Monster has been making audio visual cables for many years now, and I still remember the salesperson telling me about them back when I first got a flat screen CRT television a looong time ago. I couldn’t appreciate it at the time though, as HD was something not even in the lexicon of most American television consumers. Back then, we were still using 480p resolution screens! My, how times have changed. We now have 8K monitors and televisions ripe with pixel density. Enter: the Monster Ultra High-Speed 8K Cobalt HDMI 2.1 cable series.
Monster’s new cable aims to provide high speed data rates and reliability into a premium package. Did they succeed? We received a sample of the Monster Ultra High-Speed 8K Cobalt HDMI 2.1 cable in the mail for review and were immediately impressed by its packaging. Monster is a well-known brand and they certainly provide a quality packaging scheme with their cables.
The cable is previewed on one side of the box, its Cobalt blue color accent displayed proudly. On the back of the box, Monster states that the packaging is all recyclable – a nice little extra! After opening the package and upon closer inspection of the cable, we were delighted to find that it was coated with what Monster calls a Duraflex jacket. This coating along the cable’s surface allows for both easier passage of the cable through tight spaces as well as ample protection against impacts, pinching, and kinks (all are bad things to happen to a cable). The cord terminates with the HDMI interface – in this cable, that interface features 24 karat gold contacts and multiple layers of shielding. This is said to provide defense against signal loss and interference.
On the spec sheet, the Monster Ultra High-Speed Cobalt HDMI 2.1 cables are rated for up to 8K resolution at 60Hz, 4K resolution at 120Hz and chroma 4:4:4 signal (no subsampling). Additionally, the cable supports data transfer rates of up to 48 Gbps! Along with this high transfer rate, its worth mentioning the cables Enhanced Audio Return Channel (also known as eARC) feature. eARC is the next generation of ARC tech and is only included in the most recent HDMI 2.1 specification.
The main benefit of eARC is a big boost in bandwidth and speed. This allows you to send higher-quality audio from your TV to a soundbar or AV receiver. The cable also supports Dynamic HDR (High Dynamic Range), which enhances video images with an extended dark to bright contrast range for deeper blacks and brighter whites, greater detail in both the dark and bright parts in the same image, and greater detail within an extended color space. Setting up your system with these cables is, well, simple. Just plug one end into each HDMI port and you’re off to the races.
Of course, the premium Monster cable experience does come with a slightly higher price point than most generic cables you’ll find off of retailers like Amazon. The difference is that Monster’s cables are all made to the company’s expectations of quality assurance. I have had several issues with generic cables in the past – from sub-par shielding to lower-than-advertised data transfer rates. With the Monster cable, you can take refuge in the company’s 1 year warranty policy.
We tested the cable using both our ultrawide screen WUHD monitor as well as our 4K television screen connected to our PlayStation 5 console. At the time of this writing, we do not have an 8K television to test on. However, running 4K UHD on the screen, the cable performed flawlessly and I would not hesitate to recommend it for connecting your game console to your screen. Overall, Monster’s new Ultra High-Speed Cobalt HDMI 2.1 cables are excellent purchases if you are in need of a high-speed HDMI cable capable of 8K or 4K entertainment.
Monster’s new Ultra High-Speed Cobalt HDMI 2.1 cables will simply not disappoint.
