- Die.
(upbeat music)
Drop test.
We're gonna do a, can it toe?
Oh God.
Good luck everybody.
Normally reviewing a cable is a hard pass for me,
but when I get an email that says,
"Hey, you wanna check out an indestructible tactical cable?"
Well, now you got my attention, don't you?
I didn't think today was gonna include any of this stuff,
and yet, it did.
Meet the EliteCore Athena ethernet cable,
a truly fascinating product.
There's one thing I did know today though,
that I would be telling our viewers about our sponsor,
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coming later in this video.
(upbeat music)
This is your run of the mill
cat five or cat six network cable,
and this is EliteCore's super cat tactical cable.
What in the world makes a cable tactical?
Is it for jacking into the main frame during your covert ops
or using it while taking enemy fire?
I mean, is it even better than this?
There's only one way for us to find out,
my script just says vamp as you unbox.
So let's go ahead and do this thing, shall we?
Wow, the quality of this printing is terrible,
lifetime guarantee though unconditional.
You take great pride in your computer
and for good reason,
this is some A plus marketing rank right here.
Every single inch of it oozes powerful perfection,
yet we're willing to bet that if you peeked around the back
it's still connected with a flimsy ethernet cable.
Oh, for crying out loud, essentially a string and tin cans.
That's what they,
they said this is essentially a string and tin can.
Enter the Athena Elite
(man clears throat)
dripping with excellence, they say.
Built to not only handle modern signal needs
but to last an eternity and look good along the way.
Look at this lock-in connector.
Like one of the first things to fail on any ethernet cable
is obviously that little clip that keeps it into the socket.
One wrong look at this thing and ping off at pops
you'll never see it again,
don't bother trying to superglue it back on by the way
that doesn't work.
So EliteCore, this is an interesting strategy.
So first they've got this like cover around it
so it can't accidentally pop off,
and then they've got a built-in button so you can press it.
Then they've got like a strain relief here
and the sleeving on this thing is freaking ridiculous.
Oh, wow, look at that,
it's like gut memory, like sleeving.
Oh, well that's pretty cool when you're doing
like an ethernet wall or like a kind of trickier run.
How's your (indistinct)
(upbeat music)
Okay, not bad.
And it gets even more interesting,
this is called the converter shell connector
and it accepts this kind of like Baton looking thing.
So you can see the whole ethernet connector
is now like recessed in this thing.
So in order to use this,
you're actually gonna have to have special wall plates
that EliteCore makes that it plugs into
just like an XLR connector,
on like professional audio.
There you go.
You have to push this thing to release it.
So like, theoretically,
it's real hard to get out by accident.
Of course so far, we're just taking EliteCore's word for it
that these things are tough, you can run over it,
you can hang weights from it, blah, blah, blah.
I wanna see for myself.
So for the next few minutes,
we are going to be beating the absolute crap
out of this cable and seeing if it still works.
And we get to look at doing it, lttstore.com.
Oh, I mean, we could do a quick
does it come out on its own by accident test.
(man groans)
Okay, well that didn't come out on its own.
We're transferring, ladies and gentlemen.
You know what?
I'm gonna start with something a little less heavy
(metal clanks)
how about just like this?
(chants in foreign language)
Sorry, I just watched the "Lord of the Rings 4K".
We actually flattened it a little bit.
(metal clanks)
Of course, what we don't know
is if that would actually break a regular cable.
(metal clanks)
Still transferring,
somehow I wouldn't really trust it though.
11, 12.
(metal clanks)
Oh, it's dead.
That's what a dead ethernet cable looks like.
So let's give it another 20.
(metal clanks)
(upbeat music)
Okay, EliteCore, okay.
Can you tell how much flatter it is on camera?
(man claps)
Next test,
regular ethernet cable versus accidental scissors.
See you later.
Oh, it's dead.
Now, I'm hoping to actually be able to break it here.
(classical music)
Gotta choke up,
make sure you get that full snipping power.
Oh, did I get it?
I did get it.
All right, guess now we can find out what he's made of.
First thing we've got is this is 23 AWG cat six
so yes, rated for 10 gig, but not over full distance
you need cat six eight for that.
Each of the individual twisted pairs is shielded.
Well, that explains the kind of like the memory.
- [Colin] Do you think it's just a shield?
- Yeah, it has to be because there's nothing else in here.
Colin and I were discussing
whether we thought it was gonna be stranded or solid core,
I can't tell yet, what's your final bet?
I'm gonna strip it back.
- [Colin] It's gotta be stranded to-
- For a patch cable?
- Take industrial use.
It's gonna be dragged and kinked
and in and a truck 100 times.
- I'm gonna say solid, just to be contrarian.
I win, it's solid core-
- [Colin] No way.
- It's solid core.
Okay, well that would explain some of the memory
as well then,
and probably what makes it so that it doesn't break
is like I said, the fact that it has such thick shielding
and then sheathing on it.
Just because one of our cables is dead,
doesn't mean our test is over.
We pretested this blue cable
and we've devised a series of torture tests
we're gonna put it through
before going back in and testing it again,
starting with the classic,
can you run over it with a pickup truck?
My lovely assistant Colin, he'll assist.
(classical music)
Okay, you know what?
That's probably enough for that.
As expected, that did nothing at all.
Another classic, we're gonna do a, can it tow?
Oh God, oh God, oh God.
I mean, it's doing it.
I don't know how high my confidence level is right now.
Okay, Colin brake, Mathias brake.
Oh God.
Colin, wait a second there.
Hold on, I gotta play my favorite song.
(guitar plays)
Oh, this poor thing.
I don't think it lived.
The sleeving has suffered a little bit,
let's go test it now.
Wait, no, it still works.
You gotta be kidding me.
All right, let's go back and kill it for real this time.
Soft wheels, that's easy,
but these are hard wheels.
This forklift weighs about 3000 pounds,
good luck everybody.
(vehicle beeps)
(orchestral music)
All right, thanks Mathias.
Oh man, that didn't even do anything,
it flattened it a little.
Die.
Drop test.
(upbeat music)
Test time, you ready?
Try again, try again.
Did we kill it?
Oh my God, we didn't.
We didn't, it works
Thought we got it that time.
Okay, then marketing about the shame of connecting
your gaming rig with a flimsy cable
you found in a drawer somewhere,
clearly these are made for a different purpose
than your run of the mill router to PC connection,
when the result is like mission critical.
Like if you're setting up an audio system
for a touring musician,
or rapidly deploying emergency infrastructure.
This is the kind of cable that you spend the extra on
when you need to be able to trust that it will work
even when it's abused, and that is what tactical means.
According to what we've seen in the real world,
this will stand the test of time
whether you're on a traveling show
that moves production to production,
or whether you just run over cables with your chair
all the time or something like that.
But what is the cost?
I actually don't know so this is the reveal.
(upbeat music)
Oh really?
$42 per cable.
You know what?
That's bad, but it's not that bad.
Like after working with pro grade cameras
and filming equipment and that kind of stuff for so long,
it doesn't surprise me whether it's an XLR cable
or like a weird proprietary USB adapter for the A7
or this is a classic.
This is the cable that goes between a red camera
and the monitor that is proprietary to red.
- [Andy] We beak a lot of those.
- Excuse me.
- [Andy] We beak a lot of those
because the strain relief is not great.
- These are $150 a pop.
- [Andy] I know.
- Which is a lot of money.
Huh, actually I'm kind of still processing that one,
but it's kind of the cost of doing business
at a certain point.
And it will pay for itself
every time you have a completed production
that doesn't require a reshoot
or where the editor doesn't find a popper hiss in the audio.
These wireless microphone packs, for example
are $4,000 a pair.
I mean, you can get a wireless lab kit for a 10th of that,
but it's not mission critical grade.
So that's why there's this whole world out there
of connectors and industrial cables that are designed
to far outperform what you would find
kicking around your house.
One of the big manufacturers in the connector space
is Neutrik,
and they actually make many of the connectors
that EliteCore uses in their products.
They're kind of the defacto standard
when it comes to rigging gear like this.
This is actually a Power Bar that EliteCore makes
that is $167 for just four outlets.
But it's got this locking connector and if you open it up,
I mean the cable management man,
it's like you could throw this thing around back of a truck,
drive it across country
and you would still expect it to freaking work.
Now that's not to say that the performance of these cables
is any better, whether it's the ethernet or power
or whatever else,
it's just basically tin cans and string
at the end of the day.
But when it comes to locking retention mechanisms,
water tightness and durability,
well, that's where this kind of stuff comes into play.
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(upbeat music) Well folks, it's been cool to show you
just how high-end cables can go.
If you're interested in checking out some more
ultra top end gear, maybe consider our (beep) serious.
We just did a video on a $15,000 network switch.
(upbeat music)