If there is one thing we have too many of at home, it's HDMI cables - we've all got a drawer or a bag full of the things; but how many of them are actually worth keeping?
None of them, if the Ruipro 8K fibre optic cable has anything to do with it.
**The RUIPRO 8K HDMI Fibre Optic Cable was reviewed using hardware provided and sent to us by RUIPRO, but in no way influenced the review.
We'll get this out of the way straight away, this isn't a cable for everyone - this is a £174.39 cable aimed at professionals and home cinema enthusiasts, so if you're still reading, I'll assume that's you.
Prices start at £115.79 for the 1M version, we were sent the 10M option, and the cable itself feels very premium, with handy input/output tags on the corresponding connectors.
The Ruipro comes in a very well packaged box, which matches the modest proce point - no jiffy bags here! The cable comes in a sleek black box, and also contains 5V USB power adaptor if not enough power is available for the cable.
As this is an 8K fibre optic cable, Ruipro promise high resolution with a fast refresh rate, most notably 8K at 60Hz and 4K at 120Hz, making content crisp and sharp, with action, sports and gaming getting a deliciously good picture, even with VR.
We previously reviewed the £59.89, FeizLink 4K Fibre Optic HDMI Cable, which was an impressive cable that supported bandwidth up to 18Gbps. The Ruipro, however, ups the ante with astounding Ultra High Speed 48gbps, and that's for both 4K and 8K.
On the audio side of things, it supports eARC (Enhanced Audio Return Channel) which allows uncompressed audio through 5.1, 7.1 and 32-channel audio formats, providing an immersive an multi-channel experience.
Now, I don't have an 8K display at hand, but I do have multiple 4K TV's and monitors, so I tested the Ruipro on those, using a Playstation 5 and an RTX 2070 Super as my demo units.
I tested the Ruipro on a Hisense H65A6200 65" 4K TV, an ASUS VP28UQGL 4K Ultra HD 28" Monitor and a Hisense 43AE7400FTUK 43" 4K TV, and I must admit, there was noticeable difference from the standard cables I was using prior - most notably on the H65A6200 as I use a 4k HDMI switcher for all the consoles, and plugging the Playstation 5 straight into the TV with the Ruipro showed some difference - not enough to blow my mind, but it was different enough.
Visuals are crisp and vibrant, but this will also be a factor on the display you're using, but I ran the cable to the most length I could feasibly do indoors, and there was no loss in quality at the longest or shortest I tested - at any length the Ruipro looked terrific.
As with the FeizLink, as fantastic as the Ruipro is, it's a hard thing to recommend due to the price.
For the right people,. it's an absolute essential cable, especially if you're upgrading your home cinema, but for the average Joe, it's absolute overkill.
The Ruipro 8K fibre optic HDMI cable does everything it sets out to do - audio and visuals are top notch, and if you're serious about getting the most out of your equipment, then this cable will absolutely fit those boots.
If you're only after a cable to ensure you don't miss an episode of Top Gear, then there are other ways you can spend £174.
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