FLAMING BAGS OF POOP HOT! Monster Fiber Optic Ultra 1000 4ft $16.97!!!

[cytoSiN]

I knew it! Mac works at Best Buy!!!

 

[Drekce]

Originally posted by: Mac

Originally posted by: akshatp
I just saw some schmoe buy a 2m Monster HDMI "gold" cable at CC yesterday for a whopping $124.99!!!! I was like OMG they ACTUALLY get people to buy these things?!?!?! Tripplite 6 footer online can be had for $15... Crazy...

The way it is positioned is the following: "Hey, you are already spending $2,500 (or you plug the number ) for a top quality HDTV. Why compromise the picture quality with substandard cabling just to save a few bucks? That's like buying a Ferrari and then installing a Volkswagen engine. I have had customers buy cheap cables and then complain about the picture quality. I never hear any complaints from those who buy Mon$ter Cable. But, hey it's your decision."

Your comparison is flawed. It is more like buying a Ferrari and putting Sunoco 93 octane into it instead of Chevron (with Tecron) 93 octane. Both fuels are basically the same, but marketing allows the Chevron one to be sold for more money.

 

[cytoSiN]

Originally posted by: gevorg
Coax digital connection is actually more durable than optical, plus its max length is more than 15 ft. It transfers signal better than optical because unlike optical, it doesn't convert the electrical signal to light and then back to electrical at the other end. The ONLY benefit of the optical connection is that its resistant to RMI / EMI interference. So unless you have a bunch of cables very close to each other (especially power cables), use the coax digital cables instead.

Maybe so, but that would require my sound card to have anything other than RCA and Optical outputs, which it doesn't...

Gonna take slashbinslashbash's advice: "it may be worth it to just try out the 50ft cable. If it works, great. If not, return it." I'll post here if it doesn't work, but I'm guessing that it will for the limited purpose I'm using it for, since retailers would have a hard time selling those cables if they never worked...

 

[Mac]

Originally posted by: cytoSiN
I knew it! Mac works at Best Buy!!!

Thanks alot.

I didn't make this up. When I bought my 65" Mitsubishi a couple of years ago, this line is almost verbatim what the salesman said. More disappointing, I felt he truly believed what he was saying so it was useless to argue. I politely told him that I would supply my own cables and simply ship the unit to my home. BTW, he also tried to sell me the Mon$ter power center ($90 I seem to recall) which was nothing more than a glorified surge protector... so that my unit would be receiving pure constant filtered power. Of course, the power cord was hermetically sealed and oxygen free to prevent power fluctuations.

OP, you really posted a great deal. You got any others?

 

[GoffyDude]

Not hot...monster cables don't use real glass fiber.

Check fleabay for "glass optical" cables. They sound MUCH better IMO.

 

[unhuman]

Can fiber cables vary in quality? Figure you get sound or not...

 

[mikeford]

Since this issue is only 20 some years old, I will try to bring you up to speed.

S/Pdif and toslink must be something marketing cooked up while the engineers were out of the room, and HDMI is actually MUCH worse technically.

S/Pdif and toslink transfer data just fine, zero data errors should be possible from any decent cable. The trouble is that timing is embedded in the data signal and recovered from the zero crossing and that has issues up the wazoo, so that LARGE timing errors are common, and go by the name of JITTER. Known for the last two decades, and still never "really" fixed, its the basis for almost all the expensive cables and other devices related to digital audio. Glass optical cables have better (faster) zero crossings, but its no simple thing and nothing in audio seems cut and dried, always speculation and opinion.

HDMI is just plain stupid, LOTS of data fully expanded from its compressed transmitted format gets pumped over and the total bandwidth is high enough to cause problems with cheap cables as short as 6 feet, and tends to get expensive around 25 feet. Cables are certified by length and max resolution signal they can support below some error level, like 15 feet and 1080i (this is typical, ie error level is above threshold for 1080p).

 

[Fallen Kell]

Originally posted by: gevorg
Coax digital connection is actually more durable than optical, plus its max length is more than 15 ft. It transfers signal better than optical because unlike optical, it doesn't convert the electrical signal to light and then back to electrical at the other end. The ONLY benefit of the optical connection is that its resistant to RMI / EMI interference. So unless you have a bunch of cables very close to each other (especially power cables), use the coax digital cables instead.

They have other benefits as well. Mainly the fact that they are electrically inert, which means that the two components that are connected by optical cables will also not share an electrical connection. Having physical electrical connection can sometimes cause other problems in the system, especially if one device has a poor electrical ground. By having the physical electrical connection, you now allow the other componets to use that wire as a ground which can play all kinds of havoc with the systems because you are changing the ground floor. This can result in ground loops in audio systems (a 60Hz sine or square wave being immeted through the speakers, which will sound like a low hum sound or low buz, low as in low frequency, not in loudness/amplitude, as in some cases the amplitude can be very high) and data corruption in digital systems (the difference between a 1 and a 0 in a digital world is actually the difference in electrical state from ground 0, or not ground, 1... if the ground floor is raised or moved erratically as could happen if a ground loop occurs, the digital processing will mistake when the signal being sent/processed is ground or not ground because "ground" is continually varing in that system).

 

[Devil2U]

Originally posted by: Fallen Kell

They have other benefits as well. Mainly the fact that they are electrically inert, which means that the two components that are connected by optical cables will also not share an electrical connection. Having physical electrical connection can sometimes cause other problems in the system, especially if one device has a poor electrical ground. By having the physical electrical connection, you now allow the other componets to use that wire as a ground which can play all kinds of havoc with the systems because you are changing the ground floor. This can result in ground loops in audio systems (a 60Hz sine or square wave being immeted through the speakers, which will sound like a low hum sound or low buz, low as in low frequency, not in loudness/amplitude, as in some cases the amplitude can be very high) and data corruption in digital systems (the difference between a 1 and a 0 in a digital world is actually the difference in electrical state from ground 0, or not ground, 1... if the ground floor is raised or moved erratically as could happen if a ground loop occurs, the digital processing will mistake when the signal being sent/processed is ground or not ground because "ground" is continually varing in that system).

VERY good point on the electrical isolation issue. Ground loops can cause hell, especially if the power is of low quality. Too bad the video connector is still electrical.

 

[Greg04]

Originally posted by: Mac

Originally posted by: NSA Lummox
Monster Fiber Optic Ultra 1000

Mon$ter Cable - Whenever I read those two words, I feel a Monster Rant building up. A company that preys upon consumer stupidity and insecurity is one that is easy to truly despise. Ignore their glossy ads, glitzy packaging and phony pompous marketing hype, but look instead for empirical evidence in the form of blind testing to support their claims and obscene pricing. You will not find any. It burns me to no end to be in an electronics store and overhear some salesman telling the ignorant consumer that unless they buy Mon$ter Crap that they are not going to realize the full potential of their TV, stereo... you name it.

Save it. People are generally stupid. The fact that Bose exists is proof enough for me. But...I feel your pain every time I see someone spending more than .50ft for audio cabling of ANY kind. I had an A/B setup in my old place when I cared to educate people. I had two ADCOM GFA555II's (if memory serves), a 565 preamp and a pair of huge Maggies. Only when I went from super thick to super thin speaker cable could people actually hear ANY difference. Interconnects? Forget it. No one spotted the difference between $200 audioquests (relax - they came with the amps) and a $5 pair from target.
NO ONE.

Blind testing is frowned upon by the so-called audiophile folks. It's too good.
In days of old, I had access to a pair of B&W 801s and a Mark Levinson amp for 2 weeks. Switching from $1,000 speaker cables to $20 speaker cables couldn't be heard by my ears at 25.
Now at 37, I think my ears have faded to the point where I'd have to spend my yearly income to notice a huge difference in audio.