AudioQuest “48” HDMI cables can transfer up to professional 10K Ultra-HD video. The 48Gbps bandwidth is made possible by 4 balanced audio/video pairs capable of 12Gbps each. The precision and tighter manufacturing tolerances required to produce HDMI cables that transfer up to 48Gbps bandwidth mean many of AudioQuest’s tried-and-true ingredients and techniques are more important than ever before.

AudioQuest 48Gbps HDMI cables have the bandwidth required for video with resolutions up to 10K and resolutions/refresh rates up to 8K/60 and 4K/120. All AudioQuest HDMI cables are completely backwards compatible with existing 4K displays.

In AudioQuest HDMI cables, increasingly thick layers of silver plating are applied to AudioQuest’s Long-Grain Copper (LGC) conductors to improve Noise-Dissipation. Placing the superior metal on the outside of the conductor produces the greatest benefit on overall performance—a superbly cost-effective way to maximize a digital cable. ThunderBird 48 uses 10% Silver-Plated Copper for both its conductors and drains.

Traditional “100% shielding” is not enough to guard against the increasingly prevalent effects of Wi-Fi, cellular, and satellite radiation. In AudioQuest HDMI cables, all 19 conductors are Direction-Controlled to minimize the RF Noise that damages performance by “directing” or draining it away from the most vulnerable circuits. In Level 5 Noise-Dissipation, high-loss graphene is added to the carbon layer sandwiched between layers of metal around the 4 FRL + eARC pairs, and a "global" high-loss carbon layer is placed around all conductors.

Because sound matters, the eARC conductors in AudioQuest's 48-Series HDMI cables receive equal love and affection, featuring the same superior metals, Direction-Controlled Conductors, and Noise-Dissipation technologies as the main AV data pairs. In AudioQuest eARC-Priority cables, the main A/V data pairs have Cinnamon-level performance (Forest 48’s solid 0.5% Silver + Carbon & Vodka 48’s Level-3 Noise-Dissipation), while the eARC data pair and Ground-Reference drain use all the same advanced design ingredients as their “48” counterparts. HDMI’s Audio Return Channel (ARC) sends audio from a TV to a soundbar or AV receiver for greater simplicity and flexibility in system setup. Hardware’s previous ARC capabilities max out at lossy (compressed) 5.1-channel surround sound. Today’s HDMI 2.1 hardware supports enhanced Audio Return Channel (eARC), which increases the digital bandwidth dramatically to support uncompressed and lossless high-resolution multichannel audio, including Dolby TrueHD and Atmos, and DTS-HD Master Audio and DTS: X.