Are Monster Cables overpriced?

[amnesiac]

Ornery -- half those links don't work!

 

[spidey07]

Yes they are overpriced.

They'll sell you an 80 dollar Clothes dryer power cable.

80 dollar dryer cable

The cables are of good build construction, but i'l only pay about 1/4 of retail or make my own.

 

[ElFenix]

used to be you didn't have to buy a power cable for the dryer.

 

[gistech1978]

does the pope crap in the woods?
is a bear catholic?
yes they are overpriced
i picked up a set of component cables on ebay for 10 bucks
they look pretty sweet to me.

 

[WinkOsmosis]

I thought everyone was saying "YES" to "do you find them worth the money?".....

 

[amnesiac]

Considering that to my knowledge, no double-blind test has shown substantial increases in quality of sound between audiophile-grade cables and standard 12-ga wire, I'd say that buying anything more than the 30-cent/foot 12-ga from Home Depot is a waste of money.

 

[jaeger66]

Originally posted by: amnesiac
Considering that to my knowledge, no double-blind test has shown substantial increases in quality of sound between audiophile-grade cables and standard 12-ga wire, I'd say that buying anything more than the 30-cent/foot 12-ga from Home Depot is a waste of money.

And how far does your knowledge extend? People who drop $25K on an amp aren't going to use Radio Shack zip cord. Those same people might also wonder what kind of lunatic would pay $100,000 for a car. I mean, as long as it has 4 wheels it's all the same right? So why not just buy a used Ford Festiva? Fine cars, fine wine, fine audio...it's all a matter of taste.

 

[bozack]

if you have the money and it isn't going to break the bank then why not...heck they aren't going to hurt anything...are they worth the money...I doubt it.

if money is your concern then use the standard cables that come with whatever you have or go to your local electronics store and buy some regular cables...if you want higher grade cables spend more online for something else or buy some monster cable...

not really a hard decision here.

 

[Mill]

Originally posted by: jaeger66

Originally posted by: amnesiac
Considering that to my knowledge, no double-blind test has shown substantial increases in quality of sound between audiophile-grade cables and standard 12-ga wire, I'd say that buying anything more than the 30-cent/foot 12-ga from Home Depot is a waste of money.

And how far does your knowledge extend? People who drop $25K on an amp aren't going to use Radio Shack zip cord. Those same people might also wonder what kind of lunatic would pay $100,000 for a car. I mean, as long as it has 4 wheels it's all the same right? So why not just buy a used Ford Festiva? Fine cars, fine wine, fine audio...it's all a matter of taste.

Sounds like you have monster cables and are trying to justify it. LOL.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: Millennium

Originally posted by: jaeger66

Originally posted by: amnesiac
Considering that to my knowledge, no double-blind test has shown substantial increases in quality of sound between audiophile-grade cables and standard 12-ga wire, I'd say that buying anything more than the 30-cent/foot 12-ga from Home Depot is a waste of money.

And how far does your knowledge extend? People who drop $25K on an amp aren't going to use Radio Shack zip cord. Those same people might also wonder what kind of lunatic would pay $100,000 for a car. I mean, as long as it has 4 wheels it's all the same right? So why not just buy a used Ford Festiva? Fine cars, fine wine, fine audio...it's all a matter of taste.

Sounds like you have monster cables and are trying to justify it. LOL.

Millinium,

One reaches a point in their stereo where cables are indeed the limiting factor. I don't mind spending a few hundred bucks on a cable becuase it is a very insignificant price of the total system because for any signficant change I'd have to spend 5000 bucks or more. And monster cable is not a recommended choice.

 

[SagaLore]

Originally posted by: her209
They are freakin expensive. Do you find them worth the money?

Yes and yes.

 

[jaeger66]

Originally posted by: Millennium


Sounds like you have monster cables and are trying to justify it. LOL.

No. Read the whole thread before spouting.

 

[OS]

Originally posted by: jaeger66

Originally posted by: Thegonagle

Will electrons flow just as easily through any other copper wire of the same gauge that costs less?

(The answer to both questions is yes. Electrons don't care how much your wires cost.)

Now there's a vast oversimplification. If a video cable, for example, does not maintain precise 75-Ohm resistance you will see problems if your gear is of sufficient quality.

That's not true. There won't be any big difference in signal/power transfer from a couple of ohms difference. I've actually sat down and measured it in a lab.

 

[FeathersMcGraw]

Originally posted by: amnesiac
Considering that to my knowledge, no double-blind test has shown substantial increases in quality of sound between audiophile-grade cables and standard 12-ga wire, I'd say that buying anything more than the 30-cent/foot 12-ga from Home Depot is a waste of money.

That's because there's no metric for a substantial increase in quality of sound. Perfect signal reproduction means jack if your source is a white noise generator.

Audiophile-quality equipment is a whole other world from any stereo component available at your local Best Buy or Circuit City. Better equipment requires better source material, better interconnects, better output devices, and better listening skills. Those who say "it's just wire" are clearly not the target market for Monster products and their ilk.

 

[OS]

Originally posted by: FeathersMcGraw

Originally posted by: amnesiac
Considering that to my knowledge, no double-blind test has shown substantial increases in quality of sound between audiophile-grade cables and standard 12-ga wire, I'd say that buying anything more than the 30-cent/foot 12-ga from Home Depot is a waste of money.

That's because there's no metric for a substantial increase in quality of sound. Perfect signal reproduction means jack if your source is a white noise generator.

Audiophile-quality equipment is a whole other world from any stereo component available at your local Best Buy or Circuit City. Better equipment requires better source material, better interconnects, better output devices, and better listening skills. Those who say "it's just wire" are clearly not the target market for Monster products and their ilk.

oh please, it's not like monster cables are made in some magic factory.

I've also measured the resistance, end to end inductance, conductor to conductor capacitance/inductance of a monster cable and a $5 BNC cable of the same length. There's no substantial difference.

 

[spidey07]

Ahh,

I noticed you put the disclaimer "significant difference". So there was a difference then?

ps - monster cables are not very good. Decent, but somewhat muddy sounding.

 

[jaeger66]

Originally posted by: OS



That's not true. There won't be any big difference in signal/power transfer from a couple of ohms difference. I've actually sat down and measured it in a lab.

That's missing the entire point. People who care about A/V performance buy gear for how it performs, not how it measures in a lab. Tube gear generally has crap measurements, but some of it sounds absolutely lovely. And a $99 Sony CD player will measure very well but probably sound fairly poor.

 

[Ryan]

Originally posted by: ultimatebob
Do bears do their business in the woods? Seriously, dude, Monster Cables are a scam. The sales droids at Best Buy and Circuit City love to promote them, however, because the huge margins on them equal big commissions for each sucker who buys them.

Actually, CC doesn't use a comission based system anymore, so it doens't really matter.

 

[OS]

Originally posted by: spidey07
Ahh,

I noticed you put the disclaimer "significant difference". So there was a difference then?

ps - monster cables are not very good. Decent, but somewhat muddy sounding.

Push comes to shove, the BNC cable actually gave better to ideal (closer to zero) values in some measurements. I gave the monster cable benefit of the doubt.

If you care about the actual values, I've made a table somewhere in the archives.

 

[RayH]

Originally posted by: Marauder-
You're either better off making your own or getting them from a company like BetterCables / BlueJeansCables. The quality will be vastly superior and the price will be the same if not lower.

For the electron simplification - that's pretty much true for speaker wire but for video purposes which carry higher bandwidth, I think most of the current quality loss is in the connector piece which most of the time does not meet up w/ the 75ohm spec.

Those are good sources. I'd also recommend A2ZCables. Custom made Belden and Canare cables are a much better bargain. Granted I'm not going to spend $30 to connect a dvd player to receiver over a distance of 1' but I would spend $100 for component cables connecting a high definition cable box sending 1080i 35' to a projector.

To give you the idea of the markup on Monster Cable, you can now pick up bulk Monster Cable MV2 made for RCA at 9 cents a foot at Parts Express. I just bought enough to make all the short hookups I could ever want for the rest of my life.

 

[OS]

Originally posted by: jaeger66

Originally posted by: OS

That's not true. There won't be any big difference in signal/power transfer from a couple of ohms difference. I've actually sat down and measured it in a lab.

That's missing the entire point. People who care about A/V performance buy gear for how it performs, not how it measures in a lab. Tube gear generally has crap measurements, but some of it sounds absolutely lovely. And a $99 Sony CD player will measure very well but probably sound fairly poor.

Ugh, this is that retarded "how it performs" instead of what you can measure argument. I don't see how that sort of argument is any better than superstition.

 

[Ornery]

Originally posted by: jaeger66

Originally posted by: Ornery
I stumbled onto this Wonderful Wire Hype Post by a guy in the Audio Review message boards that goes by the handle "A"."Before you buy any expensive wires..."

Well, I'm convinced. It's on the Internet, so it must be true. Right?

You're welcome to post a link or two to back up your lip, chump.

 

[jaeger66]

Originally posted by: OS



Ugh, this is that retarded "how it performs" instead of what you can measure argument. I don't see how that sort of argument is any better than superstition.

If car A can travel at 75MPH and car B can travel at 75MPH, does that mean that cars A and B are the same?

 

[dethman]

he he we got 15 suckers in this thread.

 

[OS]

Originally posted by: jaeger66

Originally posted by: OS
Ugh, this is that retarded "how it performs" instead of what you can measure argument. I don't see how that sort of argument is any better than superstition.

If car A can travel at 75MPH and car B can travel at 75MPH, does that mean that cars A and B are the same?

I don't really care to pick apart your fallacious example.

I just remembered this discussion I had with one of my EE profs where he said, don't bother trying to explain stuff to those sort of people. You can just get rich off of them instead.