Anyone have any heads up on this stuff? What makes it better than other cables? I ususally use Canare & gepco without any problems. We sometimes get cables from Comprehensive and Extron. We had a salesman tell us that we need to be using Monster Cable for our installations. He showed us a monitor using Monster cable and one using our Gepco RG-6 cable. This fella told me he could see a noticeable difference but I could not. I'm only 33 but I know I can still se pretty good! Any way, any information or opinions appreciated.

Monster cable is synonomous with High end Wire, Its one of the most recognized names in the industry. Is it Better than what you are using? Maybe, Maybe not, is it easier to upsell cable to a client, Definatly.

Good Cables Always make a difference. and when your selling $100-$300 cables(or higher), a customer immediatly recognizes "Monster Cable" as a good thing. and is less likely to shy away from the upcharge.

I'm a huge Monster cable dealer....... and its definatly worth the investment.

Opinoins are going to vary greatly on this for sure.... Many people belive that monster is ALL hype and no real performance gains. Persoanlly, I disagree with that and I not only sell Monster, its what I wire my own personal system with.

This is a iffy subject. I heard Nole Lee (sp) say its all about the packaging at CEDIA last year. Which says alot. Packaging does have a bit to do with things but the fact is that "better" wire does make a difference. A simple demonstration of this was recently shown in our showroom. I just rewired a room for 7.1 in an all inceiling config. I used 14 gauge wire for all but one (the one I didn't wire) speaker. That one speaker was a full 5db down than the rest. I prefer to use "better" wire in all of my installations because I believe it is better. My system is wired with Audio Quest and my clients who respect my opinion also have their systems wired with Audio Quest. That being said we also sell Monster Cable and sell a good bit of it due to the brand recognition.

I use Canare and Gepco in a lot of broadcast and editing systems. These are spec'd in by professionals who know the truth about companies like Monster and the others. These are the quality cables when terminated correctly.

You pay extra for monsters' silly packaging and ridiculous claims. Check out exactly how they word these claims. There is no real independent scientific data to support these silly claims.

It's all in the marketing.

Are you guys also Bose dealers?

lol...thats a good one studiocats1 "Are you guys also Bose dealers?" perfect example.

Anybody will tell you to use good cable no doubt and termination is the key but selling the monster cables, audio quest,etc. is easy as the customer looks at you with a blank stare. That is till they see how much it costed them...no blank stare then.
The fact of the matter is that in most cases cables (excluding total junk) are more than capable of the required task. If I am doing a rack termination I make all of the cables by hand, takes longer I know but the total cost is lower and I am assured of a good cable and custom fit. Check this site and related links about audio myths.
[Link: 64.4.16.250]

AVDesignPro - the link seems to be bad. Can you check it again?

There's no question(in my mind)that better cabling gives better performance. But........Monster cable has such a Huge markup, that i dont know if it is worth it performance wise. I have used monster cable, straight wire, MIT and others. All with varying degrees of success. Personally i find monster cable is a bit overhyped. Personally i find Straight Wire gives the best performance to cost ratio fo me.

Just my 2c

I will look it up and post it for you! Ok lets try this!

[Link: 2eyespy.tripod.com]

Sorry I screwed up on the first attempt! While I am not saying good cables are a waste I am saying you can achieve as good as the master(source) can do without breaking the bank!




This message was edited by AVDesignPro on 08/12/03 12:00.

A good example of the non-hype cable company is Rhino Cables.

http://www.rhinocables.com

They use Belden cable for their products. Nothing fancy or magical about the product other than good component choice and quality control. BTW, they don't sell through dealers. A good model to use when building custom cables for the racks.

You have to admit that Monster is the 2nd best AV marketing company after Bose. IMHO, they make decent cable products, but there are cheaper alternatives. Sound like another type of discussion?

Cheers

Read the reviews. Tributaries. They are appropriately priced, will custom-craft interconnects to client specs, and better rated than Monster(ously ridiculous).

yes, but there's no comparison between Monster and Blose...

Monster products may be over-priced and overkill, but at least they deliver the performance they SAY they'll deliver.

The thing is... even the crappy Phillips cables you can get at Wal Mart when you're in the middle of nowhere and need one more fuggin cable to finish an installation almost perform like Monster cables! (and don't tell me i'm out of my mind... i had to do that last week, and the junk cables worked just fine... heh)

I'm gonna tell!

It's mostly in the mind!!! I am sure there is always some differences from cable to cable if they're analized very closely, but in most cases you will not see any difference in video quality on a 4/6 ft video cable, either it's Monster or Philips, and I have used a coat hanger as an indoor antenna too!... and got a good picture!!!
Mister.T

Look. The fact is this; There are now, and always will be, people with exorbitant amounts of money who enjoy being able to tell people how much they paid for their goods. The first link you see perfectly illustrates this paradigm and the following links are to manufacturers of noted goods.

[Link: audioreview.com]

http://www.german-physiks.com

http://www.transparentcable.com

Now, there is certainly an audible difference between a pair of $500 and $15,000 speakers, but I think you would be hard-pressed to find a person who could consistently discern between a pair of $15,000 and $150,000 speakers. And even if they noticed a slight difference, is that worth the Ferrari-esque difference in price? Honestly.

I believe that it is not your decision to make. You (and of course I'm assuming due to the area you are posting) are a custom installer. A $1,000 home theater in a box creates 5.1 surround sound and has a remote. A custom installation in excess of $10,000 creates 5.1 surround sound and has a remote. If you speak mearly in terms of $ then I'll take the $1,000 system. The fact is a $10,000 system will sound 10 times better than a $1,000 system. A $100,000 system will sound 8 times better than a $10,000 system. A $1,000,000 system will sound 3.238746 times better than a $100,000 system. The higher end a system is, the lower the dolar spent to performance ratio is. Does that mean we shouldn't show a customer Wilson Watt Puppies over B&W 600 series (sorry my frame of reference)? Of course not. Let the client base their decision on what the want/afford, not on what you can afford. If a client hangs a $500,000 painting in their living room, and drives a Ferrari then it would be an insult giving them an audio (or video) system that doesn't reflect the same taste. I guess it all depends on what your frame of reference is. If your frame of reference is wall mart Phillips tv's and DVD players then of course spending any money at all on cables is out of the question. If you provide higher end systems to the less than 1% of people who are looking beond wall mart quality then not using better cables is out of the question.

(My 2nd $.02)