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Comment by rationalist | Hacker News Reader

By chance, has anyone tested Cable Matters' cables?

I just bought a couple of their Thunderbolt™ 5 cables. They seem like a reputable company that would make their cables true-to-spec. Thanks in advance!

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We had good results testing Cable Matters stuff here at work, but that was for non-critical use so I didn't go too hard on the tests. (Actually, I didn't go too hard on any of it since it was mostly make-work from a manager trying to cause trouble, but still....)

I was quite impressed by GlobTek (available at Digi-Key) and have been buying those when I need something nice. Their USB-C line are some of the best I've seen, not that I'm a connoisseur.

I bought a 3-meter long USB C cable from them for data and display transfer, which turned out to be the only USB C cable of that length capable of driving my display at its full resolution and framerate. However, after a year of use, it stopped transferring any sort of data. So while they're probably up to spec, the quality isn't necessarily what their pricing may suggest.

Support allowed me to send it back for replacement as a "one-time exception", though I was well within the common 2-year warranty period in the EU.

I've not spec tested them, but astronomy gear is notoriously picky about USB cables and since I switched all of my cables to cable matters a lot of weird behaviors just stopped happening

I have some that I got to connect to my MBP, which supports TB5. Unfortunately my MSI MPG 321URX doesn't properly support it, so half of the time the DisplayPort over USB negotiation doesn't work, and the monitor doesn't connect properly.

Apparently the majority of non-TB devices will have trouble with it. I can't even use the cable to charge my phone when attached to a wall wart!

> I can't even use the cable to charge my phone when attached to a wall wart!

It sounds like maybe you have a defective cable? When I first used the cable, it didn't charge my phone until I made sure it was plugged in all the way.

They are excellent.

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