Slashdot Mirror
Are 'Monster' Cables Worth It?
Digitarius asks: "Are "Monster" cables really better, or are they just more expensive? I'm setting up my HDTV, and I can get Component video cables made by Belkin for half the price of the Monster cable equivalents. Are there any actual stats or studies to back up Monster's claims of superiority? So far most people tell me to get the Monster cables, 'just to be sure,' but what's the real truth?"
unless you're looking at a significant length cable run (25 feet or more), i highly doubt you'll notice any difference at all, even between regular patch cords and a "component video" set of cables (which are three patch cords bound together). i have used monster cable speaker cables and signal cables, and you'll not notice a large difference using plain lamp cord and regular cables. as far as component video is concerned, you'll want to make sure the three cables are as similar as possible, and i recommend true coax, with the proper resistance bnc terminated ends (52 ohm i believe). for rca component video, 75 ohm coax terminated in rca plugs works very well, a friend of mine pointed out that for analog audio, this setup works well. for both situations, the components being connected seem to appreciate the higher resistance cable. it helps to curb noise.
either way, unless you're looking at a long run of cables, pretty much anything will do well. and for digital audio, it dosen't matter what the cable is, if it'll pass the signal, it'll work, (there's no signal loss with digital connecitons)
all that being said, monster cables sure are purty... i like purty cables...
Cogito Eggo Sum, I think therefore I'm a waffle
If all you got is a lousy Schneider CD player then go with Belkin. If you got a more high-end marantz OR NAD then the monster cables (or better - there's an open end above monster cables, for example with prices of 3000 Euro per meter!) will be worth them.
...with my HTPC/HDTV setup. I have found that I notice no difference between the Monster cables I have and the other brands I have laying around. Only really important thing I can stress is Gold->Gold Silver->Silver. Don't mix and match those for corrosion reasons. Shielded cables are good, but they don't have to be the more expensive Monster cables.
The above is just my experience... and of course YMMV.
"why don't you just slip into something more comfortable...like a coma!"
No, next time use google.
If you don't like my answer, then my 2nd answer is "Your Monster cables will make your Bose system rock man!"
it doesn't matter if WE can hear a difference, if you cannot then it is not worth the money for you, even if money is not an issue as you claim.
http://www.rayn.net . Funny. Stuff.
Generic cable is good enough unless you're running a long distance. If that's the case, use coaxial.
Component cable is for short runs only.
As a physicist, I can tell you there are two important qualities for the wires, both of which won't affect the sound quality. Those two factors is how well the wires connect to the posts, and how well the wires transmit the signal.
If there were some frequency dependencies, then you would see a degradation of sound. But there isn't. If there were some variability of resistance based on current, then there would be a degradation of sound. But there isn't.
The only benefit your get from monster cables is a perhaps slightly lower resistance. That is all. The higher resistance of standard wires can easily be overcome by "turning up the volume".
So, Monster Cables are not worth it, strictly speaking. The only reason people get Monster Cables is the same reason people get gold-plated pens. Other than a status symbol, it is meaningless.
And besides, people who sport jewelry or expensive toys tend to be poorer than those who are more modest. (Case in point: It seems these spinners people buy for their cars are bought by the lower class in my town. Where they get the money for this, yet can't pay for their children's college education, is a question I don't think they'd want to answer.)
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
Why is there an analog part of the signal chain at all?
-- Boycott Shell
Firingsquad did a test between different brands and different types (rca vs svideo). The results where pretty interesting:
http://www.firingsquad.com/guides/ps2picture/
Monster Cables are a giant scam designed to relieve gullible people of their money. Double-blind testing has shown time and time again that you can not physically perceive the difference.
There is a huge industry around selling useless crap to people. Monster cables will give you about the same results as rocks. (Yes, people buy those rocks and yes, they think they make their stereos sound better.)
I highly recommend that you check out the James Randi Educational Foundation, and do a site search for "audiophile" or the like.
Frankly, I don't know what scares me more: the fact that someone will honestly claim that a magic rock will make music sound better, or the fact that people will pay good money for one...
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
When I got into audio I thought all of these things mattered, but I slowly realized that I couldn't tell the difference. Much like I can't tell the difference between a diamond with E color and F color. 12 years ago back a company introduced a cable that somehow carried different frequencies at different rates or some other similar magic - I really can't remember. A friend of mine swore he could tell a difference, I couldn't. He dropped hundreds on the cables, I didn't.
Visit one of your friends who is recommending monster cable, listen to his system. Swap the cables with lower-end ones, and see if you can tell the difference. That hour of time may put your mind at ease.
I can't say that I did an empirical review to accurately measure differences, but recently I purchased an HDTV and was wondering the very same thing. I tried several different "just normal cables" one being the cable the cable company gave me, one being regular coax, one being a cheap svideo, and one being a top of the line from radio shack, and a component video set from Monster. The coax was the worst of them all, the sideo cable being second worst. Then came the cable company component, which still wasn't that great. Some of the colors seemed a little washed out, and I could see some signal noise, but that was probably due to my setup. Then I finally tried out the Monster cables. I saw an immediate difference over all the previously tried, the signal came in nice and clear, and there was no color bleeding, and no signal noise visible on my screen. But of course results may vary.
I would personally go to a store, and keep the receipt and just try it out, and see if you notice a difference.
As a physicist , I can tell you that there is virtually nothing that I don't have expert knowledge of. Indeed, if the combination of my powers of intellect and the shear volume of my encyclopedic knowledge and my brains little grey cells where allowed to run the world, we would never have an energy crisis, no one would go hungry, and sex would be plentiful. I really think people ought to listen to me more.
You should spend about 1/10 of your A/V equipment in cable. So for a 500$ don't spend more than 50$ on cable.
That's a really good suggestion, please mod parent up.
Cogito Eggo Sum, I think therefore I'm a waffle
No. Monster cables are overpriced and unnecessary.
For digital signals (e.g. DVI or SPDIF audio):
Use a good-quality cable. It doesn't have to be expensive or elaborate, but you'll want to ensure that the conductor is large enough and the shielding (if it is necessary) is good. Also ensure that the connectors are solid. Most cables meet this criteria.
For analog signals (e.g. Component Video):
Follow the rules for digital cables. You may want additional shielding and. Ensure that the cable has the correct impedence. Make sure that the connectors can provide proper RF isolation.
I've found that the Philips cables found at Wal-Mart are quite sufficcent. They have nice metal connectors and are well-shielded, plus they have strain relief. They run about $15 to $20 for 10ft (component video).
I was recently shopping for a DVI cable for my HDTV, and was blown away by the US$80 AND UP prices I was finding around town. 80 bucks for a bloody 1 meter cable!?!? Thankfully, someone pointed me to http://www.pacificcable.com/ and I found a 1 meter DVI-I Dual Link for $22. (I am not affiliated, just a satisfied customer)
The Monster-type cables are the profit center for the A/V stores. They have to compete for pricing on the actual gear, where they may get less than 10% markup from their cost. On cables and accessories, they can get up to 40% or more. There is no way that one cable is better than the other, provided the connectors make good contact at the jack. Don't waste your money.
.... solidity and good build quality matter just as well. Especially for musicians - as a guitar player, I've lost count of how many times I've tripped on a cheap cable, only to find out I'd ripped one end off or something. Good build quality is something I've paid for in the past and got my money's worth for.
Produce the highest fidelity output possible.
Just make sure you use Bose speakers, none of that Sony or Nakamichi junk.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Here's a little hint: you don't actually hear much below 20 Hz or above 15kHz (if that: at 20 I could hear the 15kHz horizontal sweep on a TV; at 50 I can't.) Unless you've got perfect pitch and a music degree, you don't hear most of those little details of voicing etc.
What you --- and everyone else --- does do is react to suggestion. When the audio guy comes in and puts you in the fancy listening room, he gives all sorts of suggestion cues to let you know that the more expensive system "sounds better". And sure enough it does.
Of course if you're contemplating buying monster cables, you've also probably gotten a multiple thousand dollar system, which means the guy in the audio room already got to you.
" To be honest, I haven't seen other cables perform as well."
In what context? Did you engage in double-blind testing? Was there a control? What do you mean by "perform?"
"We are ordered by Corporate to not use the demo on ANY other brand of protector besides 'Monster'"
The reason for that rule is simple. Any other protector will give the exact same results as the Monster one. Monster is not a cable company, it is a marketing company. They take components that are no better than standard ones (often manufactured in the same factories and then branded) and market them at a higher price-point.
Insecure and gullible people assume that the high price is justified, when in fact their products provide zero benefit.
Not to sound cruel or flamebait-ish, but you are either very naive, or else a Radio Shack/Monster shill.
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
Is Monster Cable Worth it?
Now I know that USA Today is worthless, but at least they aren't trying to sell you cable.
Quote from the link (You know you're too lazy to click. Don't pretend.):
The differences were subtle. Without a back-to-back comparison, we might not have noticed.
Still, Gene DellaSala, president of Audioholics.com, says he advises stereo shoppers to "put more of the money into the loudspeaker, when it matters most."
Having good cables won't make a shitty amp sound good, nor will it make your grandfather's hand-me-down speakers sound better. Start with a good amp and set of speakers, then worry about cables. That being said, I think it depends a lot on use. If you're expecting the Balrog roar in Fellowship of the Ring to tear the flesh from your skull because you bought Monster cables, be ready to be disappointed. But if you're a classical music afficionado, the extra clarity might be more apparent.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
I have only noticed one place where more expensive cables will make a difference. I am a guitarist, and guitar teacher (not that it makes me an expert, but I have experience with sound), and the quality of patch cables between instruments and amps does have an effect on the quality of your sound. This, however is the only place where I have found them to make a difference. Most musicians that I have met will agree that using monster cables is a good idea, but only really important in a performance setting. Of course in this case your sound will also have a lot to do with the quality of other devices: guitar, amp, cab, cables, pedals, pretty much anything in your rig that concerns your sound.
the bigger the physical copper the less resistance the better the signal flow.
Don't mess with all these zero oxygen, gold etc rubbish. Chrome is fine, just make sure the cable itself is nice and big (not shoestring) and you'll get nice signal flow.
I know of a professional audio engineer (first name Colin, now unfortunately dead) who wired his speakers to the amp using 15 amp mains cabling. No kidding and a lovely sound he got too.
For the physics inclined, have a read here about skin effect in audio cables.
The basic idea is that electrons ride the outside of a conductor, not equally through its cross-section. The depth of the 'skin' depends on frequency. You might think that stranded cable would do better then, since there's more surface area, but because the strands aren't insulated they act as a single conductor, providing no skin-effect benefit. There is an exception, cables of 'Litz' construction, where each conductor is individually insulated, creating a virtual cable of effective diameter without skin effect.
My take-away from the linked article is that skin effect does have a slight effect on sound quality that can be measured and possibly perceived. Swinging back to the topic, Monster does make a Litz speaker cable, but it runs you $1500 per 3-foot cable - this isn't Best-Buy level Monster cable. A Google search on Litz at monstercable.com only provides two hits, both 3rd-party write-ups.
So to achieve top theoretical sound quality, assuming good connections, etc., you can buy thousands of dollars worth of top-quality Monster cables or cheap cables with fat conductors. If gauge and weight are far more important than cost, say on a Space Shuttle or similar, then dropping $10K on speaker cable might be worthwhile.
This all has me wondering of anybody here has used 10-gauge Romex as speaker cable.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
He's not asking about speaker cables. Video in an HDTV system should be digital, in my opinion. It just makes sense.
-- Boycott Shell
Just to be a tool, I'm gonna offer an opposing viewpoint from the others here.
/. unless you want to be told that a bit is a bit and how it gets from point A to point B doesn't matter.
First off, don't ask audiophile questions on
Second, look at your audio rack. How much did you spend there? For my $250 Pioneer and $20 VCR, the cables don't matter. What's the point.
But if you spend thousands on components, why skimp on a $10 cable vice a $50 one? The price difference is negligable. It's like complaining about a WinXP license on a $20k server. Just buy big and never worry.
Now, some annecdotal evidince. I recently replaced all the cables from my $250 receiver to my $300 surround speakers. The stock cable was 20 guage aluminum. The new stuff is 12 guage copper. My system now sounds better.
One poster advised you to "just turn up the volume". That's no good when you start driving the internal components to near their peak output. Turning it up just causes more noise.
As for the interconnects, I've used everything from RCA solder-type connectors on 26 guage wire to monster cable with no real difference.
But, if you spend thousands anyway, why skimp on Radio Shack cables?
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
I worked on F-15 radar and avionics in the Air Force. Working with radar teaches you a lot about signal loss. Monster cables are pure marketing and nothing else. You can actually hurt the quality of signal by using a cable that's too large or thick.
Don't buy the cheapest cables you can find, but don't buy the most expensive either. I saw the post below about spending 1/10 the cost of the equipment on cables and that's nothing but marketing also. Cable really is cheap. It's cheap to make and cheap to build. Some cables are expensive because they know they can get away with charging those prices and not because they're any better than the competition. A cable for a $4000 tv is going to be more expensive than a cable for a $150 tv, simply because hell if you're willing to spend $4K on a tv then you're willing to spend $100 on a cable. Just buy decent cables and you'll be all set.
For speaker cable at least, don't bother buying monster cable. Buy a cheap extension cord and cut off the plugs. You'll end up with a much better gauge of wire than anything you can get from Monster for a fraction of the price.
Disclaimer: This only applies to insane audiophiles that feel that they *need* cable with this much insulation.
Ugh - that's one store I definitely don't miss.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I have to say that pretty much anything, including opinions, that comes out of RadioShack sucks.
The general concensus is a resounding NO. Look here for opinions:
http://www.hdtvoice.com/voice/index.php
I can hear a slight difference. Is that difference worth the extreme difference in cost? No way. Get medium priced cables that are fairly heavy gauge and, I cannot stress this enough, AS SHORT AS YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH. The MOST EFFECTIVE way of improving the sound of your stereo by changing cables is to simply stop using 3m cables wadded up and stuffed behind your stereo. A decent quality 1m or shorter cable will probably cost the same as a cheap 3m cable.
Thicker gauge cable + shorter length == better sound.
Also, wipe off the connectors on your stereo equipment and cable ends with isopropyl alcohol and a cotton swab right before you connect them. This will ensure a good connection with no finger oil or manufacturing oils on the connectors.
And you will probably get the best improvement in sound simply by positioning your speakers properly.
/usr/games/fortune
If the cables are passing pure analog, maybe. If the cables are passing digital, no. Flat out no.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Good quality cables are important, but beyond "meets requirements" there is nothing more to be gained. Monster Cables are for people with more dollars than sense.
I researched this same topic, and it led me to blue jeans cable, named so because their aim is to be, simply, an unpretentious commoditized version of "name brand" cables.
As most other posters here seem to be reinforcing, Monster and the like are short on specs and long on "voodoo" - though they look nice. The fact is, using high quality materials, tools, and techniques isn't rocket science.
Or better yet, swap them without your friend knowing, then ask him about about the sound quality a few weeks later. If he doesn't complain about the quality difference, then you only have a placebo difference.
I'm the kind of cheap bastard that uses lamp cord for speaker wire. (I tin the ends, which makes all the difference.)
BUT, I did buy a monster cable for my bass. Instrument cables get the crap kicked out of them, and the cable has a "life time warranty". We have yet to see how that goes when the cable starts to go.
-Peter
If it really matters that much, maybe you should be going pure digital all the way to each speaker.
And each speaker would have its own amplifier built-in or very close to built-in.
If you want to be extreme, you should be reading the position of the speaker cone optically (or some other way - using something like gray code) to 24 bit resolution and at >100K samples a second, and have a very high powered amplifier shove the cone (very very very fast) to the exact position which the digital signal says it should be. Of course you'd probably want to be able to control the volume but I don't think it is that hard.
Even though there'll be square waves and some overshooting due to all the shoving here and there, at > 100K samples a second (or higher) your _ears_ become the low pass filter for the "DAC".
At the amounts which some HiFi enthusiasts are willing to spend, I'm surprised no one has done this yet (not that I know of anyway - I suggested this more than a decade ago). I don't think it's impossible, just difficult. Should be even easier nowadays.
But what do I know...
Those of your sitting smug with your all digital system should take note as well.
Just because your signals are digital doesn't mean that the sound isn't going to change because of the quality of your cable.
Even the brand of hard disk that you use can effect the quality of the audio you get from your system.
You need to check that your hard-disk is insulated correctly as well. Installing vibration isolators in your computer can effect the sound coming out of it.
Want proof? This guy is a sound engineer and has performed extensive tests on different hard drives and transport mechanisms. Did you know that the same file played from the CDR can sound different if it's played from a FireWire hard disk?
-- Hulver's site
I've found that you can do more to effectively improve the sound quality of your stereo system by providing it with a true ground.
I'm not entirely sure why, and i'm sure someone can explain here, but it's a difference that you can actually hear.
There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
But there is a limit. Ultra cheap low quality cable is not going to be as good as decent quality branded cable. Most people will agree with this to some extent.
More expensive cables may be better still, or they may just be a marketting thing, but there is a point where no human ear will be able to tell the difference. Once you're at this point, it doesn't matter what scientific tests show about noise or audio quality. If you can't tell the difference by using them then there is no worthwhile difference.
So just get some decent quality branded cables. Preferably from more oscure brands.
To say that any old cable is the same as the next is not true in my (admittedly limited) experience.
I have not done quantitative measurements, but recently I bought one of those multi-format DVD player (ie. can read a data CD/DVD and play avi & mpeg files). It came with some cheapo cables that I tried and it was terrible. There was a thin bright line that slowly moved up and down the screen, and there was a persistent hum that could be heard whenever the volume was turned up to any reasonable level.
On a larf, I went and bought some of the less expensive Monster cables and the problems totally went away. I assume the shielding made the difference here. I dont attribute my observations to some magical Monster pixie dust, as any other brand of decently constructed cable probably would have been an improvement over the crappy cables that came bundled with the DVD player.
The moral is that from a quality perspective,there is probably no need to go out and pay the premium for Monster cables, but you dont want to use cables from the dollar store either.
There is another reason to go Monster that no one seems to have mentioned yet, the lifetime warranty. Cables dont really break down, but I was told at the checkout that I can get a replacement *under any circumstances*; even if my dog chews it up. We'll see if they actually honor that 5 years down the road, but that's a benefit that has to be worth at least a little price premium.
If you ever step into the land of high-end audio- and video-philes, all your friends and family and, worst of all, we at /. will lose you forever. Don't go there, please!
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
It's funny that people eek out the "best in audio quality" without examining that most of the music they listen to, or recorded at all, is of mediocre quality to begin with. Want to listen to some awesome jazz from days gone by? then don't worry about speaker cables, room resonance, or other things esoteric. just put it in the mid-level stereo and go make dinner. there *is* value to just having music reside in the background, rather than trying to recreate a headphone-like experience with your house.
i find my reaction to audiophiles a little negative. just another obessive-compulsive outlet for those so inclined.
most people spend all this money just to hear loud explosions in crap-ass movies in their home theatre anyway.
Actually, a better experiment would be to swap the cables when your friend isn't looking, and see if HE notices. Also, wear Kevlar.
sigh.
the consumer market just doesn't get it. but the pro's do.
in pro audio, they use balanced (differential) analog i/o. there is no shield or ground - each wire is relative to the other. just like POTS phone wires. there is inherent common-mode cancellation and so longer runs don't really bother things, like they do on unbalanced consumer stuff. plus the consumer stuff uses lower voltages and so interference is made worse (nearby fields induce problems with lower signal levels on cables).
for audio, at least; if you have to make really long cable runs, its almost worth converting to balanced, using xlr style cables to do the hauling then convert back to unbal. at the receiving end. works great in car audio that way and shielding becomes totally irrelevant. you can convert to balanced via transformers or via opamps.
for video, its harder. and for digital i/o, of course, NONE of this matters - bits really are bits.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
While I do believe Monster cables are not worth the money, I also believe that not all cables are created equal. As one physicist pointed out, there is little difference in the electron flow. I have noticed in the past in my own setup, some snow on a really old RCA cable I was using to connect my Xbox to my TV. I replaced it with a newer, heavier guage cable with better shielding and the noise was gone.
Also, as a musician, I have some 1/4 instrument patch cables that see a lot of use. I used to use the crappy rubber wrapped cables, and they would go microphonic after a few months of use. About 5 years ago, I bought a cable with the braided wrap (not a monster cable however) and it lasted 5 years until I stupildy broke the cable tip off inside my bass while I was drunk. So not all cables are created equal, in my experience, but I've never gone so far as to buy the ridiculously overpriced monster cables.
Someone stole my old sig.
I've seen more than my share of resistance issues. (why the GW Solarcar came in 4th place in the 1995 GM Sunrayce -- because we used conductive epoxy, which caused oxidation on the aluminum, but not until we had some current going through them for a day or two).
... but of course, you don't want to keep too tight of a radius in the long term, but it can be useful when you're trying to snake them through initially). There can also be impedance mismatch, which can cause problems, if you're using cables that were made for a different specification.
That being said, I can think of a few reasons why different cables might be better than others. (I'm not going to justify a specific brand, though, as I'm guessing that there are plenty of other quality products without the extra price).
Others have already commented on resistance, shielding and connector quality -- all very important. You also have issues with the quality of the wire. (microstranded wire can take tighter turns, where you might not be able to get a standard cable to
Oh -- and as to the jewelry comment -- count the number of Hummers/Lexi/Lincolns/etc in a Walmart parking lot. It amazed me.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
If you actually saw the retailer's cost on Monster cables, you'd realize why they push them so hard when they're selling you a TV/Stereo/DVD player...
I used to work for a manufacturer of high end hi-fi speakers. While I wasn't directly involved with the development of the products I often used to get involved with blind listening tests and at first found it quite suprising what made a difference to the sound.
My observations were that with speaker cables, as long as the cables are big enough to handle the current requirements you could almost never tell the difference.
I never heard a difference when changing between digital patch cables.
It is hard to say whether one cable is better than another. What was noticable was that some cables coloured the sound more than others - not easy to test for with out plugging them in and listening. Some cables sounded different with some sources than others, but I don't know that it was something that you could pin down scientifically as 'better'. You certainly couldn't tell by looking, or by price.
Interestingly, changing things like the manufacturer of discrete components in the active crossovers did change the sound quite noticably.
You're really not going to get a whole wonderful performance out of a Component video cable, if that's the best connection you've got for HDTV. If you use Monster, you WILL get a difference. But, Component connections only give you the lowest common denominator of HDTV broadcasts.
Do you not have DVI or HDMI connectors?
Seriously:
Upgrading my home theater to Monster cables, and especially monster POWER strips.. made a HUGE difference in audio and video quality.
Also, Monster equipment has a lifetime warranty.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
n/t
and you've got his expensive monstercables instead of those cheap ones.
TASTES GREAT!!!!!!!!!
I make my own cables for use in a PA system. The only reason that Monster Cables are more expensive is they use a thicker gauge wire, thicker shielding and good quality connectors. If you can obtain those 3 things, you can get great quality cables without having to pay for the brand name.
So we really need some people who know what they are doing to run some tests and do a comparison of the generally available brands.
IMHO: Screw Radio Shack, unless you are feeling charitable and believe their pitch on gold series, and get some Belkins or splurge on Monster Cable. You could also use the cables that came in the box. Hmm.
1. What type of components are you running?
If you are using a low end Aiwa system there are no cables that are going to improve sound quality. However, if you are using Sony ES or Denon components or the like, a cable upgrade would be very usefull.
2. Which monster cables are we talking about?
The $30 best buy cables or the Ultra Series THX 1000 interconnects that cost $200? The $30 ones are not going to be any different than the $30 cables from another brand, they may be comparable with that brand's $10 cables. And any upgrade over the cables that came in the box will be worth while since as a rule those suck.
Any cable that can reduce capacitance over their length is going to be an improvement. Capacitors are used in crossovers to limit upper response. If any cable acts as a capacitor, the upper response of the audio will be affected.
3. What is your listening level?
If you can't tell a difference between a 160Kbps mp3 and a 192kbps mp3, upgrading cables may not make a noticeable difference to you.
Supplies!
Today, we've secretly replaced your friend's Monster Cable with Folger's crystals. Let's see if he notices!
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
In my experience, Monster Cable makes decent quality stuff but it's way overpriced. You pay for the brand name.
Some people here are claiming that quality of cabling makes no perceptable difference. In their situations this may be true, but not everyone's situation is the same. Some people live in an area with far more surrounding RF/EM radiation and noise than others. Some people own equipment that is more susceptible to noise in the signal. And some people notice things more than others.
My experience is that Monster Cable and other similar-quality cabling will indeed alleviate a lot of hiss/hum/interference issues in certain situations simply because it is shielded better than average cabling. If you live in an area with a lot of EM/RF interference, better-quality cabling may solve the issue. I still wouldn't recommend Monster Cable as a brand though, simply because they are way overpriced.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
I was sold on Monster cables the day I replaced the wire between my computer and my Bose computer speakers. (This was the wire that came with my Bose speakers, BTW.) With a Monster cable, all of a sudden I was getting a LOT more bass. Songs I'd heard a zillion times sounded a lot better.
Some time ago, I noticed that DVDs on my mom's player didn't look much better than normal TV programs. I looked deeper, and found that the video cable between the DVD player and the TV was one of those thin-wire cheap pieces of crap. I replaced it with a spare composite-video Monster cable I had lying around, and the picture quality improved dramatically.
I use nothing but Monster cables in my home-based video studio (a 100% Linux creation, with a Canopus ADVC-300, kino, smilutils, and mjpegtools. Given the experience above, and especially given all the RF interference generated by a typical computer, I didn't dare try anything else.
In the end, it comes down to whether you can see/hear the difference. Not everyone is wired the same. I can see and hear details that most people can't sense -- so much, in fact, that I'm starting to wonder if I have Asperger's Syndrome or something.
"Once we've identified and embraced our sickness, we'll have strength...and that's when we get dangerous." - John Waters
"Despite their lack of social standing and diminutive presence, there are select power-cord lines that have become popular among audio explorers -- and no, not because of the politics, payoffs, or consumer naiveté' to which skeptics ascribe their success. The most competently engineered power cords on the market will audibly reduce AC-borne noise in a system. They will breath dynamic life and energy into music and preserve, rather than skew, the music's delicate harmonic structure. Not all power cords can perform these magic tricks; in fact, there are very few that I would recommend without qualification. But they are out there -- and even here in the text of this review."
ROFL!!!!
"Is there any point to having 24k gold-plated contacts on an optical cable other than 'bling' factor?"
How about for people who live near the sea? Do you really want your connectors to fuse together?
"We are ordered by Corporate"
LOL!
Most of my experience with cabling concerns comes from setting up music/recording gear. In this case, I tend to prefer Monster cables for XLR / 1/4" connections.
;-)
Based on simple experience, their cables tend to be a bit more solidly constructed -- which is totally irrelevant when you're going twelve inches from a DVD player to an audio receiver, but it's pretty important when you're trying to hook a guitar up to an amp. You do not want a crappy cable that snaps when you step on it in this case.
Also, I find that they have better shielding. Again, this isn't an issue with consumer-level electronics...but if you ever want to hear what I'm talking about, plug a guitar into an amp with a cheap cable and with a solid, well-shielded one. You will literally hear the difference -- less noise, less ground hum, the whole nine yards.
(I'm not suggesting that all these problems are caused or solved by cabling, but cabling is a factor.)
I think it comes down to this: in a professional situation, where bad cabling can cause expensive catastrophes, people are usually willing to pay a bit more and get better cabling. But this is not necessarily relevant in your case. I'd personally guess most of Monster's business comes from the pro market anyway; but why not make expensive RCA cables if you've got the equipment to do so?
Monster's not the best, by the way; they're the best you're going to see in a chain retail store. If you really want hardcore analog cabling, you can find people who will make it to your specifications. Unless you are U2 producing a new album, you will never, ever need to meet these people.
"Also, wipe off the connectors on your stereo equipment and cable ends with isopropyl alcohol and a cotton swab right before you connect them. This will ensure a good connection with no finger oil or manufacturing oils on the connectors."
There's a chemical called "Tweak(TM)" that was suppose to work well.
You've really crafted an exceptional setup for a dick joke.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2002-11 -25&res=l
Check out ioquake3.org for a great, free, First-Person Shooter engine!
That wasn't even a troll -- he was trying to be funny.
Never mind.
Shielding will make a difference in your video and line-level audio interconnects.
Now regarding the "monster" cables (I use the term "monster" as generic for any extremely high priced hyped up piece of wire):
I have a brother-inlaw who is (what I call) a self proclaimed audiophile. I have an electronics/computer background. Needless to say we are always debating the whole cable vs audio/video quality and what you can hear/see issue. He is definitely of the opinion that he can hear and see differences in ways that remind s me of a mystic expounding the benefits of feng shui in laying out your cubicle.
Now, looking at the physics, electronics, and biology (human ear) of the subject I can't bring myself to commit to believing any of the bias and anecdotal evidence that I read on the subject. Most articles (and even most comments in this story) that say "yes - believe me - there is a difference" have a lot of "I" quotes in them and not a lot of "non bias" or "double blind" or "third party" quotes in them.
What I would really like to see are some true, repeatable, double-blind tests on the subject of cables and interconnects. Perhaps mediated by James Randi. But certainly not conducted just by a cable maker, or an audio industry mag, or an electronics mag.
If anyone can point me to more then 1 truly non-bias tests I would appreciate it because in the number of years I have looked I have not found any credible ones.
Merlin.
When I first got a CD player I had my audiophile friend over and hit play on the CD player and then switched the input over to the tape deck playing a nice type 3 audiocassette (from CD).
You should have heard him sing the praises of the CD. The seconds counter was incrementing and that was enough. Granted, you couldn't buy prerecorded audio cassettes of that quality in the store, but it was quite a bit of fun nonetheless.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Bullshit gold is the best conductor. Silver has much much lower resistance.
If I had a bull that was shitting gold, I wouldn't waste it by using it as a conductor.
I'm just sayin'...
I guess it sells to those with more dollars than sense.
I can't tell the difference in picture between HDTV and Digital. The pictures look the same to my eye, even when I wear my reading glasses, though it seems everyone swears they can "see" a difference.
Pop in to your local Radio Shack and ask a clerk there what they recommend. I bet you don't walk away with any MONSTER cables.
As another poster stated, anything with addequate shielding will do, but to the human ear, especially one not musically trained you could go with the lesser expensive cables and never audibly tell a difference.
More expensive doesn't always mean better quality nor does it mean more.
#usr@p322$ less == more!
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Check out this site :
Reference Audio Mods
If you feel an urge to buy *any* of the stuff on the page, well then monster cable is definitely for you.
A 30 watt solid state amplifier , costing 6000 bucks (!), that doesn't come with a power supply - the battery supply (!!) suggested is another 2000.
Seriously, now - What. The. FUCK.
Oh, and some nice wooden turned volume knobs for that extra sweetness in the audio (!!!) will only set you back another 500 each, because as we all know "the micro vibrations created by the volume pots and knobs find their way into the delicate signal path and cause degradation (Bad vibrations equal bad sound)."
I keep this page bookmarked as "Audiophiles are idiots", and send to anyone who asks me about what kind of cabling they should run for their system.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
Seriously...
several local DJ's I know use extention cords....
either cutting the ends off and putting new ends on (banana plugs, RCA ends, XLR ends, etc...)
OR... by converting their speakers and amp racks to accept strait normal extention cords....
when at a gig... "Oh crap, I need another 25 foot"... Just grab one of the 20 or so 25 foot extention cords and use it.
Works great. Definately multi-purpose cords at that point.... (from preamp to amp etc inside the rack, they use nice cables, but from amp to speaker... extention cords)
Granted a decent cable (like Monster Cable) will sound better than a POS thin-wire cable. However, you lose credibility by mentioning Bose. Bose is pretty much the industry standard for fraud and deceptive practices in audio marketing.
Are Monster cables worth it?
Ask your girlfriend if you'll get laid more often if you have Monster cables. If you don't have a girlfriend, ask some female friend if having Monster cables impresses them and therefore makes you feel better about yourself.
If the answer to any of those questions are "yes", then go buy Monster cables.
Let's be honest here. Monster cables have nothing to do with sound quality. It's a fee you pay as part of your insecurity therapy.
That notwithstanding, better-quality cables are better, but Monster cables are so disproportionally-prices and over-the-top spec-wise, they are products designed for an entirely different, more psychological than audiophile market.
I use Monster Arctic(TM) super-conducting ceramic speaker cables. The chemical formula is CaCa. The liquid nitrogen tank used to chill the intra-cable lumen also lets me flash freeze dinner leftovers and do cool tricks when my kid's friends come over.
I have purchased from blue jeans cable before. The prices are good and the cables are quality. and they are fast for shipping. Hey they even have specs for the cables. Where can you find those on monster cable?
That's a good name--ground! I wonder if it will be friends with me?
IMHO Monster cables aren't worth it. I've also seen many forums echoing the same. They're gimmicky and luxury priced, and I've been annoyed before with the extra girth of some of their connectors. I have little doubt that they are over all high quality cables though and I've had them fail like any other cables too. I cackled when I saw monster cables for xbox for $50.
N N&subcat=VIDEOCAB&prodClass=&search=0&off=0
N N&subCat=VIDEOCAB
That being said, I'd go shop where broadcast people shop for such things, since their quality requirements are much more stringent than circuit city's offerings.
I found these guys a few years ago (their catalog is yummy):
http://www.markertek.com/CatList.asp?cat=CABLESCO
monster cable is mysteriously not on their list of cable manufacturers that they stock:
http://www.markertek.com/MfgList.asp?cat=CABLESCO
Neither is Belkin. I personally don't like most of belkin's products, and often have found that they're just cheap rebranded stuff, usually overpriced and caused me much pain and woe. Also I always suspected Belkin's name was selected to be confusable with a far superior cable maker, Belden (which also happens to be carried by markertek).
Best of Luck!
Firefox &
As long as you buy from a reputable company like Belkin, Monster, or NXG, you will be happy. If your ears or mind cannot tell the difference, then do not feel like you need to pay a premium. I would suggest buying NXG because I have had an excellent experience with them for optical audio and component video. The things to take away from discussion are you probably do not want to use any cables that may come with your receiever/tv/etc unless you bought top of the line.
Choosing the lesser of two evils is a choice for evil.
EOT.
This space available.
No. http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=2559
"a cable that somehow carried different frequencies at different rates"
:-)
Oh great -- variable time delay at different frequencies. That's called a "non-minimum phase" system in EM theory, and will probably bugger the signal beyond all recognition.
The good news is that phase distortion doesn't seem to affect audio signals perceptibly. Great news for all the 5-watt tube amplifier aficionados.
The manufacturer of both of those most expensive cables is Siltech. Other notable "high-end" audio cable manufacturers are Kimber Kable, MIT Cables, Nordost, and AudioQuest. Monster Cable isn't even considered "high-end" by most audiophiles. The fact that Monster is synomous with high-end cables is proof of their effective marketing.
And to answer the question, just buy Radio Shack cables.
Here's a how-to for assembling your own relatively high-quality cables that can be used for both audio and component video and that cost peanuts to make. Since component video is way more demanding than audio (greater bandwidth requirements) any component video cables should easily handle audio duty. The how-to is squarely aimed at soldering newbies but is useful nevertheless.
What you say is true, one should *always* use oxygen-free copper, for any type of connection, audio, video, or power. But you didn't mention how to recognize if a copper cable is oxygen-free. So, here is a tip: cut the cable with pliers, if the fresh-cut surface is copper-colored then the copper is, indeed, oxygen-free. Copper combined with oxygen, i.e. copper oxide, is black.
Now, what I cannot understand is why you and some other people keep bringing up this "oxygen-free copper" thing. I have never, ever in my life seen a cable made of copper containing any significant amount of oxygen. All copper cables, no matter how cheap or expensive, are "oxygen-free". Copper is purified by an electrolysis process, which is the cheapest and also the best way to purify copper. It's as simple as that, for copper more expensive doesn't mean best.
Now, the oxidized surfaces that you mentioned are a different thing. Copper will oxidize in contact with air, no matter how oxygen-free it was to begin with. The important thing are the connections, they should either be soldered, or the connectors should be airtight.
Having said that, now let's forget the myths and talk practical. How to choose a cable? For high frequencies, which means video or radio frequencies, use a coaxial cable with the right impedance value. The impedance is printed on the external insulation of the cable.
For lower frequencies, which means audio and power, use 5 amperes per square millimeter. If you live in the USA or Myanmar/Burma, which are AFAIK the two countries that still use "imperial" measures, get a table that converts from AWG (that is "American Wire Gauge") to square millimeters. For all other countries, wire is sold in "square millimeter" sizes, so no conversion is needed. To find how many amperes the wire carries, the formula is I = sqrt(P / R), where I is the current in amperes, P is the power in watts, and R is the impedance in ohms. sqrt means the square root, of course. Speakers are normally 8 ohms. For power cables, divide the power in watts by the voltage in volts to get the current in amperes.
monster cable is for the same kind of people who buy special green felt pens and color the edges of their cds with them to "improve" the sound. i.e.: fools with too much money. get gold plated connectors if you must, but even that's of dubious value -- any properly made cable will have loss low enough you won't be able to tell the difference. marketing hype and rich fool delusions to the contrary not withstanding -- monster cable and the like have never and would never be proven "better" in double blind tests. there's obviously a difference between gold and non-gold, but it's too small to be audiable. especially by human ears.
Capacitance is enormously important in cables. Cheap cable frequently has high capacitance, which is absolutely killer for audio applications. A very small amount of capacitance will quickly rob you of high-frequencies. Anyone who's ever picked up a soldering iron knows the easiest way to filter out high-frequencies is to whack the signal through a small capacitor. Additionally, the quality of connection DOES matter. Cheap connectors will corrode quite quickly which will cause increased resistance but crucially capacitance across the layer of corroded crap. Lots of cheap gold-plated connectors have almost no gold on the plating; gold is sufficiently soft that much of it will wear off within a few insertions, leaving a base metal that will corrode quickly and leave you with a terrible connection. Speaker cables carry hefty currents at low voltage meaning you DO need enough cross-section of cable, otherwise you'll lose the bottom end because it's busy heating up the cable.
Good speakers have between two and eight ohms of impedance. Every extra ohm in the signal chain will sap away the transients. High-impedance cable will reduce the efficiency of the system noticably, but will affect the peaks more than the body of the signal and therefore acting as a compressor. That's not good, as it takes all the power out of percussive sounds.
Anyway, bottom line from someone who buys a heck of a lot of cable is that monster brand cables are really poor value, but it's worth spending a little more than a couple of bucks on cables - a moderately priced own-brand cable will suffice - use your eyes and look at the thickness of cable and the quality of the connectors. Avoid gold-plated connectors.
To the parent, I question your claim to be a physicist, as anyone worth their salt would know that the quality of cable is important and I also ask you this - why do pro system installers who fit audio systems to cinemas and such choose to use decent cables instead of the very cheapest? The client will never see the cable as it gets buried beneath the floor or in a conduit. The installer wants to cut every corner that doesn't harm the quality of the system. Is the vast majority of the pro installation industry deluded? No, they just know that crap cable can make an expensive system sound cheap.
Try it for yourself. Take a quality hifi separates system and try a decent, modestly priced hifi speaker cable, then the cheapest, thinnest, crappiest piece of wire you've got lying around. Do the same with a $15-$20 interconnect and one that came bundled with a mini system you bought in 1983. If you can't hear the difference, I'll personally fedex you a pack of q-tips.
For me the most important thing to know about Monster is their recent spate of lawsuits against anyone who has 'monster' in their name. Check out this google search for more info. This is absolutely insane and has caused me to personally boycott Monster even though I used to like their cables.
OK. I worked for a good cable TV company out of the South Bay Area for a couple of years. They did contract work for hospitals with big budgets, among other things.
... each one of those cables acts like a weak two-way antenna. On certain channels, you'll pick up interference from PG&E, the local broadcast channels, and whatever your neighbor is doing over his crappy cables.
I can't talk much about Monster Cable for audio use, but I can speak from experience about its use for TV applications.
Basically, it sucks.
The parent post is correct about shielding, but they fail to mention that shielding is also important at the connector, and they fail to mention the different kinds of shielding available in TV cable, and why it matters.
Let's say you live in an apartment building in a metropolitan area. Channels 2, 4, 5, 11, and 13 are probably being locally broadcast strong enough that a decent antenna will pick them up and give you a watchable picture.
You also have a poorly shielded TV cable running from the TV, to the VCR, one to your game console converter, one to the set-top box if the cable company requires one, one to your DVD player possibly
And, being properly shielded throughout the sheath isn't enough: you need the connecter to fit tightly, and you need it to be attached to the cable correctly. If you split the sheath away from a good TV cable, you'll find an interwoven series of fine aluminum strands, spread over a solid aluminum layer, surrounding a stiff dielectric core. The end of each fitting should be set so that the inner part of the fitting sits between the aluminum layers.
Poor shields include: a real thinly interwoven set of aluminum strands (not thick or tight enough, no solid aluminum layer), four aluminum wires (just plain dumb, this is totally useless), and thin or flimsy dielectric.
Good TV cable will feel stiff if you handle it. The crappy stuff will handle like a wet worm.
Specifically, Monster's TV stuff doesn't have good fittings. I never bothered to take one of their cables apart to inspect the shielding, but great shielding won't make up for their crappy fittings.
Also, the metal in the fittings really doesn't make a bit of difference. Gold-plated fittings are usually junk, you don't want those.
Based on my experience with the TV hardware, I'd never consider buying audio stuff from them.
The parent may have had really really crappy TV cables, and replaced them with slightly less crappy Monsters. That doesn't make Monster's stuff good, though.
Ligaguinggligagiggagoogoogwillgo
Someone who spends $1000 on a mid-range audio system is probably not going to get any benefit from monster cables. However, those people who see audio as a very important thing and spend $5000 on a high-end audio system will probably be able to justify buying $250 worth of cables. No, I don't personally use Monster cables. I can't justify the cost. But, if I had spent extrodinarily large amounts of money on a stereo, I would most definately use some form of high-end cable.
"Granted, this demo is designed to display the insulation on the 'Monster' surge protectors only, but they use the same insulating technology on their A/V Cables as well."
:-)
Um, the noise filtering that is done by a quality power conditioner is a totally different kind of thing then the insulation on a signal cable. The power conditioner has active circutry that try to force the power feed to something as close as possible to a pure 60 Hz AC sine wave, 120 volts RMS, 0 to 170 volt range. The signal cable just has some other wire wrapped around it to try and grab stray noise before it hits the signal wire.
I have no doubt that a "Monster" brand power conditioner does a good job regulating the power flow. Likewise, I'm sure the Radio Shack surge protector doesn't, because it isn't designed to. Surge protectors are intended to keep an overvoltage from frying components; they're not intended to eliminate noise. Power conditioners are much more complicated (and thus, more expensive).
Myself, I'm happy with the APC Smart-UPS 1250 that I got used for $100 at a hamfest. Not only does it provide very clean, conditioned power, it will keep my Tivo running if city power dies.
If one doesn't need batteries, you can get a 12 amp line condioner new for like $50 these days. Sure, it will be a plain beige box instead of the fancy "Monster" brand unit, but it does the same thing.
Of course, I suppose, to be *really* good, one should add an isolation transformer. Maybe Monster sells those, too.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
There's all this talk here about audio cabling and listening and such, but TFA wants to know about video cabling.
It's just 75-ohm coaxial cable. It's a hand-me-down from the broadcast and defense industries.
If you were a broadcaster, you'd care about flexibility and long-term durability, and buy good professional-grade stranded-conductor RG-59 from someone like Canare, like just about all of the other broadcasters do for their temporary video interconnects. You'd then solder or (preferably) crimp your own connectors on, because then the resultant cables would both the proper length for whatever you're doing and you'd know that they were assembled correctly. Or, you'd have a company like Markertek assemble them for you.
But you're not a broadcaster. Nobody is throwing your wires across the room. Nobody is walking or driving on them. Nobody is using them to rig lights or props with.
You don't give a whit whether it's stranded or not, because it will be relocated (at most) several times a year - instead of, perhaps, several times per hour in a production studio. You do, however, care if they're assembled correctly.
And you care about having the proper length - extra cable length is hard to deal with in the typical home theater, and always reduces signal quality.
You also care about bandwidth, perhaps even more than the broadcasters do. But that's not a huge problem, as NTSC video only goes up to a few MHz.
RG-59 [1] is typically used at hundreds of MHz (think: cable TV), and is thus way more than sufficient.
So here's what you do. Buy some good, solid copper RG-59 from Lowe's, Home Depot, your local electrical contractor shop, or wherever. Look for cable that is shielded with foil and a braid, with a foam dielectric. And also buy a crimper. And some connectors. And a rotary stripper.
It's fairly self-explanatory from then on out:
Measure, cut, strip, mash, crimp. Boneheaded cable installers can do this stuff all day - any Slashdotter can tackle it without episode. Plan on wasting an end or two if you're unsure of yourself, but it really is bloody simple.
Just try to keep the three component video cables all at the same length, to keep things in sync with eachother. This isn't hyper-critical, given the real-world propagation delay of RG-59, but it's easy to keep things within an inch or so of sameness and so one might as well try.
You'll spend less on the kit than for a single set of most "Monster" cables, and likely be able to make hundreds of feet worth of custom, high-quality video interconnects with it instead of having just one set of gaudy purple wires that are all the wrong length.
And since RG-59 is so good that nobody outside of a marketing department has bothered to replace it after numerous decades, you should be good for a long, long time.
Enjoy.
[1]: Yep, I said RG-59. There's no cause to use RG-6 with baseband video signals, as there's simply insufficient bandwidth utilization and attenuation to justify the expense and added unmanagibility of RG-6. And it's easy to find reasonably decent copper RG-59, while the RG-6 typically available at retail uses a cheap copper-clad steel center conductor, which operates poorly at these frequencies (but works fine and saves money for satellite installations). And as far as anyone knew, RG-59 was sufficient for all residential video purposes until the advent of DSS, two-way cablevision, and 125-channel tuners. RG-59 is, in fact, overkill for this application. I don't care which one is bigger: RG-6 is just pissing away cash, unless you've already got some on-hand.
Kid-proof tablet..
They sell a printer cable with a "Winky Blinky" for $50. As if just having a $50 parallel cable wasn't bad enough, they had to add the winky blinky. For that reason, I will never buy anything made by Monster Cable.
It's not the material that the conductors are made of, but the material the dielectric (read: insulation) is made of, the quality of the shield (where applicable), and the structure of the cable (the position of the conductors and shield relative to each other) that will make a difference in the sound.
The other thing that will make a difference is the quality of construction (again, not materials) of the terminations at each end.
Monster cable -- at least the speaker cable -- is really just super-expensive extension cord. As for their interconnect cables, sure there will be some difference between them and the thin, el-cheapos that you buy at K-Mart, but you might need an oscilloscope to tell (at least for sound). For video, you'll probably notice the difference, because a TV is really just a specialized oscilloscope.
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
Don't forget to burn in your optical cables for optimum signal transmission.
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
In my experience the weakest point in any audio cable is where the wire is soldered to the connector. (The second weakest is the shielding around the cable.) I don't really care what kind of metal the connector is made of; I care about how well the connector-cable connection will handle bending and twisting. Good cables have a sleeve at that point that helps reinforce the connection.
"If it's real, then it gets more interesting the closer you examine it. If it's not real, just the opposite is true." -
I worked for Best Buy in their home audio/video department for all of two weeks. During that time I was pretty much forced to shove monster cables down the throats of anyone who bought a system that remotely required a cable of any sort. They have this cute little training flash-app-video-thing that explains the difference between their three brands of cables:
Aceton (el cheapo)
Acoustic Research (solid, best bang for your buck, but still not what BBY says the user should get)
Monster Cable ("sell them this, this is what they want" rediculously overpriced, with many cute graphs and disgrams showing why they are uber'er then everything else)
In my two weeks there, I never sold one stinking monster cable with anything, many, many AR cables, sure, just by looking at them the difference was minimal, both had decent shielding (hell, even RadioShack's gold series lines are OK), gold connectors and such, the only thing Monster had was dressed up cabling (more gold, bigass rubber insulation on everything) and a price tag 2x as high. I looked some of those monster cables in the price database (this was my 3rd day) that lists store cost and nearly fell over, I never even tried after that, there's something about screwing people that I just can't do...
Of course, I only lasted two weeks... they asked me to leave. I gladly left and have never even returned to shop there yet....
Logistical Chaos Officer http://www.slagg.org - LAN Gaming in Sarasota FL,USA
This is a plug, but it might be useful to anyone making a non-critical decision (like cable purchases...)
Monster/Belkin/Radio Shack video cables compared in terms of: excellent
great value
overpriced
faulty
hope you get the idea...
If you think you need to go high-end, blue jean cables are great. I ended up using the Belden 1694A coax/Canare RCA connectors when I rewired my entire house. It was overkill for most of the runs, but it was cheaper to buy a lot of the cable and only need one set of crimping tools than to buy a couple really long runs of Belden and something cheaper for the rest. I bought from a place called Westlake Electronic, which had the cable for $0.39/foot (this was over a year ago; I've heard the prices have gone up) Where it gets expensive is the connectors, which are several dollars each.
I've also purchased a 10 meter DVI cable from BJC and it works great, at almost 1/3 the cost of other manufacturers (and for 10 meters, there aren't many to choose from!)
To be relevant to this post, he uses Nordost cables, which are hella expensive. Not only that, he uses a product called Cable Elevators. It keeps the speaker cable from touching the floor/carpet. It was named The Absolute Sound's Accessory of the Year. Only $160 for a set of 8!
weight is also an imperfect but decent indicator of the quality (or at least total power capacity, based on total weight of wires) of the power supply.
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
Go purchase some heavy duty power cable wire (from a reel of wire) at the hardware store for 2$ a foot and use that.
Much cheaper, still "heavy duty" and still works great.
I like how it is now taboo to say anything bad about lower class people, or people of other cultures (not implying these are consistently the same thing), without being branded as a bigot. The initial idea, from what I can tell, was to say that it is wrong to simplify reality and assume that eveyone in a certain culture or group is the same way. That's clearly wrong and seems to fit better the idea 'bigot'. However, it is dangerously ignoring reality to try to say that anyone who states that MANY people in a given class or culture do something similar is being bigoted.. The original side note did seem a little off topic though. Just like those I-got-mine conservative people who drive slow in the left lane and refuse to follow slow-traffic-keep-right. They're real asswipes who probably use no-name cabling and buy microsoft products.
i bought a toshiba HDTV that has multiple inputs. My cable company told me not to buy the monster cables because they could sell me cables for $15 bucks. Well, their cables were not DVI or HDMI cables, they were for the color-stream inputs. (look like rca plugs). using those, i could only get 480i. I bought an HDMI cable, and now i get 1024i or whatever it is. much better :) the brand of the cable does not matter.
This whole Monster Cable debate reminds me of a time several years ago when I was a retail flack at CompUSA. While doing our weekly repricing, I had accidently miskeyed a SKU and ended up changing the price for a slow-selling, lower-quality (by brand) CD-ROM drive upwards by about $40 in the stores inventory system. When we discovered the error later in the week, we also noticed that the sales of this re-priced drive had increased as well; in fact, they were the top seller in the category. Needless to say, we didn't change it back.
Reminder: Apple owns 1/255th of the internet.
If you mean Microsoft, why don't you just say so.
Most zip cord allows air (and therefore oxygen) to penetrate the cable between the surface of the metal and the plastic insulation. Some insulation actually outgasses oxygenated compounds, which is even worse.
Have you ever stripped a wire and found the surface of the conductors, just beneath the plastic, to be black? That's air infiltrating between the copper and the insulation causing that corrosion.
How about those clear-insulated cables that start out shiny coppery colored but turn bright green in a year or two? There, you've actually got the plastic weeping or outgassing corrosive compounds internally (extremely common, incidentally, despite the claims of insulation makers).
Cables that prevent any oxygen from touching the surfaces of the conductors are called "oxygen-free", get it? They are usually clear silicon jacketed so you can see with your own eyes that the copper is still bright after years of use.
I have personally examined a stereo wire (about 16 guage stranded pair, clear jacket) that had turned completely into oxides, without one single strand of copper remaining continuous. Cutting the insulation released noxious green dust, no metal at all!
Unfortunately, I had stored that wire in a damp basement for 20 years before I noticed it had completely rotted away, so I don't know how long the process really took.
Lots of theory, and some ludicrous stereotyping of "those people" (do those people have browner skin than you by any chance? It seems a safe bet, "strictly speaking").
Go buy some cables, a stereo, and an o-scope. Then do the experiment. Then I might respect you as a physicist - but until that day, I'm going to assume you are just another posturing ivory tower snob.
I went to buy some cables the other day and was astounded to see cables priced at $250. I was looking to spend $25.
I am a Chartered Physicist and a Chartered Electrical Engineer and couldn't agree more with the technical posts here. Except for the high frequency considerations for video, any old wire will do. I've used mains cable (lamp cable in North America), and agree with another poster that low-voltage decorative lamp cable is excellently priced and perfect for wiring speakers.
Anyway, the point of this post is that since that day in the store looking at the $250 cables I have been mesmerised by the thought of coming-up with a new gimick of my own. I'm not joking. If I could think of something new to add to a cable there would be an very interesting business. It doesnt matter that the new thing is, so long as it suggests better quality or higher acuity etc. Or sparkles or glows. Then one could sell $2 cable for $200.
Now I don't want to turn this into a troll, but I have to say this: so long as my story is good, audiophiles will hear the difference and swear that my new XYZ is better! It's just human nature. I just have to come-up with the new gizzmo.
Any suggestions? Hey, how about a Slashdot brand of audio cables?
sayeth the brandsmart(tm) sales representative who happened to be sporting a gold star tooth inlay.
and at brandsmart(tm) the monster cables have the most stars* by far.
*products at brandsmart(tm) are conveniently ranked for quality and this quality is indicated by the number of 'stars' affixed to the products shelf tag.
Care to explain how that is *flamebait*, anyone?
no message
-- Boycott Shell
There are several factors that can influence the quality of the sound. First, for a long run of cable, you can increase the resistance seen by your amplifier. In a good quality amplifier, the output stage of your amplifier can handle a wide range of impedances. With a cheap amplifier, your THD (total harmonic distortion) can vary significantly with output impedance. The longer the speaker wires are, the more resistance (the real part of impedance) in the wire. This will cause all frequencies to attenuate, but you can compensate by increasing your volume. However, you have two other factors. First, speakerwire is often twisted strands. These twisted strands make the speakerwire an inductor in series. This adds impedance that attenuates the high frequencies (this is an RF choke). Although the individual strands are not insulated, there is a very small amount of resistance between them, so the twisted stranded wire does act like an inductor. The second factor is the wire is a pair of wires. The second wire is a relative ground and is therefore a capacitor. This capactor appears in parallel to the signal, so it also attenuates the high frequencies.
Although the speakerwire does cause several measurable effects on the signal, the question is whether this effect is significant. From personal experience as well as an experiment one of my EE teachers and his friend, Mr. John Dunlavy set up an experiment showing the effects of different speaker cables, interconnects, shielding power cables, etc. I can tell you that if you have very high quality components, then all of the cables (except the power cable) made a noticable difference. We proved this both by our own observation as well as using various tools to analyze the output.
All that being said, if you don't have good quality stereo equipment, then your cables do not make any noticable difference
if you're getting a good deal or not. ;)
Not to be unappreciative of your sharing information, or of your sense of humor, but in my world Radio Shack is frickin high-end expensive. I like the free wires you can pick up on the streets. Unfortunately they don't have good connectors on the end. They are just good for tiny DIY projects.
For real equipment, I usually just wait until I am travelling thru Hong Kong or somewhere, and shop for cables at the roadside stalls. Why the [bleep] can't somebody market cables for that price in the west? Those prices are like ten times cheaper than Radio Shack!
Thanks to whoever mentioned Pacific Cable. I just wish there were more like them, for competition.
It's true that Monster cables aren't so much better than other cables. While being solid performers, there are many other solid performing cables inexpensively acquired. Making your own cables (requires soldering) isn't that difficult either, and quality cable can cost less than $0.25 per foot, connectors $4 each. Truth is that quality audio and video connector cables aren't that hard to come by, though cheap and unrecommended cables are abundant as well.
Anyway:
One thing I haven't seen mentioned about Monster cables is really their only standard advantage that I am aware of: they come with life-time warranties. Supposedly, no matter what happens to the cable or how negligent you are with it, as long as you still have it you can exchange it for a new replacement.
If you were traveling with your setup, I wouldn't buy them because you'll lose them or they'll be stolen. If you're using them in a stationary installment, I wouldn't buy them because they should be out of harms way as is.
All the same, you might be able to think of a good application in which you would want a strong warranty on your cables.
For instance, you could use monster cables as jump rope.
Checking their website, apparently the warranty is not the same on all cable products. I am familiar with the warranty from electronic music contexts.
Surprised no one is mentioning building your own cables. Much higher quality than Monster and much cheaper (not including the cost of tools). As an added bonus it scores you Geek points. Here's a link dealing with the construction of Canare cables: http://www.bus.ucf.edu/cwhite/theater/diycable.htm
Monster is worth the extra cost. Especially if you are spending a fair bit of money on the equipment. You can find some FAQs at http://www.monstercable.ca/faqs/ One good reason is Monster comes with a lifetime warranty. Not your standard cheap cable's 90 day warranty. Furthermore I am afraid our Physicist was slightly wrong in his statement The only benefit your get from monster cables is a perhaps slightly lower resistance. That is all. The higher resistance of standard wires can easily be overcome by "turning up the volume".. Higher resistance values not only cause lower signal output, but also cause noise, especially as length increases. Turning up the volume is not the thing to do. Noise on a signal is also increased as the signal increases. Speaking as a electronics technologist of course. This can simply be tested with an oscilloscope and an input signal, if anybody is that curious. If you are still not convinced, go and find a local store with home theater equipment set up and have them connect some speakers through monster on one channel of a receiver and another brand of cable on the other channel (Don't worry about asking, the store can "store use" it, especially if they think you will buy monster). If that doesn't convince you, then remember you have been warned.
Google the subject for an account of all the mom-and-pop operations (clothing stores, cookie vendors, etc) that Monster Cable has sued. I wouldn't buy a cable from them if it was the last cable on earth.
Looks more like the set-list from the last Phish show:
Transport -> CPU -> sound output device -> DAC -> amp -> speakers
I really hope you were being facetious.
I wouldn't buy Radio Shack merely because they are poorly constructed, but the Best Buy store brand is built better. After moving every couple of years, all I care about is construction. Given that, bluejeanscable.com generally gets good reviews for their construction and is much cheaper than Monster with the requisite "audiophile" credentials. I have some Monster cable and every time I look at them I think about how I was suckered into paying more than I should have...
The piece' de resistance! You'll not only give the liberals an embolism, you've automatically gained mod points from the Rand brigade that dominate Slashdot political discussions.
I salute you, sir, you are the greatest troll that ever lived. I want to be you!