WEBVTT 00:00:00.110 --> 00:00:06.150 I made a joke on my most recent episode of Handy Tech Under 100, where I said, 00:00:06.790 --> 00:00:12.430 all the items will be priced at over $100, and none of them are going to be useful. 00:00:12.790 --> 00:00:18.310 So we're going to kick things off then with the Apple Watch, which, I'm just kidding. 00:00:18.730 --> 00:00:19.830 It's the usual thing. 00:00:20.310 --> 00:00:24.550 And then literally hundreds of you were clearly full of disappoint. 00:00:25.050 --> 00:00:27.650 I mean, I can't think of another reason to dislike that video. 00:00:27.650 --> 00:00:35.890 So I decided to follow up with a new segment devoted to legitimately crappy stuff that costs more than $100. 00:00:36.490 --> 00:00:47.690 Welcome to Useless Tech Over 100, Episode 1, featuring the Wireworld Starlight Platinum 7, a $1,000 HDMI cable. 00:00:57.520 --> 00:01:03.800 Cooler Master's new Master Keys Pro-L and Pro-S keyboards provide 16.7 million color RGB backlighting, 00:01:03.940 --> 00:01:05.100 genuine Cherry MX switches. 00:01:05.360 --> 00:01:07.600 And an industry-leading ARM Cortex processor. 00:01:07.860 --> 00:01:09.280 Learn more at the link in the video description. 00:01:10.250 --> 00:01:13.530 So why did I spend this kind of money on a cable? 00:01:13.930 --> 00:01:19.870 Because while it's all fine and good to know that premium cables are pure nonsense for digital connections, 00:01:19.870 --> 00:01:21.850 because the internet said so, 00:01:22.450 --> 00:01:28.770 I felt like before taking shots at Wireworld specifically, or the premium cable industry in general, 00:01:29.030 --> 00:01:33.650 I owed it to my viewers and to myself, given that I'm the proud owner of this cable, 00:01:33.970 --> 00:01:35.430 to at least try it. 00:01:35.610 --> 00:01:38.610 With an open mind, and give them a chance to wow me. 00:01:38.870 --> 00:01:41.590 Let's start then with Wireworld's side of the story. 00:01:42.050 --> 00:01:47.050 At the entry level, you're already getting double the number of signal conductors. 00:01:47.230 --> 00:01:53.790 They call this their Symmetricon design, versus a round HDMI cable that has a mere 12 signal conductors. 00:01:54.110 --> 00:01:58.570 You're getting their HD grip plug, including silver with gold-plated contacts, 00:01:58.750 --> 00:02:05.470 which is very nice feeling, by the way, and the conductor used is 28 gauge OFC, or oxygen-free copper. 00:02:05.810 --> 00:02:11.570 It's of debatable importance for audio-visual applications, given its identical conductivity to regular copper, 00:02:11.570 --> 00:02:19.610 but hey, it costs more, so at least they're taking your money and spending it on more expensive materials to build the cable you're buying, 00:02:19.610 --> 00:02:21.770 rather than just lighting their cigars with it. 00:02:21.770 --> 00:02:22.970 That's somewhat noble. 00:02:22.970 --> 00:02:27.270 As you step up to the Chroma series, you get thicker gauge wires and... 00:02:27.270 --> 00:02:27.770 What? 00:02:28.410 --> 00:02:30.170 Amazing visual clarity? 00:02:30.170 --> 00:02:31.510 Is this of the cable? 00:02:31.510 --> 00:02:34.730 I mean, does it come with a pair of reading glasses, so I can see it better? 00:02:34.730 --> 00:02:35.470 Maybe this one's not. 00:02:35.470 --> 00:02:41.010 This one is just about the colors, because it does say, right on the Island 7 cable description, 00:02:41.010 --> 00:02:46.530 that you can enjoy all, their words, not mine, of the performance benefits with the entry-level one. 00:02:46.530 --> 00:02:51.290 But that doesn't prevent the higher-end ones from existing, so moving on, the Ultraviolet series, 00:02:51.510 --> 00:02:54.750 now you're getting silver-plated OFC conductors, 00:02:54.750 --> 00:03:00.190 which will provide you with an immediate improvement to your listening and viewing experience, apparently. 00:03:00.410 --> 00:03:04.890 But probably not as much as the Starlight 7, which increases wire gauge to 00:03:04.890 --> 00:03:10.850 23 AWG, and adds another eight silver-plated OFC conductors, 00:03:10.850 --> 00:03:16.490 in Wireworld's patented DNA helix design that twists the conductors around each other. 00:03:16.490 --> 00:03:24.050 I mean, hey, if it's good enough for DNA, it's good enough to forex the number of efficient paths for electromagnetic energy, right? 00:03:24.570 --> 00:03:32.090 The Silver Starlight 7 adds a thicker layer of silver over the copper cables, and promises vibrant color and exquisite sound quality, 00:03:32.090 --> 00:03:32.830 but I mean, come on. 00:03:32.830 --> 00:03:34.830 If you're gonna get the Silver Starlight 7, 00:03:34.890 --> 00:03:37.490 you might as well spring for the big kahuna. 00:03:37.670 --> 00:03:42.950 The Platinum Starlight 7 includes all the benefits of the previously mentioned designs, 00:03:43.010 --> 00:03:46.130 but opts to use carbon fiber plug-ins and 00:03:46.870 --> 00:03:53.130 solid silver conductors in place of copper, which sounds like you're getting a killer value. 00:03:53.130 --> 00:03:54.410 I mean, effectively, 00:03:54.410 --> 00:03:56.750 24 meters of silver wire in this one. 00:03:56.970 --> 00:04:03.570 That is until you actually look up the cost of 23 gauge silver wire, and realize that the bomb cost of this entire package that 00:04:03.570 --> 00:04:04.570 you receive, 00:04:04.570 --> 00:04:09.790 including the admittedly attractive carrying case and printed signed certificate of authenticity, 00:04:09.790 --> 00:04:12.070 is around a hundred US dollars and change. 00:04:12.550 --> 00:04:17.950 But, if everything in life was as simple as covering the bill of materials cost, 00:04:18.070 --> 00:04:22.270 then we'd all be paying four to six bucks for dinner at a fancy restaurant. 00:04:22.370 --> 00:04:29.810 So labor and patented technologies, assuming they deliver a tangible value, do justify spending more sometimes. 00:04:30.090 --> 00:04:33.210 Which leads me, finally, to my test. 00:04:33.210 --> 00:04:34.390 I sat down, 00:04:34.390 --> 00:04:41.150 in front of my curved 4k OLED TV from LG, tried first the random cable that I stole from the office, 00:04:41.510 --> 00:04:47.290 then a wire world one, and it did not observe any difference in image or sound quality. 00:04:47.390 --> 00:04:51.510 But then it hit me. I only have one wire world cable. 00:04:51.570 --> 00:04:57.590 That means that between my computer and the receiver, I'm still using a standard quality cable, 00:04:57.890 --> 00:05:01.390 effectively bottlenecking the data flow. So I needed a new test. 00:05:01.830 --> 00:05:04.370 There are a couple of situations where high 00:05:04.390 --> 00:05:07.410 quality cables have made a difference for me in the past. 00:05:07.910 --> 00:05:12.570 Long runs, where red mirror HDMI cables have saved my buns, and 00:05:13.270 --> 00:05:20.210 high refresh rate DisplayPort monitors, where flaky cables have caused intermittent display blanking issues. 00:05:20.590 --> 00:05:22.590 Since I wasn't about to spend another 00:05:23.710 --> 00:05:28.150 $9,000 to test long-distance, I settled on the latter. For my first test, 00:05:28.150 --> 00:05:33.790 I used the cheapest, you know, bundled in the monitor box, one meter cable I could find. Truly horrendous. 00:05:34.390 --> 00:05:41.750 And I managed to successfully overclock the 50 Hertz 3440 by 1440 ultra-wide display to 61 Hertz. 00:05:41.750 --> 00:05:43.750 A fair result, but nothing amazing. 00:05:43.910 --> 00:05:50.150 So I followed that up then with a $10 or so retail cable that I purchased a while back. 00:05:50.870 --> 00:05:57.890 And no improvement. 61 Hertz. Looks like if it works, it works. At least for basic cables. 00:05:58.270 --> 00:06:02.950 So finally then, and with a lot more anticipation than I actually expected, 00:06:02.950 --> 00:06:04.230 I plugged in, 00:06:04.230 --> 00:06:07.850 the Platinum Starlight 7 silver cable, and 00:06:08.590 --> 00:06:10.410 was disappointed. 00:06:10.410 --> 00:06:17.430 61 Hertz. I was actually rooting for it after reading so much about how their design and materials improve signal integrity. 00:06:17.830 --> 00:06:19.830 Which I guess leads us to the conclusion. 00:06:20.510 --> 00:06:26.070 While I'm sure that someone will be happy to point out some kind of a flaw in my testing methodology, 00:06:26.230 --> 00:06:33.450 like that the HDMI ports on my video card or the processor in my monitor might be bottlenecking this magnificent cable, 00:06:33.450 --> 00:06:35.690 but here's a newsflash for you. 00:06:35.690 --> 00:06:41.310 HDMI ports are not like cars, where everyone has to have a steering wheel and an engine, 00:06:41.650 --> 00:06:44.790 but can pretty much find their own way to roll it down the road. 00:06:44.870 --> 00:06:53.490 They are built according to a rigid standard to ensure interoperability and support for all the cool features like stereo 3D, deep color, 00:06:53.630 --> 00:06:59.190 multi-channel audio, Ethernet, 4k, etc, etc, etc. And if the processor in a 1440p 00:06:59.830 --> 00:07:03.130 100 Hertz monitor and an NVIDIA video card, 00:07:03.450 --> 00:07:09.930 in this case a GTX Titan X, remember, NVIDIA is one of the only devices that I'm aware of that offers 00:07:10.630 --> 00:07:13.770 manufacturer-supported display link overclocking. 00:07:14.230 --> 00:07:20.550 Can't take advantage of this cable. The only conclusion that I can draw is that nothing can. 00:07:20.930 --> 00:07:23.670 I didn't break out an oscilloscope or anything like that. 00:07:23.670 --> 00:07:30.330 That would have been super cool and may have actually revealed the 6% conductivity improvement between solid copper and solid silver. 00:07:30.690 --> 00:07:33.390 But what I wanted to know was whether it makes a 00:07:33.450 --> 00:07:40.730 real difference, even a small one, 62 Hertz would have been good enough, to a person rather than a machine, and the answer is 00:07:41.390 --> 00:07:45.520 no. 00:07:45.520 --> 00:07:48.040 Speaking of whatever I was talking about on that day, 00:07:48.040 --> 00:07:51.000 I recorded this video when I was supposed to be in the office, 00:07:51.700 --> 00:07:54.720 Massdrop.com. If you're not familiar with Massdrop, guys, 00:07:54.720 --> 00:08:01.620 it's the site that takes the deals that their community requests and goes to the manufacturers or the authorized distributors and 00:08:01.940 --> 00:08:06.100 sources them, not just sources them, but at a better price. And the more people buy, 00:08:06.360 --> 00:08:12.920 the better it gets. But Massdrop does more than just that these days. In fact, they've started doing some exclusive deals, 00:08:13.140 --> 00:08:19.840 including the Fostex TH-X00 headphones that I reviewed a little while ago back there. 00:08:19.840 --> 00:08:26.680 But this is different this time. This is the TH-X00 with a different type of wood. 00:08:27.400 --> 00:08:31.260 Gone is the mahogany and in is the Purple Heart or 00:08:31.960 --> 00:08:35.720 Peltagene wood, which basically gives it a darker aesthetic, and 00:08:35.720 --> 00:08:40.500 also slightly changes the sound signature, giving it a little bit less kick in the lows, 00:08:40.660 --> 00:08:45.640 but a little bit more clarity in the highs, according to Massdrop. I haven't actually listened to these personally. 00:08:45.640 --> 00:08:51.700 They are available for $4.49 on Massdrop. They have already reached the lowest drop, and they've sold over 00:08:52.400 --> 00:08:56.760 1,100 pairs so far, but that doesn't mean that you can just wait around, because there's only 00:08:57.100 --> 00:09:02.580 2,000 available and just a couple of days left in the drop. So check out the deal over at DrawedUps.com 00:09:02.960 --> 00:09:05.320 slash Linus. We've got that linked in the 00:09:05.720 --> 00:09:07.720 video description. 00:09:07.900 --> 00:09:11.440 Thanks for watching. Guys, if you hated this video, hit the dislike button. 00:09:11.880 --> 00:09:17.920 But if it was awesome, get subscribed, hit the like button, or even consider supporting us directly by using our affiliate code to shop at 00:09:17.920 --> 00:09:19.920 Amazon. Don't buy these cables, by the way, please. 00:09:20.260 --> 00:09:26.040 Buy a cool shirt like this one or with a direct monthly contribution through our community forum, which is linked in the video description. 00:09:26.560 --> 00:09:29.680 Now that you're done doing all that stuff, you're probably wondering, hmm, what should I watch next? 00:09:29.680 --> 00:09:35.620 Well, maybe check out Channel Super Fun, where we've got this video over there that I guarantee you is worth watching. 00:09:35.720 --> 00:09:37.720 That's assuming that you haven't already.