LarryF Posted March 25, 2012 Report Share Posted March 25, 2012 "Audiophiles can't tell the difference between Monster Cable and coat hangers": http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/03/audiophiles-cant-tell-the-difference-between-monster-cable-and/ Here's the entire writeup. The coat hangers are about 10% from the end of the long description: http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/15412-post28.html Cheers, LarryF Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrd456 Posted March 25, 2012 Report Share Posted March 25, 2012 monster cable is B.S.------stupid expensive Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toy Robot Posted March 25, 2012 Report Share Posted March 25, 2012 Yeah, I've been telling people that for years, but branding is a powerful thing. There are those that literally won't use anything else. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnpaul215 Posted March 25, 2012 Report Share Posted March 25, 2012 This just feeds the theory that Best Buy sells TVs at cost and makes up for it with $500 Monster Cable HDMI cables. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Popp Posted March 26, 2012 Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 One of my first jobs was working at Circuit City (I used to call Circuit Shitty). They threw me into the TV department because I was a tech nerd and told me that I was required to sell the monster cables with each TV just like Best Buy does. I told them no, because there is no difference. We ended up getting into a fight and I told them to prove it to me. So we actually did a test between the monster cables (component at the time - HDMI wasn't invented yet) and a basic GE brand that was 15 bucks. After hooking them up, the boss told me that I was right, but still required me to sell them! The funny part is the next day I came in, I noticed that they had set up a section in the corner "demonstrating" the differences between regular cables and monster cables. It was extremely weird, because the monster cables actually looked better on their demonstration! So, I did a little research... The manager had taken a utility knife and DESTROYED the GE cables, cutting them up and removing the grounding in a bunch of sections. I quit soon after. Then they went bankrupt. Karma. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max Futterman Posted March 26, 2012 Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 One of my first jobs was working at Circuit City (I used to call Circuit Shitty). They threw me into the TV department because I was a tech nerd and told me that I was required to sell the monster cables with each TV just like Best Buy does. I told them no, because there is no difference. We ended up getting into a fight and I told them to prove it to me. So we actually did a test between the monster cables (component at the time - HDMI wasn't invented yet) and a basic GE brand that was 15 bucks. After hooking them up, the boss told me that I was right, but still required me to sell them! The funny part is the next day I came in, I noticed that they had set up a section in the corner "demonstrating" the differences between regular cables and monster cables. It was extremely weird, because the monster cables actually looked better on their demonstration! So, I did a little research... The manager had taken a utility knife and DESTROYED the GE cables, cutting them up and removing the grounding in a bunch of sections. I quit soon after. Then they went bankrupt. Karma. BUUUURRRRRRNNNNNNN! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnpaul215 Posted March 26, 2012 Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 I know some people don't like them, but Amazon does sell a $5 HDMI cable and offers some sort of deal on 3 or 4 packs. Heck, I have a 25 foot HDMI hooked into my Mac Mini that was about $10 IIRC. First RED One shoot I did was in 2008 and they "saved money" by getting a HDMI monitor and had to use HDMI cables to video village. Even with some sort of employee discount they definitely spent more on cables than it would have cost to get a proper HD-SDI monitor and a bunch of BNC cables.... let alone being able to do long runs to village. I don't know if it was 2008 and cheap HDMI cables were still a secret, but they spent an ungodly amount of money on those cables. They were somehow breaking them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Reilly Posted March 26, 2012 Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 Monsters swear by them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max Futterman Posted March 26, 2012 Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 Monster Cable is a distant cousin of Cookie Monster. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip Perkins Posted March 26, 2012 Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 Monster has also succeeded by being massively litigious, lots of legal intimidation aimed at people who publicly criticize them, question their claims of better performance or use the word "monster" in advertising or a product name. phil p Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Reilly Posted March 26, 2012 Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 "Monster Cable is a distant cousin of Cookie Monster." A brand popular in the lighting domain. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Steigerwald Posted March 26, 2012 Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 Bluejeanscable.com or monoprice.com are both good sources for hdmi cables. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karlw Posted March 26, 2012 Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 Bluejeanscable.com or monoprice.com are both good sources for hdmi cables. Ironically, Blue Jeans Cable was once sued by Monster. Check out the correspondences here. It makes for some interesting reading! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VASI Posted March 26, 2012 Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 Wait a minute. I'm confused. Monster Cables are the same as all other brands? If I'm correct; why the Monsters Cables is too expensive? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benr Posted March 26, 2012 Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 HDMI cables? Oh RIGHT HERE: LINK Any of those with outrageously good reviews will do just great! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Q Posted March 27, 2012 Report Share Posted March 27, 2012 Yup, a Best Buy sales guy tried to sell me $50 HDMI cables. Even the cheapest cables they had were $25. I passed because the DVD player I was buying only cost $40. (I was production manager at a TV station at the time and after our dubbers sent out a few dud discs I just needed a cheap player to test burned discs that we were sending out to commercial clients.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benr Posted March 27, 2012 Report Share Posted March 27, 2012 For that and many other reasons, I call it Worst Buy. 99% of the time you can find it cheaper online. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay Rose Posted March 27, 2012 Report Share Posted March 27, 2012 It's not just Monster, it's the whole high-end audio industry. A friend of mine, noted speaker designer, had a bunch of identical cables made up for an a/b/c/d/x test: beautiful 12 ga wire, gold-plated spade lugs, the works, all assembled by a custom cable lab. He did the test, and then had all these 30' cables left over. So he put them in poly bags, printed up headers describing their specs, and took them to a high-end store for them to sell. Store manager looked them over, was impressed, said "yes, we'll sell them... BUT: First, you have to take each one out and put a piece of shrink tubing on each end with directional arrows! Our customers won't buy them otherwise!" Directional wires on unshielded two conductor AC at audio frequencies... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack Norflus Posted March 27, 2012 Report Share Posted March 27, 2012 BUT: First, you have to take each one out and put a piece of shrink tubing on each end with directional arrows! Of course totally makes sense. If you install the cable the wrong way the audio wouldn't flow smoothly and your high end really gets muffled. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LarryF Posted March 27, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 27, 2012 Backwards cables are really hard on amplifiers too, being driven by the speakers. Absorbing all that reverse power causes those poor tubes to overheat. Larry F Of course totally makes sense. If you install the cable the wrong way the audio wouldn't flow smoothly and your high end really gets muffled. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Feeley Posted March 27, 2012 Report Share Posted March 27, 2012 BUT: First, you have to take each one out and put a piece of shrink tubing on each end with directional arrows! Our customers won't buy them otherwise!" Those arrows are really important. When The Beatles ran cables the wrong way they ended up with Rain, Tomorrow Never Knows, and a dead bass player. Seriously; this is dangerous stuff: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_is_dead Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Wielage Posted March 28, 2012 Report Share Posted March 28, 2012 A friend of mine, noted speaker designer, had a bunch of identical cables made up for an a/b/c/d/x test: beautiful 12 ga wire, gold-plated spade lugs, the works, all assembled by a custom cable lab. A good buddy of mine from the 1980s, who was a major high-end speaker designer for 20 years (with a major 3-letter firm), was privately very opposed to high-end cables, and told me on many occasions how much he detested expensive "golden eared" audio cables. One time when I visited his firm's lavish suite at CES, I poked him in the ribs and said, "hey, nice $1000 cables you got there!" He grimaced and said, "if we don't use them during the demos, the audiophile press will slam us as saying 'the sound lost clarity and focus' or 'the speakers lacked a sense of bloom because of the inferior cables being used.'" In fact, he went on to explain that they had encountered a few exotic cable designs that created impedance load problems for his speakers (and many speakers), I think due to capacitance problems; regular run-of-the-mill 12-gauge cables were fine. I have pointed out to audiophiles that I've seen multi-million dollar re-recording stages wired up with stuff like Belden 5000 cable, which is below a buck a foot. If a $100 million movie is using relatively inexpensive cables for film sound, why go nuts with audiophile cable for a home system? Stuff like this drives me crazy. The worst might be high-end AC power cables -- I've seen some of those go for literally $1000 for a 6-foot IEC cord. When those come up among audiophile discussions, I taunt them by saying, "what about the cheap AC cord in your walls? I bet the AC goes through a hundred feet of that, right off the power line." I'm stymied that anybody would believe that going through 3 feet of wire will change anything for the better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studiomprd Posted March 28, 2012 Report Share Posted March 28, 2012 " "what about the cheap AC cord in your walls? I bet the AC goes through a hundred feet of that, right off the power line." " the ultimate audio-snob gets the entire house rewired. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LarryF Posted March 28, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 28, 2012 I was standing at the counter of a very high end audio store, when a customer was complaining that running Monster Cable speaker wire in the walls of his new house for remote speakers wasn't going to be allowed by the city building code officer because the Monster cable was not rated for such use. My suggestion to use 12 gauge Romex for the speakers did not make friends with the salesman, who probably saw his month's commission going up in smoke. My small purchase was rung up in record time. Best, Larry F Lectro " "what about the cheap AC cord in your walls? I bet the AC goes through a hundred feet of that, right off the power line." " the ultimate audio-snob gets the entire house rewired. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benr Posted March 28, 2012 Report Share Posted March 28, 2012 I was standing at the counter of a very high end audio store, when a customer was complaining that running Monster Cable speaker wire in the walls of his new house for remote speakers wasn't going to be allowed by the city building code officer because the Monster cable was not rated for such use. My suggestion to use 12 gauge Romex for the speakers did not make friends with the salesman, who probably saw his month's commission going up in smoke. My small purchase was rung up in record time. Best, Larry F Lectro Exactly why I DONT shop brick and mortar. You cant trust ANY sales person from ANY company 100% AND there are no user reviews to tell you why this $29.99 toaster is less or better than that $49.99 toaster. You do your own research and talk to people who have tried things first then buy where ever gives you the best price, which is typically online. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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