Are Monster Cables worth it?

[Pazuzu]

Monster Cables are absolutely worth the money...

As long as you find them for $5 each in various "Box 'O' Cables" deals on various deal of the day sites.

I've bought several Monster cables this way, including some nice stuff that I need, like their gold plated HDMI-DVI 10 foot cables, and I average about $4 each. I have some monster audio, digital audio, component, and HDMI lurking in my system.


For $50-$100? No. But for $4, yeah, I'll run the Name Brand Stuff.

[Dave L]

Originally Posted by Pazuzu

Monster Cables are absolutely worth the money...

As long as you find them for $5 each in various "Box 'O' Cables" deals on various deal of the day sites.

I've bought several Monster cables this way, including some nice stuff that I need, like their gold plated HDMI-DVI 10 foot cables, and I average about $4 each. I have some monster audio, digital audio, component, and HDMI lurking in my system.


For $50-$100? No. But for $4, yeah, I'll run the Name Brand Stuff.

+1 I actually have most of my Cables from Monster but I have got them all at clearance types of stores and pay about what you would pay for a "regular" cable at walmart. I dont know that they are any better but for the same price why not?

[TerryH]

Originally Posted by mthomas58

I ordered all my cables here.....
http://www.bluejeanscable.com/

Me too, but it was 5 years ago, so not sure if they are competitive now. My speakers allowed for bi-wiring, so I went ahead and bought the Canare 4S11 brand quad wire and all my other cables from bluejean. They have/had a big presence on eBay.

BTW.. I'm not a big proponent of biwiring. I only did it because I could and wanted to see if there was a audible change.... well, not to these old ears. Still, very high quality wire at a fair price.

[RWebb]

OK folks - we need to distinguish 3 categories here:


1. cables that carry digital signals - no effect of brand, etc. as long as the bits get thru (and change that to "most of 'em" if a good error loss algorithm is used)

2. analog cables that carry low freq. signals

3. analog cables that carry RF

part of the insanity of high end audio has been conflation of 2 and 3 -- some goofballs have even claimed that RF signal transfer phenomena (e.g. "skin effect") applies to analog cables and that their overly expensive cables solve th problem.

As is usually the case, a background in physics will save you lots of $$ losses to true believers and outright unscrupulous sales people.

But anyone, can do a single or double blind test - physics courses or not. Just be sure you can return the cables that don't perform as well or cost way too much. Also, do not drive significant other insane with your testing...

[TechnoViking]

We use HDMI cables a lot at work. From a data transmission standpoint, the cheapo monoprice cables will work. But we did have some start to fail after about 400 mate/unmate cycles at a recent trade show.

If you want high quality, I recommend DVI Gear:

http://www2.dvigear.com/hdsuhirecoca.html

You won't find a better cable, and the price is not astronomical.

Gefen is great, too:

http://www.gefen.com/kvm/dcable.jsp?prod_id=5451

No affiliations.

[Porsche_monkey]

IIRC 'skin effect' is proportional to frequency? And refers to the tendency for current to gravitate towards the surface (the skin) vs. having an equal current density through the cross-section.

[kach22i]

Radio Shack's best for Home Theater, or old stuff from past upgrades.

Nordost and Cardas for the high end two-channel stereo, but you have to have real "hi-end" gear to make it worth it.

My system:
http://www.martinloganowners.com/forum/showthread.php?t=531

Monster Cable......file under Bose.

[cantdrv55]

Biwiring, skin effect...what the heck are you guys talking about? I'd better do some research before buying anything else.

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by cantdrv55

do some research

The old saying is: Use Your Ears.

[Pazuzu]

Originally Posted by RWebb

1. cables that carry digital signals - no effect of brand, etc. as long as the bits get thru (and change that to "most of 'em" if a good error loss algorithm is used)

That's not completely true...there is no true digital equipment in our homes for audio/video, it's nearly digital. since the signal being kicked through the cables (HDMI, digital fiber and digital coax) is not truely digital (the waveform has curves...), there will be frequency creep in the data packet.

Can you tell over 10-30 feet? Probably not, but the quality of the cable will still make a difference. If someone is running digital over 200 feet, then would expect that many of us could see/hear the difference.


As is usually the case, a background in physics will tell you these things

[imcarthur]

Originally Posted by kach22i

The old saying is: Use Your Ears.

Exactly. There is endless debate about virtually everything in audio, but your own ears won't lie. I will stay out of the cable debate other than to suggest that you treat it like any other audio device & listen before you buy.

Ian

kach: Do you ever throw a blanket over the TV when listening to just 2 channel?

[rick-l]

These are tested and certified:

Originally Posted by Martin Smith

Gefen is great, too:

http://www.gefen.com/kvm/dcable.jsp?prod_id=5451

No affiliations.

These do not appear to be:

Originally Posted by Martin Smith

If you want high quality, I recommend DVI Gear:

http://www2.dvigear.com/hdsuhirecoca.html

You won't find a better cable, and the price is not astronomical.

But there are no home entertainment products available that would require the data rate (HDMI 1.3) they are supposed to support.

They are still alot less than monster cable.

[masraum]

I have seen tests that compared the before and after signals of cheap cables and expensive cables. I think someone tested 5-10 of the really cheap cables and compared them to Monster cables. What they found is that all but one of the cheap cables performed as well as the expensive cables. Apparently the big area for problems is the cable terminations/ends themselves. Cheap ends can eventually cause a problem. I just got a TV and Blu-ray player, so I wanted/needed an hdmi cable. I bought a belkin cable for ~$22 from Amazon. They had a bunch of the $4-10 cables and some of the $50-150 cables. I suspect that my $22 cable is a good cable. My picture looks great.

I'd be leary of the really cheap stuff because you don't know if it's part of the 95% good cheap or one of the 5% crappy cables. A name brand at a low-mid price, I feel pretty confident...

[TerryH]

Originally Posted by kach22i

Radio Shack's best for Home Theater, or old stuff from past upgrades.

Nordost and Cardas for the high end two-channel stereo, but you have to have real "hi-end" gear to make it worth it.

My system:
http://www.martinloganowners.com/forum/showthread.php?t=531

Monster Cable......file under Bose.

Nice stuff, Kach. If you could separate your mains a little, I think it would create a more dynamic soundstage. I know we are all victims to our sound environment. My mains are more than 10ft apart and we sit 12 ft from the speakers. Fortunately, we have a dedicated room tho its far from ideal.

[RWebb]

Originally Posted by kach22i

The old saying is: Use Your Ears.

Bingo. BUT, placebo effects are quite large, so do it single or double blind.

P-monk - yes. I don't know if strictly proportional, but it skin effect is "monotonically increasing" with frequency.

Mike - you'll have to tell me about freq. creep and why recovery of the bit stream is unable to deal with it...

[ruf-porsche]

Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile

I doubt $55 electrons perform much differently than $5 electrons.

So does a $500 coach bag carry more than a $50 knock off?