After leaving the AD forums for a while and going over to the Audioholics and AVSForums; I've managed to get a decent amount of info on home theater buying,specs,setup,etc. And I have come to my senses to believe Monster Cables are an overrated market hype. Not to say that they're bad cables; just that you can find the same stuff somewhere else with much less of a price tag. I was just curious as to what other AD members thought about the companies like Monster.
When it comes to speaker cables, I use regular cables with a good amount of copper. Monster is overrated.
Monster is the Bose, of the cable industry! Cost way more than they are worth. AR cables are just as good, at about half the price. A lot of folks like "Bluejean Cables" too. I think they are only available online. I also won't buy from Monster, because of their business practices. There was a long thread, awhile back, at Audioholics, about Monster suing other companies, with the word Monster, in their name or product. They think they own the word Monster! Stupid thing is........... they win! The judge or jury in these cases should be shot, for letting them win! No one can own a word! They won't let Harley Davidson patent the sound, a Harley makes. Anyway.............. Monster is way over rated and way over priced! Spend your money on other stuff..............
Monster is overrated. They outdid themselves by paying to add the THX logo to there products. They are the laughing stock of the cable industry. Like JVC said, Acoustic Research cables are just as good and about half the price. They can be found at best buy for a little more than internet prices. If you want real proformance look for names like Audioquest (sold in most high-end retail chains) and Nordost (makers of the best speaker cables in the world). You would be surprised how much proformace you can get out of audioquest cables that cost about as much as monster cables! The only monster products I like are their reference power conditioners and voltage regulator. Ced
I disagree. I think they make nice cables, however I do think they are overpriced. I do like their Ultra-THX 1000 video cables. When I first bought my 64 inch RPTV I went with S-video to my converter box. I suffered ghosting issues in the display. I tried several cables trying to find a well sheilded cable to eliminate the issue, and Monster's Ultra-THX handled it with ease. Monster's Power Conditioners are super sweet too . I am no longer using S-vid though, and I have developed a fancy for CatCables: http://www.catcables.com/ . I still have some Monster in my system, but I am upgrading to CatCable... aside from my speaker cable, which is Monster MONSTER Z2R ML-15/15 I bought at www.partsexpress.com . I have to say, Dayton Cables (available at Parts Express as well) are pretty nice if you want good stuff on a budget. I have installed several sets in friends' systems with very nice results.
I don't know about Video Cables, but when it comes to audio, some professionals recommend and use 16 gauge lampcord (available at your hardware store or Home Depot). For long distances 14 gauge is prefered. If the wires are going through walls or stuff, some brand name cables could be a better choice because of their insulation.
Thats intresting. If you look at the cable that is exactly what the speaker cable looks like. The THX stuff is a little different though. Ced
Lamp cord will suffice, for pro-audio where nuances are not key, and for entry level home theater. Heck, for that matter, my wife cannot tell the differance between my $10/50ft roll of standard wire, and my $200 Z2Rs, but I can, and a friend of mine, who is also an audiophile, could hear the differance without having been told there were new cables. With all that being said, I am extremely particular, and a speaker designer/builder, and I use fairly high end gear. Here is an excerpt about high end cables, most notably speaker cables: Due to phase shifts in entry level cables, as illustrated in the quoted article, image depth can be crushed and stage can shrink. Tweeters' typically minute inductance values, and how the crossover is designed to take advantage of the inductance (inductance is basicly a measure of how quickly the coil will saturate with signal, and therefore react) can be flattened with low end cable. But the end result is, to what level do you take your theater and listening experience? I know of guys who spend $1200 on 6 foot power cable to their pre-amps (yeah, the same connector as your PC power cable that you can get for what, $2?), but I couldn't phathom that. However, I can, and did justify the $200 speaker wire . Am I a sucker? Maybe. But I have read the tech articles and papers and made my own conclusions. To that end, IMO, the effect the $200 had on my stage and image was immense, proved the theory, and was worth twice the money... My friend who heard the differance without being told? He bought the $400 Z3R Monster Cables. They came in a da^% cool box too
Guys with respect to the above, what I would love it if some PHD student could base his/her thesis on this subject. Do any of you know any ELectrical Engineering wiz kid wanting to do a PHD on the topic???
I don't know if these guys are PHDs but they sure serious about measuring proformance. Audioholics.com http://www.audioholics.com/ Ced
To all, I found another place of interest for reading about and discussing audio/video related topics->http://www.audioasylum.com/index.html They had quite a long discussion going on about this very subject a while back...very interesting! I frequent the vintage section alot...most of my amps-Phase linear,Marantz and Harmon Kardon etc..were made in the 70's and 80's but ofcourse the Dolby Digital/DTS decoding equipment,powered subs,main and surround speakers and video equipment are fairly,if not new.
There is a big thread about this as well at the Klipsch forums. I have the Klipsch Ifi system. I used to own Promedia 2.1's. The Ifi's are a serious ipod and computer speaker system,(Will rape anyother Ipod ssytem) they use RSX-3 sattalites,The same model found in the Cinema 6. The sattalites have a fq response rated at 116hz-20khz. One .75" titanium dome compression driver tweeter. And One 3.5'' Cerametallic cone woofer. The Ifi's come with i would say 20 gauge speaker wire soldered ends. I was going to get Belden 5000 series from bluejeancables, but i was at radioshack one day and saw the MonsterCable XPHP 12 Gauge cables 10' each with 24k bananna connectors on each side for less that 10$. I got them and suprisingly enough i didn't hear a big difference. When i had my Older Pm 2.1's, i noticed a bigger difference when going from onboard to a CreativeLabs soundblaster Live! Card, thats about atleast 3 years old with stock wires on the promedia sattalites.
