The Ultraviolet and Chroma cables are the only ones that still have the original single-conductor design. The Ultraviolet is the same as Starlight 5-2/6 except with a thin silver-plating. I tried Chroma, which does not have silver plating -- Chroma was okay but nothing special with sound that was balanced but a little low resolution and video that had just a tiny bit of noise. I have not tried Ultraviolet.
The original Silver Starlight 5-2 cables are also excellent, though not quite as good as Nordost Heimdall but in different ways. SS 5-2 was the only cable ever to use OCC copper for conductors. The SS 5-2 has better high frequency resolution and better bass than Heimdall, but Heimdall sounds more natural/realistic and has better saturated video. SS 5-2 can come across just a tiny bit bright in the highs on some systems, but others it is excellent. They are extremely hard to find, however.
I did try a Silver Starlight 7 (which uses DLNA Helix). I suppose this is a decent cable, but in the end it was not really any different than the $100 Neotech cable. WW advertises this as a 23awg cable, but it actually uses 2 x 26awg wires for each main signal conductor. Two problems here: 1. smaller conductors just don’t have the "oomph", and 2. I think it creates small timing errors on the digital pulses because the 2 x 26awg conductors are twisted around in a way that creates unequal length conductors. The older Starlight 5-2/6 cables were much better than this newer design. It looks like Wire World has abandoned this multiple-conductor DLNA Helix design with their new cables, but they have stopped publishing conductor awg sizes.
I tried AQ Vodka (which is just one step below Coffee) and was incredibly disappointed. Like jdub39 said, bass was thin and upper mids/highs were thin as well (video was "okay" I guess). I actually found out directly from an AQ support person that my 2 meter Vodka used extremely small 30 awg conductors. I expected a lot more from a "$500 retail" cable. Even the WW Silver Starlight 7 (which used the DLNA Helix design) was better. The $100 Neotech NEHH-4200 was a lot better than this AQ $500 cable.
I see Amazon is blowing out the previous Vodka HDMI for cheap ($169). I don’t think their new "48" cables are doing to be any different other than being re-branded with a new name. I love the Audioquest NRG power cables and 44/88 speaker cables, but I think they dropped the ball on the HDMI cables.
The original Silver Starlight 5-2 cables are also excellent, though not quite as good as Nordost Heimdall but in different ways. SS 5-2 was the only cable ever to use OCC copper for conductors. The SS 5-2 has better high frequency resolution and better bass than Heimdall, but Heimdall sounds more natural/realistic and has better saturated video. SS 5-2 can come across just a tiny bit bright in the highs on some systems, but others it is excellent. They are extremely hard to find, however.
I did try a Silver Starlight 7 (which uses DLNA Helix). I suppose this is a decent cable, but in the end it was not really any different than the $100 Neotech cable. WW advertises this as a 23awg cable, but it actually uses 2 x 26awg wires for each main signal conductor. Two problems here: 1. smaller conductors just don’t have the "oomph", and 2. I think it creates small timing errors on the digital pulses because the 2 x 26awg conductors are twisted around in a way that creates unequal length conductors. The older Starlight 5-2/6 cables were much better than this newer design. It looks like Wire World has abandoned this multiple-conductor DLNA Helix design with their new cables, but they have stopped publishing conductor awg sizes.
I tried AQ Vodka (which is just one step below Coffee) and was incredibly disappointed. Like jdub39 said, bass was thin and upper mids/highs were thin as well (video was "okay" I guess). I actually found out directly from an AQ support person that my 2 meter Vodka used extremely small 30 awg conductors. I expected a lot more from a "$500 retail" cable. Even the WW Silver Starlight 7 (which used the DLNA Helix design) was better. The $100 Neotech NEHH-4200 was a lot better than this AQ $500 cable.
I see Amazon is blowing out the previous Vodka HDMI for cheap ($169). I don’t think their new "48" cables are doing to be any different other than being re-branded with a new name. I love the Audioquest NRG power cables and 44/88 speaker cables, but I think they dropped the ball on the HDMI cables.