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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
...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!"
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.
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!
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 just wanted to mention also, that I got an almost 70% discount on the cables, and that definately helped the purchase along!
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.
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
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)
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.
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.
That, I can believe. Aluminum has nowhere near the conductivity of copper, and on top of that, it was a thinner wire. The result is a lower voltage at the other end of the cable than you would have had with copper, which means that some component somewhere needs to amplify more. Amplification introduces noise. I'm not surprised at all.
I doubt you could tell the difference, however, between a 12 gauge copper wire and a 12 gauge "oxygen free" copper wire.
Digital is digital is digital is digital. As long as the carrier can accurately reproduce the stream of bits (hint: pretty much every transport can, especially at the negligible distances we're discussing), the end result will be identical. Not "close", not "almost", but "exactly".
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
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.
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.
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.
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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 &
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.
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.