MONSTER Audio Cable??

[Importz]

Hi anyone have these wires? Are they worth it??

[heavyD]

No. They are better quality than most but far too expensive for little to no audio or video improvement.

[accord885]

Worthit at ebay prices if you have high end gear.

[Mibz]

The difference is there and not just placebo on high end equipment, I would highly advise eBay or anywhere you can pay less than the general 100% markup though.

[gp36912]

^^^ yup or find someone that works at a best buy or something and have them buy it for you. you can hear the difference if you have 2 cables set up and listen to the same song with each cable.

[Murphy]

Not at Futureshop or BestBuy prices ... sick markup. I used to work there, fuckin shit has its own sales category!

[Aleks]

Originally posted by heavyD
No. They are better quality than most but far too expensive for little to no audio or video improvement.

There is actually quite a bit of difference with the video stuff. I have personally compared side by side. Used to work at a place that sold these. Audio I never tried because i don't have an "ear" for that kind of stuff.

That being said markup is pretty huge and I would definatelly look for a family/emp. discount.

[Supa Dexta]

some of it goes thru princess auto now and then cheap as hell...

[Xtrema]

Monster cabel is good if you're still in the analog world. No need for digital signals.

[Xtrema]

Monster cabel is good if you're still in the analog world. No need for digital signals.

[euro.roma]

Originally posted by Murphy
Not at Futureshop or BestBuy prices ... sick markup. I used to work there, fuckin shit has its own sales category!

haha yea boi!!!! his not lying these things I swear by in my home, however I baught them when I used to work at futureshop. Price mark up on these things in FS is insane and if u ask someone working in the HT department about them its like dripping blood in a pool of sharks. If your serious about awesome home entertainment then yes they are required but try to make a new firend that works there lol. Save you like 75-80 percent for all the cables.

[heavyD]

I've tested their video cables on DVD players and Xbox's and have seen no improvment over standard cables. I can't believe that you can see any difference with the naked eye. Also as Xtrema said it's a complete waste on digital wiring. The only thing you need to ensure on digital cables is a quality connector.

[ZedMan]

http://revision3.com/systm/avcabling

[HyperZell]

I've got Monster Cable stuff all throughout my home theatre, but only because I didn't have to pay full price =)

I just like knowing that I've got great components (no one denies that they are great products, it's just the price) so I can just sit back and enjoy my home theatre.

[accord885]

Find a friend that works for someone that sells the shit... 40% off.

[RobTheGob]

Monster Cables are at best average. Buy yourself a soldering iron and head to MRO Electronics in the NE.

They have some very good cable components for extremely good prices.

[djayz]

i tried monster hdmi vs the hdmi that came with my dvd player and to tell you the truth the one that came out of the box looked better. The monster was very slightly brighter but the picture wasnt as clear.

order your cables off monoprice.com you wont be dissapointed.

[GQBalla]

deinatly monster is good but not for the price.

[coste]

The 'standard' level of monster cables, IMO is worth the price, considering that you maybe pay an extra $3 for monster, over any other slightly 'not crap' product. Memory Express also carries 'monster' and a few other brands that actually arn't that bad.

Best thing to do if you don't have a connection to get you cheap cables, is just to buy 'alot' of them, and potentially get a discount on your cables. Most commission retailers will give you about 15% off if you buy quite a few.

Ebay, or just doing a random search online for cheap cabling can often lead to good outcomes, but you never know what you buy online.

Best thing to do if you don't think it's worth the quality difference, is just to buy them, and switch back and forth from what you get in the box, to what you just paid $44 bucks for. Don't notice, bring em back; Notice, keep em and be happy.

[koopkoop2]

Monster doesn't spend money researching more effective methods to make the audio in their cables sound crisp and clean; they simply spend money researching more effective methods to claim that they do on their packaging.

http://i.somethingawful.com/news/2004/12/21-monster-chart.gif

http://i.somethingawful.com/news/2004/12/21-chart.png

Source: Something Awful :rofl:

So true! Especially regarding the 25% who have no idea what they're buying when they pay for "Gas injected di-electric material". Here's a clue.........It doesn't do shit!

[Mibz]

Saying a high end cable makes no difference in digital is only true in optical cables. Digital coax, HDMI and DVI are still susceptible to the same interference as analog cables, only the errors are far more noticable on lower end equipment with worse error correction.

[googe]

monster sucks, even if you get them at a good price. when i see monster in peoples house i either feel bad for them or laugh at them, depending on who it is.

[heavyD]

Originally posted by Mibz
Saying a high end cable makes no difference in digital is only true in optical cables. Digital coax, HDMI and DVI are still susceptible to the same interference as analog cables, only the errors are far more noticable on lower end equipment with worse error correction.

:rolleyes: Are you an audio cable salesmen? How can a digital signal suffer the same interference as analog when it's a completely different medium? If you understand how digital works you would know how wrong that statement is. With digital you either get the signal or you don't. There is no degradation which can happen to analog signals. The only thing to look for with digital is a quality connector and that the cable will resist kinks. As long as the digital signal gets from point A to point B that's all you have to worry about. That's it.

There can be no improvement in quality of a digital audio or video signal with any cable. The only issues involve intermittances in the connection. But that will result in loss of audi/video signal but not degradation in quality of the signal.

[rage2]

haha Mibz got served ;).

Anyone who buys "quality" cables for digital connections, I'm selling a bunch of rage2 special cables for $100 a pop. Guaranteed to sound as good as monster!

[EK 2.0]

Originally posted by rage2
haha Mibz got served ;).

Anyone who buys "quality" cables for digital connections, I'm selling a bunch of rage2 special cables for $100 a pop. Guaranteed to sound as good as monster!


pm'd...:D

[dragonone]

you guys should read the 'monster university' website that they make employees go through when i worked retail, what a bunch of BS!!
ever checked out monoprice? it's got some great prices on long cables

[gp36912]

ya it is bs :D but when you are only using older equipment it does make a difference.( ive tested it on a pretty old system 15+ years i think) but if the equipment is top end and brand new, you wouldn't notice much, since the preamps and recievers end up correcting distortion and degration quite abit anyways. (i'm talking only sound atm) never tried the video cables. don't need them, my tv rarely gets turned on anways :D and if i do end up watching it, the signal or the video source isn't the best anyways.

[googe]

Originally posted by Mibz
Saying a high end cable makes no difference in digital is only true in optical cables. Digital coax, HDMI and DVI are still susceptible to the same interference as analog cables, only the errors are far more noticable on lower end equipment with worse error correction.

wrong. someone debunked this myth by getting perfect results using a coat hanger and a receiver capable of displaying transmission errors.



So just to recap this thing to death, we had: The professional Sony S7000TP reference DVD player, going to a 20 year old, ugly green, RCA patch cord which was cut in two. On one side of the green RCA I soldered a blue painted wire hanger to the shield and another to the center conductor. I soldered the other ends of the wire hangers to the other half of the ugly green RCA patch cord. We then clipped the alligator clips with thin wire to the centers and shields of the RCA connectors of my cable and of the Canare cable, and then plugged the other XLR-balanced side of the Canare into the Dolby Labs decoder. I honestly did not know how badly we would be rolling errors on this one... and with open, scientific minds, we played a DVD...

Are you all sitting down? Good. We played the King Crimson Deja VROOM DVD for over fifteen minutes with this configuration and not only did it sound good, but the Dolby Decoder reported ZERO errors... Did you all get that ok? ZERO, nadda, nihil, zippo, nothing, none... error-free. Given that, there was not much point in trying the higher quality cables I had brought with me.

Conclusion: IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT YOU USE FOR YOUR DIGITAL CABLE CONNECTION BETWEEN YOUR DVD PLAYER AND YOUR PROCESSOR... YOU CAN BASICALLY USE ANYTHING THAT LOOKS ELECTRICALLY LIKE METAL. IT WILL WORK JUST FINE. (Between the coax connectors that is... I have not successfully used the wire hangers on the tos-link optical connectors... yet...) If you like you can hook the shield on one side to one of your Rodan bronze statues, and the other shield to somewhere else on the statue, and then hook the center conductors to another Rodan bronze, and it will work JUST FINE. The sonic clarity will be stunning, as well as visually pleasing.

[Nissanaddict]

I bought me some monster cables. $80 for 3 cables....normally. I bought the "Audio set" ($20) and the Video cable ($15). Same quality, less the price. If the quality is better....mix and match to go cheapest.

[frostyda9]

Originally posted by Xtrema
Monster cabel is good if you're still in the analog world. No need for digital signals.

The analog world is the place to be when it comes to audio interconnects ;)

[gp36912]

ah the miracles of digital connections :D

[googe]

Originally posted by frostyda9


The analog world is the place to be when it comes to audio interconnects ;)

Why? Your source material is digital. Now youre just unnecessarily putting it through another DAC/ADC chain and losing information.

[RobTheGob]

Originally posted by coste
The 'standard' level of monster cables, IMO is worth the price, considering that you maybe pay an extra $3 for monster, over any other slightly 'not crap' product.

In my opinion, the low end Monster stuff is the worst stuff to buy. If you look at the construction of them, they are made in the exact same manor as the cheap cables - with thin, stamped connectors.

At least if you get sucked into buying the higher end Monster, you are getting a half decent cable with machined connectors...

[RobTheGob]

Originally posted by Mibz
Saying a high end cable makes no difference in digital is only true in optical cables. Digital coax, HDMI and DVI are still susceptible to the same interference as analog cables, only the errors are far more noticable on lower end equipment with worse error correction.

Do you have any BER stats to back your claim up?

[RobTheGob]

Originally posted by heavyD


:rolleyes: Are you an audio cable salesmen? How can a digital signal suffer the same interference as analog when it's a completely different medium? If you understand how digital works you would know how wrong that statement is. With digital you either get the signal or you don't. There is no degradation which can happen to analog signals. The only thing to look for with digital is a quality connector and that the cable will resist kinks. As long as the digital signal gets from point A to point B that's all you have to worry about. That's it.

There can be no improvement in quality of a digital audio or video signal with any cable. The only issues involve intermittances in the connection. But that will result in loss of audi/video signal but not degradation in quality of the signal.

While I agree with the overall tone of your post - you still have to remember that all digital signals travel through the real "analog" world. The "medium" here is the wire and that's the same for an analog or digital signal.

Any digital signal going down a cable is by definition "analog" and follows the same physics as an analog signal. It's pretty rare to come across anything that is truely digital in nature... This is the same for optical or electrical digital signals - pulses soften over distance and in some cases do need to be reconstructed at the receiver.

But, having said that - this is not a problem except in extreme situations - usually involving very long distances and high bit rates. The very low bit rates and short distances in home audio/video do mean that coat hangers work fine, but they don't help the Future Shop salesman pay for his zit cream...

[iceburns288]

I have to add I think it's funny some of you guys are going nuts over CABLES.:)

[Importz]

lol ok so monster cable aint worth it.... bottom line??????

[Cruz]

Original Post Removed. (Please read the Forum Rules and Terms of Use (http://forums.beyond.ca/articles.php?action=data&item=1) before posting again, or risk getting banned).

[Graham_A_M]

they're overated, their Audio interconnects are very over-hyped. What kind of cable are you in the market for?
I'd keep looking. If you go on to http://www.avguide.com/products/other

That should help; if you click on that; your already in the "cable" section. Thats probably the best website I can recommend for Audio & Video product reviews. :clap:

[frostyda9]

Originally posted by googe


Why? Your source material is digital. Now youre just unnecessarily putting it through another DAC/ADC chain and losing information.

Because there is less interference/added noise when your DAC's and associated electronics are in a separate enclosure than your power transformers and related electronics. Your digital front end handles the D/A conversion, and feeds analog audio out over balanced XLR's (ideally) or RCA's to your amp which then only has one job: to amplify the signal.

Nearly every high end amplifier in existence (the Bryston B100 SST being the only exception I can think off off hand) uses XLR's or RCA's only, since there are no DAC's onboard.

Generally, the only amps that will include DAC's are those designed for home theatre use. With the exception of a few higher end receivers, absolute audio quality is not the foremost consideration in the design process. Designers are always rushing to add more features and power to keep up with the "other guy", and unfortunately audio may take a back seat.

[Khyron]

HDMI: 20 bucks for 3M:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1435554&CatId=0

DVI: 30 bucks for 2M:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=245203&CatId=1163

Component: 35 bucks for 50':

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=493071&CatId=1408

VS:

HDMI Monster: 150 bucks for 4M:

http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0926INGFS10079344&catid=23215

DVI: 100 bucks for 2M:

http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0926INGFS10041002&catid=23216

but it's got: Gas-injected dielectric for maximum signal strength and ultra-low loss, even over long runs. And What you see on your screen is exactly what was digitally transmitted.

Component: 230 bucks for 26 feet. WOO:

http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0926INGFS10034052&catid=23215


God I hate monster, only because they pay the retailers so much money in markup, they push out the equally effective little guys. :(

Khyron

[heavyD]

Originally posted by Khyron
HDMI: 20 bucks for 3M:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1435554&CatId=0

DVI: 30 bucks for 2M:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=245203&CatId=1163

Component: 35 bucks for 50':

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=493071&CatId=1408

VS:

HDMI Monster: 150 bucks for 4M:

http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0926INGFS10079344&catid=23215

DVI: 100 bucks for 2M:

http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0926INGFS10041002&catid=23216

but it's got: Gas-injected dielectric for maximum signal strength and ultra-low loss, even over long runs. And What you see on your screen is exactly what was digitally transmitted.

Component: 230 bucks for 26 feet. WOO:

http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0926INGFS10034052&catid=23215


God I hate monster, only because they pay the retailers so much money in markup, they push out the equally effective little guys. :(

Khyron

Thanks mang! I just bought (3) HDMI cables and (2) toslink for the price of one HDMI cable from Futureshop or Bestbuy.:thumbsup:

[dkny]

Monster cables are over rated and over price in Canada. However, I do think that Monster cables are made with slightly better material compare to the stock one. But the price is high. If you are only using it with an inexpensive stereo. You may spend your money on better components than the monster wires and you will get better results.

I have used many made of cables and connectors before. I used to make A to B comparison in many occasion. I found that good speaker cable (with no rust) together with good clean audio cable (clean connector with no rust) is a must to retain decent sound. I, myself, clean the wires and connectors once a year.

For set up that I can afford:

I like the monster speaker wires that used to sell at 3 dollars a ft regular and 1 dollars a ft sale price at LD Drugs.

For DVD to receiver, I like AR optice cable. It has not fail me once.

Anyone has some experience with good cables, please share it here

[doublepostwhore]

Trust me, monster is no gimmic, but it is sure as hell not worth the money you pay for it.

[kerry]

JUST so you know... HDMI's official website states you can run
lengths up to 15m without degredation, but some cases
have been reported of degredation at lengths longer than 5m.

In either case... didn't know 1's and 0's could degrade. :dunno:

If you're only going about 1-3 m's don't spend more on monster HDMI.

It will not, and does not make a difference.

[aaronck]

Just thought I'd let you guys know, I saw some Monster cables at XS Cargo, probably cheaper than most retail stores

[RawB8figure]

TRY monoprice.com, got all my cables through them. They are very well made at a fraction of the price.

Also the anolog cables are fully shielded just like monster .
"Solid center conductor: 18 AWG (1*1.02) Super shielding: 120 % aluminum foil + 9*16/0.12 TINNED COPPER Braid"

I bought all my cables for my HT from monoprice.
it ended up costing me 203$ CDN shipped.

[RobTheGob]

Originally posted by doublepostwhore
Trust me, monster is no gimmic, but it is sure as hell not worth the money you pay for it.

The low/mid end Monster is BIG TIME gimmick. There is nothing about them to justify the extra cost, other than the "Monster" brand...

[codetrap]

.

[googe]

^you should maybe read your link. it says the opposite.

[codetrap]

.

[googe]

well sure, but in practice the thresholds are far beyond anything that you have to worry about. the famous coat hanger experiment demonstrates this. im not saying its theoretically impossible, just practically extremely improbable. your link says:

"Since the signal is very uniform, noise has not severely altered its shape or amplitude."

maybe if your sound system is sitting beside an enmax transformer farm or something.

[codetrap]

.

[rage2]

What you're forgetting is that for all digital transmissions and storage, there's something called checksumming and error correction. There's usually enough checksum data to perform error correction on the fly which catches and repair these small transmission errors mostly due to timing. As googe stated, the threashold is quite high (huge difference between 0-5V or 0-3V depending on transmission voltages) so it's rare to have errors from interference misreading a 0 or a 1. It's almost always timing issues with really really bad cables. Really really bad as in mice chewing up the cables with only 1 strand of copper left bad. A coat hanger works, so imagine how bad it has to be before you get issues.

In the case where there ARE errors that aren't correctable, it usually drops that byte, and you'll just get a bit of silence.

[codetrap]

.

[RobTheGob]

Originally posted by codetrap

Now, when you start multiplexing signals onto that same line, you may be your voltage thresholds may be something like in +V and MS of timing

Stream 1 - 1/3 1us
Stream 2 - 1.2/3.2 2us
Stream 3 - 1.3/3.3 3us
Stream 4 - 1.4/3.4 4us
Stream 5 - 1.5/3.5 5us

So. you're nice square waveform starts to look a lot more like the original analog signal.. it's just timesliced up a little finer.

There is no multiplexing of signals with the digital signals in your home theater.

You may have multiple channels - but they are all contained in a single stream.

[googe]

^actually there is. the "single stream" is time-division multiplexed. basically the components rely on a clock to determine when to poll the data in their channel from the stream. all audio channels have a time slot as well as various data channels. by definition, any time you have multiple channels in 1 stream, you are multiplexing in some form. a serial interface pretty much always has to do this by nature. but were way off topic now :D

[RawB8figure]

Just got my order in from monoprice.com today, took about a week to get here from the US and paid 26$CDN duty on top of the 203$ CDN. They are very well made cables and connectors.

The most expensive cable I ordered was a 25FT HDMI 22AWG cable (CL2) for 38$ US.

Compared to monster 12FT (half the length) for 299CDN. Not even sure if it is rated for inwall installation.

Doesn't make sense to spend the money on a name. The specs are the same or better in some cases with monoprice.

The only thing monster I would buy is speaker cables, they make some of the best in the industry, But I still won't buy it because you can find something very similar for half the price.

[Importz]

HI do you guys know if the hdmi to dvi cable and hdmi to hdmi cable is the same shit right??? someone told me hdmi to dvi has no sound...thats the only diff....is that true?

[RawB8figure]

they are both digital video signals but HDMI also send audio too, which DVI doesn't, so if you use that cable you will need a audio cable for sound also.

[Importz]

the audio cable you are talking about is the fiber optic cable correct?

[RawB8figure]

you can use any type of audio cable with DVI, What are you trying to hook up and I can tell you what you need

[NoFlo]

Originally posted by RawB8figure
they are both digital video signals but HDMI also send audio too, which DVI doesn't, so if you use that cable you will need a audio cable for sound also.

actually one cable i know of will carry the audio when going from an HDMI-to-DVI cable that is connected to a DVI-to-HDMI adapter.

specifically it is the hdmi-to-dvi cable and DVI-to-HDMI adapter that came with my bev 9200 unit. i have tested it and the audio is maintained thru the HDMI-to-DVI cable.

not sure if it is true for all hdmi-to-dvi cables though :dunno:

[RobTheGob]

Originally posted by googe
^actually there is. the "single stream" is time-division multiplexed.

Not in the context that the original poster was referring to. Two TDM signals will not interfere with each other - so no degradation would occur.