Are 'Monster' Cables Worth It? 415
Digitarius asks: "Are "Monster" cables really better, or are they just more expensive? I'm setting up my HDTV, and I can get Component video cables made by Belkin for half the price of the Monster cable equivalents. Are there any actual stats or studies to back up Monster's claims of superiority? So far most people tell me to get the Monster cables, 'just to be sure,' but what's the real truth?"
use any old thing (Score:4, Informative)
either way, unless you're looking at a long run of cables, pretty much anything will do well. and for digital audio, it dosen't matter what the cable is, if it'll pass the signal, it'll work, (there's no signal loss with digital connecitons)
all that being said, monster cables sure are purty... i like purty cables...
from my own experience... (Score:3, Informative)
The above is just my experience... and of course YMMV.
Electrons no different (Score:4, Informative)
If there were some frequency dependencies, then you would see a degradation of sound. But there isn't. If there were some variability of resistance based on current, then there would be a degradation of sound. But there isn't.
The only benefit your get from monster cables is a perhaps slightly lower resistance. That is all. The higher resistance of standard wires can easily be overcome by "turning up the volume".
So, Monster Cables are not worth it, strictly speaking. The only reason people get Monster Cables is the same reason people get gold-plated pens. Other than a status symbol, it is meaningless.
And besides, people who sport jewelry or expensive toys tend to be poorer than those who are more modest. (Case in point: It seems these spinners people buy for their cars are bought by the lower class in my town. Where they get the money for this, yet can't pay for their children's college education, is a question I don't think they'd want to answer.)
Tests between brands with pictures (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.firingsquad.com/guides/ps2picture/ [firingsquad.com]
Monster Cables and other Audiophile rubbish (Score:5, Informative)
There is a huge industry around selling useless crap to people. Monster cables will give you about the same results as rocks [audaud.com]. (Yes, people buy those rocks and yes, they think they make their stereos sound better.)
I highly recommend that you check out the James Randi Educational Foundation [randi.org], and do a site search for "audiophile" or the like.
Frankly, I don't know what scares me more: the fact that someone will honestly claim that a magic rock will make music sound better, or the fact that people will pay good money for one...
NO (Score:3, Informative)
For digital signals (e.g. DVI or SPDIF audio):
Use a good-quality cable. It doesn't have to be expensive or elaborate, but you'll want to ensure that the conductor is large enough and the shielding (if it is necessary) is good. Also ensure that the connectors are solid. Most cables meet this criteria.
For analog signals (e.g. Component Video):
Follow the rules for digital cables. You may want additional shielding and. Ensure that the cable has the correct impedence. Make sure that the connectors can provide proper RF isolation.
I've found that the Philips cables found at Wal-Mart are quite sufficcent. They have nice metal connectors and are well-shielded, plus they have strain relief. They run about $15 to $20 for 10ft (component video).
Re:Regarding Cable Types (Score:1, Informative)
On this subject... (Score:5, Informative)
The Monster-type cables are the profit center for the A/V stores. They have to compete for pricing on the actual gear, where they may get less than 10% markup from their cost. On cables and accessories, they can get up to 40% or more. There is no way that one cable is better than the other, provided the connectors make good contact at the jack. Don't waste your money.
Signal quality is not all that matters.... (Score:4, Informative)
The whole package is important (Score:3, Informative)
Good read on Skin Effect (Score:5, Informative)
The basic idea is that electrons ride the outside of a conductor, not equally through its cross-section. The depth of the 'skin' depends on frequency. You might think that stranded cable would do better then, since there's more surface area, but because the strands aren't insulated they act as a single conductor, providing no skin-effect benefit. There is an exception, cables of 'Litz' construction, where each conductor is individually insulated, creating a virtual cable of effective diameter without skin effect.
My take-away from the linked article is that skin effect does have a slight effect on sound quality that can be measured and possibly perceived. Swinging back to the topic, Monster does make a Litz speaker cable, but it runs you $1500 per 3-foot cable - this isn't Best-Buy level Monster cable. A Google search on Litz at monstercable.com [google.com] only provides two hits, both 3rd-party write-ups.
So to achieve top theoretical sound quality, assuming good connections, etc., you can buy thousands of dollars worth of top-quality Monster cables or cheap cables with fat conductors. If gauge and weight are far more important than cost, say on a Space Shuttle or similar, then dropping $10K on speaker cable might be worthwhile.
This all has me wondering of anybody here has used 10-gauge Romex as speaker cable.
Re:from my own experience... (Score:3, Informative)
In high-end Home Theater/Home Audio/etc., cables do matter. NEVER use the cheapo skinny no-brand cables for anything greater than 15" TV set, or any audio setup you spent more than $200 for. There's a huge jump from going to better than junk cables, a much lesser jump going from those to premium brand cables (like Monster, Acoustic Research, etc.)
Go to a decent (but not too snooty) hi-fi store. Ask them what they recommend for someone on a budget. The often carry brands you'll have never heard of that will be better than Monster for the same price. Monster makes good stuff, but frankly they charge too much for it.
Now, where Monster Cable excels, IMHO, is in game console cables. We upgraded from the stock cables on our X-Box and Game Cube to Monster S-Video cables, and the difference was nothing short of staggering. Plus, they give you long runs (10') in a nice snagless casing. Super happy with the results!
Re:from my own experience... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Tests between brands with pictures (Score:3, Informative)
The zoomed in "screen shots" of the television didn't show any pixels at all. Just a nice smooth image.
He also could tell the difference between Monster Cable optical cable and generic optical cable while listening to music. Unless I'm off on my optical theory isn't that like saying "Sure, you have ones and I have ones but my ones are more exact ones than yours"?
Monster is Marketing (Score:4, Informative)
Don't buy the cheapest cables you can find, but don't buy the most expensive either. I saw the post below about spending 1/10 the cost of the equipment on cables and that's nothing but marketing also. Cable really is cheap. It's cheap to make and cheap to build. Some cables are expensive because they know they can get away with charging those prices and not because they're any better than the competition. A cable for a $4000 tv is going to be more expensive than a cable for a $150 tv, simply because hell if you're willing to spend $4K on a tv then you're willing to spend $100 on a cable. Just buy decent cables and you'll be all set.
Re:Electrons no different (Score:5, Informative)
The former is important because you will need to unplug those bastards occasionally, and I have some Radio Shack cables that I have to disconnect with a wrench and significant amounts of muscle. I'm concerned about literally breaking the connector from the amount of force I have to apply. From the other direction, if they come off too easily you will have to tape them to the TV or something, which doesn't impair signal quality but is annoying.
The latter is important not because of interference or anything, but because stuff will happen to the cables. You'll vacuum it, your pets will chew on it, you'll get crap on it, etc. It's a pain in the ass to get behind your TV to replace frayed or broken cables, so you should try to minimize it.
Note that neither of these considerations imply that you should buy Monster cables, just that you should avoid the extremely inexpensive (read: cheap) ones. So instead of buying the $30 Monster cables or the $5 generic cables, buy the $15 name-brand-but-not-Monster cables. Belkin seems like a pretty good target for that, and you could in fact do better if you find a place that lets you return cables. (You obviously have to open up the package to try them out, and some places don't want to take them back after you do that.)
I do always laugh when I see the rusted-out '85 Honda Civic with the brand new shiny 20" rims and chrome exhaust tips. "You just spent $2500 on mods, and a Civic is the best you can do?"
Re:Electrons no different (Score:5, Informative)
But I think the two big things you really need to know about Monster Cable in order to make an informed decision about whether it is worth it have nothing to do with physics. The two things you need to know are:
1. Recording and video studios don't tend to use Monster Cable.
2. The wire you find inside your speakers look a whole lot more like cheap $3 a spool bargain bin wire than they do Monster Cable.
Re:Tests between brands with pictures (Score:3, Informative)
1) It fails to pass a bit properly (a 1 becomes a zero, or vice versa)
2) Frame jitter
If 1) was an issue, you'd be hearing skipping and popping very loudly in a way that the system would be unlistenable. Though CD's have error-correction built in, the S/PDIF standard doesn't; it just passes 16-bit words; no ECC codes.
Frame jitter can be corrected REALLY easilly by about a dollar's worth of hardware on the other end; you have a 16 frame delay (16 x 16-bits = 32 bytes of memory required) and a little clock generator. You fill up the queue as everything comes in, and send things from the front of the queue to the DAC. Not hard! I'm a programmer that took one hardware class 6 years ago, and *I* could design this circuit! Yeah, a 16 frame delay does translate to a delay -- but one of only
They may be outrageously priced but... (Score:3, Informative)
I have not done quantitative measurements, but recently I bought one of those multi-format DVD player (ie. can read a data CD/DVD and play avi & mpeg files). It came with some cheapo cables that I tried and it was terrible. There was a thin bright line that slowly moved up and down the screen, and there was a persistent hum that could be heard whenever the volume was turned up to any reasonable level.
On a larf, I went and bought some of the less expensive Monster cables and the problems totally went away. I assume the shielding made the difference here. I dont attribute my observations to some magical Monster pixie dust, as any other brand of decently constructed cable probably would have been an improvement over the crappy cables that came bundled with the DVD player.
The moral is that from a quality perspective,there is probably no need to go out and pay the premium for Monster cables, but you dont want to use cables from the dollar store either.
There is another reason to go Monster that no one seems to have mentioned yet, the lifetime warranty. Cables dont really break down, but I was told at the checkout that I can get a replacement *under any circumstances*; even if my dog chews it up. We'll see if they actually honor that 5 years down the road, but that's a benefit that has to be worth at least a little price premium.
Re:I Think So (Score:3, Informative)
That, I can believe. Aluminum has nowhere near the conductivity of copper, and on top of that, it was a thinner wire. The result is a lower voltage at the other end of the cable than you would have had with copper, which means that some component somewhere needs to amplify more. Amplification introduces noise. I'm not surprised at all.
I doubt you could tell the difference, however, between a 12 gauge copper wire and a 12 gauge "oxygen free" copper wire.
Re:Cables matter (Score:3, Informative)
Digital is digital is digital is digital. As long as the carrier can accurately reproduce the stream of bits (hint: pretty much every transport can, especially at the negligible distances we're discussing), the end result will be identical. Not "close", not "almost", but "exactly".
Re:NO (Score:5, Informative)
SPDIF is a horrible protocol that is sensitive to cables and almost anything else. Though it's nominally a digital signal, it's multiplexed with the system clock (which is as analog as it gets). If your cable distorts the signal (it almost certainly does), the system clock will be jittery and this will cause distortion. On a decent system, this can be audible.
Analog signals are a whole different ballgame. If you don't think cables can make a difference, pick up an electromagnetics book. Anything from Wal-mart is probably suboptimal -- even if it looks well-made, it probably isn't.
Re:Good read on Skin Effect (Score:3, Informative)
This all has me wondering of anybody here has used 10-gauge Romex as speaker cable.
Yes! My brother who used to run a kW/channel with a pair of Carvers used either #10 or #8 for speaker wire, and 220V/30A twistlocks for connectors. It worked very well. We looked at the instantaneous current waveform, at it was great due to the low resistance of the wire and connectors.
Re:use any old thing (Score:5, Informative)
When I worked at Fry's electronics an old AV guy told me the best way to tell which is the better cable is to setup a simple graph with price on y axis and the weight per same length on the x axis. He carried one around and usually monster was only 20-30% heavier than the best deals but was at least 100% more expensive.
Re:use any old thing (Score:2, Informative)
Suck it and see (Score:2, Informative)
My observations were that with speaker cables, as long as the cables are big enough to handle the current requirements you could almost never tell the difference.
I never heard a difference when changing between digital patch cables.
It is hard to say whether one cable is better than another. What was noticable was that some cables coloured the sound more than others - not easy to test for with out plugging them in and listening. Some cables sounded different with some sources than others, but I don't know that it was something that you could pin down scientifically as 'better'. You certainly couldn't tell by looking, or by price.
Interestingly, changing things like the manufacturer of discrete components in the active crossovers did change the sound quite noticably.
Re:Electrons no different (Score:4, Informative)
There are two types of cables to talk about: patch cables and speaker cables. For speaker cables, it is all about resistance. Shielding is not a big deal, since you have 2 cables, and as long as they run close and parallel, you won't pick up any noticable noise, since the other cable would pick up pretty much the same noise, and the noise would cancel out. As for expensive wire - forget about all that deoxygenated copper and that BS. If you have doubts, measure the resistance. At 20KHz, the high end of human hearing, a wavelength of light is around 10KM, so you don't have to worry about matching cable lengths either (as one of my friends did in his home theater setup).
As for patch cable, the video applications are more difficult - the higher frequency is more problematic. Even then, shielding is easy. Twisted pair works quite well even up to those vidoe frequencies (if you are reading this over a DSL connection, then you are relying on a more sensitive signal sent over twisted pair).
You can transmit 100baseT over steel barbed wire.
If you still want premium cables, buy the cheap cables, sned them to me, and I will pronounce magic words that will make them work just as well as the monster cables. Except for some fancy plastic jacketing, that's all monster does anyway.
Re:Electrons no different (Score:2, Informative)
I noticed the same thing. I used to have a problem with a low-level hiss coming from my main speakers. Moving the equipment around would make the hiss louder or softer. At first I thought the problem was a bad solder connection on the RCA connectors in my preamp but resoldering those connections had no effect. That left the cables as the sole remaining suspect.
I then went to Radio Shack and got two pairs of their gold-plated RCA connectors - not because they were gold-plated but because the teflon dialectric in them won't melt when you solder to them - and made myself a pair of cables using some Belden 1192A microphone cable that I already had on hand. With these new cables there was no hiss whatsoever. I guess I shouldn't have been so suprised - the cheap audio cable I was using before offered maybe 50% shielding whereas the mic cable had 100% shielding.
My only regret is that I spent too much money on the Radio Shack connectors. Next time I'll find something less expensive.
Re:NO (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, there is. It's a logical system.
Inside your computer, the whole process is literally analog as well, but it models a digital system, and must do so perfectly.
The cables and wires that transfer hundreds, even thousands of gigabytes a day are far cheaper and far less impressive looking than the snake-oil you get from Monster.
Cat-5, Serial-ATA, USB, FireWire--these are all high speed, are all digital, and all error-free (within the design specs which account for error correction).
Re:Electrons no different (Score:2, Informative)
There are plenty of totally crappy video cables out there. The Monster cables are certainly better than junk cables-- but there are also plenty of good cables that are not Monster cables.
Also note that some of the posters are referring to speaker cables and some are referring to RCA cables. I use lamp cord for speaker cables and I suspect it works just as well as Monster cables. But junky RCA cables will be lossy and may have bad shielding, so Monster cables (or any good RCA cable) will work better.
One final note: use the shortest RCA cables that get the job done. Extra wire coiled up behind the equipment isn't doing any good, and the loss and signal degradation will be greater for a longer cable.
Re:Good read on Skin Effect (Score:3, Informative)
Why, I was just getting ready to post about that. There are some issues related to wire gage, such that if you have a clean high-power source and matched speakers, using that skinny stuff that contains about 3 hair-thin strands of copper/tin mix can cause signal degradation. You can avoid that by buying appropriately fat. Whether you drop big $ on Monster Cable, or go to your local building supply store is up to you. The irony is, that these days you are likely to find that your local building supply store also carries the lower-end Monster Cable
Re:from my own experience... (Score:4, Informative)
The X-Box move was a move from composite to S-Video, while the Game Cube was an upgrade from cheap S-Video to the Monsters (wasn't expecting a picture quality upgrade; wanted a longer cable.) The X-Box switch was MUCH more noticeable -- as anyone would expect. In the GameCube, however, I noticed far less shimmering due to aliasing in Metroid Prime... When I was using composite, the shimmering was headache inducing, so I quickly switched to S-Video. And later the upgrade to the Monster Cable.
I'm not really an audiophile... I do research, and know my physics, and know that placing rocks under my transducers won't yield any discernable benefits, nor will custom-soldering on $600 power cables. However, cables do matter -- though as you've observed, not as much as the technology used.
My sage advice (Score:4, Informative)
Reference Audio Mods [referenceaudiomods.com]
If you feel an urge to buy *any* of the stuff on the page, well then monster cable is definitely for you.
A 30 watt solid state amplifier , costing 6000 bucks (!), that doesn't come with a power supply - the battery supply (!!) suggested is another 2000.
Seriously, now - What. The. FUCK.
Oh, and some nice wooden turned volume knobs for that extra sweetness in the audio (!!!) will only set you back another 500 each, because as we all know "the micro vibrations created by the volume pots and knobs find their way into the delicate signal path and cause degradation (Bad vibrations equal bad sound)."
I keep this page bookmarked as "Audiophiles are idiots", and send to anyone who asks me about what kind of cabling they should run for their system.
Re:Electrons no different (Score:5, Informative)
The Monstster cables did much better, but above 100MHz, way above anything you could ever hear. We tested 16 gauge lamp cord (YES LAMP CORD). It's spectrum was perfectly flat to within 0.1dB out to in excess of 10MHz. This FAR exceeds the 0.02MHz the human ear can hear. For audio purposes, it will work just FINE. As for shelding, the frequencies that you will pick up from that stretch of cable won't be audible. And if you're paranoid, stick an RF choke coil on your cord (you can get them at Radio Shack. You just wrap the cord through it). Those don't kick in until about 50+KHz anyway.
Video is a different ball of wax though since it deals with much higher frequencies. But after testing several cables, the mid-range stuff was not much different than the high end stuff in the area that counts (below 100MHz). The cheap stuff did start to have some attenuation issues above 10Mhz, but even then it wasn't that severe (1dB or less upto 50+Mhz). However in the higher frequencies, you have to worry about sheilding a little more as the frequencies that it will pick up via radiation could be visible. But any properly grounded coaxial cable will eliminate that.
As for ecording engineers, they are obsessive, but they aren't stupid enough to use straight cable. They use the same priciple as ethernet and twisted pair communications. They transmit the signal and the inverse of the signal and run them side by side. If one side picks up interference, the other side will too. But when you take the difference between the cables, it will remain exactly the same.
Shop where the broadcast techs shop! (Score:3, Informative)
That being said, I'd go shop where broadcast people shop for such things, since their quality requirements are much more stringent than circuit city's offerings.
I found these guys a few years ago (their catalog is yummy):
http://www.markertek.com/CatList.asp?cat=CABLESCO
monster cable is mysteriously not on their list of cable manufacturers that they stock:
http://www.markertek.com/MfgList.asp?cat=CABLESCO
Neither is Belkin. I personally don't like most of belkin's products, and often have found that they're just cheap rebranded stuff, usually overpriced and caused me much pain and woe. Also I always suspected Belkin's name was selected to be confusable with a far superior cable maker, Belden (which also happens to be carried by markertek).
Best of Luck!
Oxygen free copper (Score:3, Informative)
What you say is true, one should *always* use oxygen-free copper, for any type of connection, audio, video, or power. But you didn't mention how to recognize if a copper cable is oxygen-free. So, here is a tip: cut the cable with pliers, if the fresh-cut surface is copper-colored then the copper is, indeed, oxygen-free. Copper combined with oxygen, i.e. copper oxide, is black.
Now, what I cannot understand is why you and some other people keep bringing up this "oxygen-free copper" thing. I have never, ever in my life seen a cable made of copper containing any significant amount of oxygen. All copper cables, no matter how cheap or expensive, are "oxygen-free". Copper is purified by an electrolysis process, which is the cheapest and also the best way to purify copper. It's as simple as that, for copper more expensive doesn't mean best.
Now, the oxidized surfaces that you mentioned are a different thing. Copper will oxidize in contact with air, no matter how oxygen-free it was to begin with. The important thing are the connections, they should either be soldered, or the connectors should be airtight.
Having said that, now let's forget the myths and talk practical. How to choose a cable? For high frequencies, which means video or radio frequencies, use a coaxial cable with the right impedance value. The impedance is printed on the external insulation of the cable.
For lower frequencies, which means audio and power, use 5 amperes per square millimeter. If you live in the USA or Myanmar/Burma, which are AFAIK the two countries that still use "imperial" measures, get a table that converts from AWG (that is "American Wire Gauge") to square millimeters. For all other countries, wire is sold in "square millimeter" sizes, so no conversion is needed. To find how many amperes the wire carries, the formula is I = sqrt(P / R), where I is the current in amperes, P is the power in watts, and R is the impedance in ohms. sqrt means the square root, of course. Speakers are normally 8 ohms. For power cables, divide the power in watts by the voltage in volts to get the current in amperes.
The lowdown on shielding, good quality vs. bad. (Score:2, Informative)
I can't talk much about Monster Cable for audio use, but I can speak from experience about its use for TV applications.
Basically, it sucks.
The parent post is correct about shielding, but they fail to mention that shielding is also important at the connector, and they fail to mention the different kinds of shielding available in TV cable, and why it matters.
Let's say you live in an apartment building in a metropolitan area. Channels 2, 4, 5, 11, and 13 are probably being locally broadcast strong enough that a decent antenna will pick them up and give you a watchable picture.
You also have a poorly shielded TV cable running from the TV, to the VCR, one to your game console converter, one to the set-top box if the cable company requires one, one to your DVD player possibly
And, being properly shielded throughout the sheath isn't enough: you need the connecter to fit tightly, and you need it to be attached to the cable correctly. If you split the sheath away from a good TV cable, you'll find an interwoven series of fine aluminum strands, spread over a solid aluminum layer, surrounding a stiff dielectric core. The end of each fitting should be set so that the inner part of the fitting sits between the aluminum layers.
Poor shields include: a real thinly interwoven set of aluminum strands (not thick or tight enough, no solid aluminum layer), four aluminum wires (just plain dumb, this is totally useless), and thin or flimsy dielectric.
Good TV cable will feel stiff if you handle it. The crappy stuff will handle like a wet worm.
Specifically, Monster's TV stuff doesn't have good fittings. I never bothered to take one of their cables apart to inspect the shielding, but great shielding won't make up for their crappy fittings.
Also, the metal in the fittings really doesn't make a bit of difference. Gold-plated fittings are usually junk, you don't want those.
Based on my experience with the TV hardware, I'd never consider buying audio stuff from them.
The parent may have had really really crappy TV cables, and replaced them with slightly less crappy Monsters. That doesn't make Monster's stuff good, though.
Re:use any old thing (Score:3, Informative)
Re:use any old thing (Score:3, Informative)