guitar cables.
It's a method that causes less stress on the inner wires as it's being wrapped in a circle, so reduces the chance of the cable causing interference whilst recording.
@@Dempsey1504 I was graded on wrapping cables this way in college last year (for audio courses) and ever since then I wrap ALL my cables like that, no hesitation. It's SOOOO much nicer and easier.
I feel like Linus is having his revenge for the time he lost trying to diagnose why the godamm cable doesn't work.
I would also like revenge. He should test all brands and all the cables. I have a 3rd party FireWire → USB 2.1 cable that was never very fast, at least compared to the listed specs.
I feel like this is something Steve and the team over at Gamers Nexus would really like
Linus: I'm worried about manually soldered wires.
Also Linus: let me tap my screwdriver on all the internal bits.
Not just this video, but every time you hear that metal scraping a chip or solder point, I grate my teeth. Not only for the nails on a blackboard sound but potential damage.
It's not like the top of a chip does the important bits
@@JaredConnell naked flipchips would tend to disagree. Also, a slip-up is very easily made.
In a later video he had an old Mobo he tried to start it by jumping the header pins with the LTT screwdriver and apparently the coating wasn't conductive or something I think
I want a series with Professor Riley. This was a really fun video and I feel like I learned something.
Agreed!
I strongly agree with this!
Legend has it that Linus is still standing there testing cables to this day
Legend has it that's just because they had such a quick editing turn-around.
That was awesome Linus. You're really pushing the boundaries of expectations
for the channel with content like this and that's a good thing.
A head to head comparison of famous brands would be great! Specially Anker since they seem to have quality stuff for an affordable price
I'd love to see durability testing on different cables -- evaluating how much wear or damage the cable can take before it fails to deliver adequate performance. Some cables might fail internally well before you'd expect, while others might keep delivering intact signals even after the outer sheath has cosmetic damage.
Sponsored by glasswire 😉
I think it would be useful to see how the cables that come bundled with monitors and other devices stack up to the clams of the device.
When reviewing monitors, testing the included cable would be neat!
OH. BOY. This. Not to mention, something like TV Boxes. Like the Xiaomi Mi Box S. The HDMi cable that came with it is gutter trash. To the point where image quality saw a full fledged quality reduction when using it. That thing is 100% barely ready for HDMI 1.2. HDMI 1.4? Huge maybe. HDMI 2.0 for 4K 60 and even HDR? Nah. Signal will go through but you will see random bugging left & right.
generally those cables are among the best, the monitor manufacturer has a vested interest in sending a cable that works as faulty cables are often mistaken with faulty monitors
@@deathbe4me Tell that to Samsung who decided to include a DP cable with the ground switched with the 3.3 volt that shorted out my new 34" G5 and nearly caught fire. They told me is was a bad batch of cables that "somehow" passed their own testing and was shipped to retailers.
It was so cool to see you guys stepping up to a great industrial piece of gear like this. I have never used this device but cables can be a real problem for anyone. We had to use a way more expensive network analyzer for the same thing. Not only did it cost 10X it really did not do as good of a job. It was always SOP to test every cable in a test setup prior to testing. Super creds to LTT