Monster Cable

Are Monster Cables all that they say they are?

what, expensive? yes, they are expensive. :)

the same argument applies to every other "superior" technology. if everything in your system is top-notch/high-end, then yes, it makes sense to have the "best" wiring for maximum results. however, if you have a "home-theatre-in-a-box" and a "regular" tv, then buying monster cables won't really get you any where anyway.

ok thanks

Monster's been making high-end speaker wire and interconnect cables longer than anybody, and they're still in business, so they must be doing something right.

I have all of my speakers connected with Monster wire and all of the components in both my stereo system and separate home theater system connected with Monster cables. When making the changes years ago, I heard no real difference, but for the money, they make a guy feel really good.

The argument about high-end cables goes on and on among audiophiles (and Monster cables are considered the low-end of the line when you talk about three-foot lengths costing upwards of $1,000 from some companies; I had a friend whose company hand-built their own cables, right down to the balsa wood connectors). Some people swear by certain brands and some condemn the whole lot as nonsense.

Take a pair of Monsters home on the condition you can return them. Hook up only one channel or one side. Play a 1.0 monaural source and switch left to right. Assuming it's not your room that's affecting the L/R sound of your system, if you hear an improvement with the new cables, keep them. And tell us about your experience.

John

I worked at Circuit City for about two years in the Audio Video department and was surrounded by both customers asking these questions and managers telling me what to say. I wanted to find out myself, and since I got accomadation, the time seemed to be right.

I started with speaker wire, I went from 18 gauge generic, to 14 gauge monster XP wire. I was surprised that the sound was not louder (as I was expecting) but more detailed. Instruments in CDs that I had listened to for years were more noticeable such as percussion and acustic guitars. The difference was subtle, but pleasing.

I also tried an improved subwoofer cable. While the results were not as significant as the improved speaker wire, the sub did sound cleaner, and tended to drop just a tad lower.

I then applied my research to video connections and looked at both s-video and component connections. Monster has many levels to their cables. The basic level gives you the most value (Monster Basic/THX) while their higher ends give the best performance but for much higher prices (Level 2, 3, THX-Ultra). S-video was the biggest picture improvement on my 36" Mitsubishi, but the best picture was achieved with THX-Ultra component cables to my 30" 16x9 Sony Wega.

S-video provided almost 0 dot crawl and image shimmer, and very nice color saturation, Component (while playing shrek) did all of this and supplied a vibrance of color (especially greens and reds) that was breathtaking.

The most worthwhile monster product in my opinion are their power strips. With an electronic choke, or what Monster calls Clean Power Circuitry, electronic interference from other devices is almost eliminated clearing up fuzz and other issues in your home theater. Again their are multiple levels of performance starting at $80 and going as high as $10000.

As far as things to avoid that made no difference whatsoever, optical cables. Light transmissions of a digital signal are all 1 and 0, if the light gets through, the signal is on, if not, nothing. Save your money on this cable. Also, speaker terminal ends are great for convenience and speed of hooking things up (especially banna plugs for binding posts) but I noticed no change in sound quality.

Keep in mind that different people's eyes and ears will notice different things. I have no factual statements here, but my wife, who is not an audio/visual person and who thought I was wasting both time and money noticed a difference in our systems performance and is now very happy. Again, the speaker wire was the largest improvement and one that she picked up on right away.

I know this was a very long reply, but if you were like me, I had a lot of questions that no one was able to answer without trying to get me to buy something. Hope this helps.

I use Acustic Rescearch Optical and Component cables. Cheaper than MC, and pretty much the same quality.

-matt