@Aleung: Ummm, I hope you were joking (its a different Monster....)

McLucky

@flyboy: Nice reference to Spinal Tap. I didn't think I would see that here.

surfer88

I bet the same would happen with 720p/1080p HD test (also with 1080i)

SeattleTed

I think this would have been a better test if they actually used audiophiles for ears. I realize that they may have, but if they didn't, it might be like having a homeless person test a mustang versus a ferrari and expecting them to give a good analysis. I have a pretty good ear but I would rather have someone with a better ear determine my basic choices and let me decide from there. Also, you are showing interconnects and talking about speaker cables and I dont know what 1000KHz means when the audible range extends up to 20KHz.

kipswitch

Several years ago I did the same test with four bananas. Monster Cable won, but just barely.

jbramfeld

Those have to be incredibly stiff cables...

BurstAneurysm

I bought a optical cable splitter so I could hook my PS3 and satellite box up to my surround sound that only has 1 optical port and only reads Dolby Digital through that port.

I had one monster cable already but I decided to buy 2 of those 99 cent ones on amazon along with the splitter for a grand total of $14 after shipping and I have to tell you it works great there is minimal loss in the signal. The only problem is if you bend the 99 cent cables too much they could crack since they ave almost no insulation.

pokebud

[www.answers.com]

No wire hangers! Ever!

Maladjusted

^^^^^^^^^
looking or pliers

keyser

Now, I don't have a home stereo, but I did buy some monster cables for my amp rig for gigging. My purchase decision wasn't based on sound quality- because all cables sound the same (anyone who plays out knows this), but on durability.

The Monster cables are built like brick outhouses, and can be stomped on, ripped out, kinked and twisted and abused in any way you're likely to on stage, and still hold together. And, should they break down, you've got a lifetime guarantee.

None of that applies to a home stereo. You don't move it, reconnect it, or spill $1 beer on it while kicking your amp over at the end of the show. Without the abuses of stage performance, I don't see what high priced cables can offer.

t3knomanser

Hey, how much are those Monster Cables worth?

As much as people will pay for them!

If I worked at Monster and made a good salary off of those cables, I wouldn't care, and neither would you in the same situation.

Monster makes and is happy, Consumer buys and is Happy, Dealer sells and is Happy! Everybody's Happy!

No problem.

Fountainhead

sucks...those dry cleaners were sitting on a *gold* mine and didn't even know it.

"don't starch me bro"

discounteggroll

the jokes on us because Monster has already made their millions

lvd

@MikeSWelch: I;ve stocked up on Coat Hangers taken from Laundromats and Dry Cleaners if that may be...

ph15h

But wait, this is biased! Martin Logan FTW!~

SigmundTheSeaMonster

No... wire... hangers. What's wire hangers doing in this closet when I told you: no wire hangers EVER?

anfauglir

Coming Soon:

Pear Anjou II.

"Starting with only the finest high carbon steel, the coat hangers in these 'Ultimately Danceable' cables provide..."

av8thor

Evidently the ponies that run information across the Web arrived at Gizmodo a tad late, since the original post was made in 2004...

riflehunter

maybe the easy listening jazz had them closing their ears and wishing for death, so the lousier coat hangers came out sounding better.

drewheyman

No wonder Monster is not renew its sponsorship for Candlestick Park.

Aleung

I think they used too good of equipment. The Monster cables as supposed to make your $100 stereo system sound better. Yes, that was sarcasm.
monoprice FTW

fastm3driver

Soneone call James Randi!

atomicafro

can't you hear the sustain....

flyboy

Yep. It's said but this won't be seen as "Whoa Monster Cable is a ripoff!" but more of a "Experience the new evolution in sound! Monster Premium Cote Hàngür Cables made with Premium Swiss Metals for when you demand the best!"

BonoMan

This doesn't seem like a very good test. Wire hanger seems to me like it would be a VERY good conductor of the signal to the speaker wire. It's very thick! It's frigg'n used as an antenna all the time! Sure it's go no shielding, but maybe that wouldn't make a difference in the environment they were doing the test...

To really make a point they should have done it with the cheapest cables they could find online.

car47

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Sound quality is subjective even amongst sound engineers. The most important factor is the listening environment. That's why blue prints for recording studios cost millions.

Having said that.. I bet the guys at Monster aren't going to be pleased with this...

Discofunk

They are obviously amateurs. I can hear the difference between coat hangers and Monster cables when I'm using my $5,000,000 diamond encrusted speakers. That, and everyone knows the pros use Pear Cables.

johnnyabnormal

I hand up my clothes with old Monster cables as tie wraps.

flyboy

I eagerly await the fluffy press release from monster on this one too. Rumor is it's somewhere between a Dreidel and a washing machine on the unofficial spin scale.

J B Cougar

Oh god I love it!

Spyrojoe

So you know what this means now. Monster is going to start charging 500 dollars for their own branded coat hangers.

And some fool will buy them.

albokay

Sweet, now I know what to do with all those dry-cleaning hangers.

CubFan81

You heard it here first: Bestbuy is going to start selling wire hangers for $100 a pop.

MikeSWelch

@ninjashock: I think his point is that not all cable shielding (not insulation) is the same. Some cables perform better than others at shielding themselves from crosstalk and outside interference.

There is a reason why there is a recommended physical distance gap of 16" between power and HDMI cable jacks on your wall. Better shielding allows you to fudge this a little, sometimes even a lot.

What amuses me during these tests are not whether or not one cable is better than another. It is whether one is better under adverse conditions, such as if you live near a radio tower or high tension power lines. Things with a big EM footprint.

Xavoc

@BonoMan:

Ahahahahahaha!

MastaFalse

@Lizard_King: I don't think you'll find anyone saying that you should use coat hangers for your stereo. It's more just to point out what a ripoff Monster Cable is. People are aware that uninsulated cable is susceptible to interference (at least I think people are aware), but that doesn't mean you have to buy premium-brand cables. You can get generic cable that is insulated too.

ninjashock

@t3knomanser: When you're buying cables for live gigs or just for recording, it actually does make a difference what sort of cables you buy. I've tried generic Guitar Center cables, Monster cables, and the high end Mogami cables, and the Mogami are the clear victor when it comes to noise reduction. With something as sensitive to interference as a guitar in environments where there are often generators or radios making all sorts of interfering noise, you definitely need something that is shielded and noiseless if you're going for anything remotely close to defined sound.

Not to mention that Mogami cables are probably 20 dollars more expensive but come with a LIFETIME warranty. You can rip them up with a lawnmower, put them down a garbage disposal, slice them with a hack-saw, circular saw, jigsaw, and they'll replace them.

That plus no noise = greatest guitar cables known to man.

dvicklund

As everything now is digital, it becomes less of an issue, as shown with the quality most people can get from basic monoprice cabling.

Speaker wire is the easiest wire to deal with, I use lamp cord myself. However, the issues i've ALWAYS dealt with with cehap cables was crosstalk and interference. Up until HDMI took over everything, I had broadcast quality Canare/Beldin cabling for component video and digital audio (coaxial>optical). Just by swapping out wires I could eliminate ghosting at hi-res from my HTPC and eliminate a hum from my subwoofer.

Basic cabling has their place, but this site is constantly insisting anyone who spends more than peanuts is an idiot. It just simply is not true.

Lizard_King

@t3knomanser: I've owned four or five monster cables in my lifetime (all on sale). Every single one broke in less than two years.

If you think that they are any more durable than any other non-cheapo cable, you're fooling yourself.

ninjashock

Actually now that I think about it, these are cheaper but equally effective at aborting children. So, win win.

shoelessone

@kipswitch any 2 year old riding in a ferarri/mustang could tell you that the ferrari is faster than the mustang.

dantaylor08

And yet you guys still buy bottled water. It's all in the packaging and presentation; fooled by the eye and heart. Cha-pwned.

SinAmos

all these tests suffer from the fact that no person is being tested beforehand to confirm whether or not he or she has super, better-than-average hearing. unless they run these double-blind tests on people with audiophile-grade, expense-justifying, insane-quality hearing... you can keep your double blind tests!

No pardon me while I return to listening to a mouse fart in the opposite room...

scarbrtj

Who actually wastes money on monster cables for speaker wire? I remember old tests that featured monster cables and radio shack lamp wires. The lamp wires won.

Also saw a audio test with sound engineers to test wheter digital and analog was better, None of them could tell the difference even though each set of engineers were adamant about using digital or analog over the other..

If people want to spend hundreds of bucks on wires, I'll package them up nicely and you can send the money to me! :)

RG_Shrike

Damn, everytime I hear ya'll say "firesale" I think of Die Hard 4 and that's all I can think of.

Anyway, I'm not surprised. But I bet (as I'm sure some other whitty reader of gizmodo has already said) you'd be able to tell the diference no problem if you were using Pear cables!

shoelessone

Matt, you got your numbers all wrong. I believe you wanted to say 75dB at 1000Hz (not kHz!) at 1 meter. The measurement for loudness is always sound pressure at given frequency from 1 meter distance from the source. And 1000kHz is way beyond hearing for (I think) any animal out there including bats.

poisonfist

Utter crap. I can hear the difference between OFC copper and regular copper. Even greater is the difference between silver cables and OFC copper. Now Monster is total turd anyways. Try Kimber KCAG or Nordost. THOSE are real cables.

WallStSk8r

Well, clearly, then the winner is the coat hanger, because not only is the sound quality on par with Monster cables but the coat hanger also can, you know, hang coats. Let's see a Monster cable do that.

Dearhaw

@mcdj: I just steel mine from the dry cleaner.

Xavoc

This begs the question, to bi-hanger or not?

mcdj

I've had EMI issues with cheap ass cables, I've also had EMI issues with monster cables. Basically what I've found is that when it comes to Coax, the stuff the cable company gives you for free is better than monster cable. Why? Because they're required to monitor their emissions.

I have seen the difference on my own equipment between a cheap s-video cable, and a higher end one. In this case the Monster cable got rid of some ghosting in the picture.

I've had simple things like static electricity from carpet cause issues in the line between my receiver and sub.

In the end, what matters is whether the end user is happy with the results, and agrees to pay the price. Oh, and at least some of Monster's cable is manufactured in the US.

Xavoc

@steven0r: They thought they were Belden wires, not coat hangers.

matt buchanan

I am pretty sure the people recording the test knew about the change, which would make the experiment a single bind test. Any first year student in statistics can tell you, all test should be double bind (meaning both subject and recorder must not know which is which), which puts the confidence of this test in question.

steven0r

While I'm no fan of over-priced cables, shielding is extremely important in a home audio setup. Just because the most expensive stuff is a scam, it doesn't mean the super-cheapo stuff is good.

Cheap unshielded cable WILL result in EM issues in most setup's.

Epaminondas

@PynkFloydd:
wtf? "Easy to use"? it's a fucking cable.

your analogy is fail, sir.

nutbastard

That is pretty much what I was telling customers in the first place. I work at best buy, and while there is some merit to shielding if you have a high power draw right by your signal cables (rare though), I never reccomended monster unless the customers like (OMG, I MUST have MONSTER!!). I typically just pointed them towards the house brand (rocketfish). It still had good shielding and here was the kick. We had even higher margin on the cables (that were typically 40-50% cheaper than monster) because we got them very wholesale direct from china (LOL). If someone was buying a lot of stuff I would typically just talk my supervisor into giving them at least 50% cables, and if it was a really big system (like 10k +) we would just give them away for free. Large visualized value for the customer, closes the sale and only costs us like $20 bucks for all of their wiring.

As I always tell my boss after giving small discounts like that "good hustle, go team".

tketch

Monster Cables in the audio world are the Apple of the computer world... Overpriced, consumer friendly (easy to use) with lots and lots and lots of hype.

There are plenty of audiophile companies that provide quality stuff at good prices (Kimber Kable, Cary Aduio, etc.). Superb audio requires planning and research and is definitely not a mass-market thing.

From my years of experience in closing high dollar sales, the people that pay the most are the happiest. The people that save the most, complain the most. The people that paid the most in bloated profit also referred you their friends, their family and everyone under the sun. Oh...and they will defend their purchase to the death with unlimited amounts of justifications.

PynkFloydd

but can you hermetically seal coat hangers?

dantaylor08

They should have tried it with paper clips.

mikecoscia

@t3knomanser, @dvicklund: : I buy monster cables too, but I don't find them to be any more durable than a cheap generic cable. However, that warranty is fucking priceless, since every music store carries Monster cables. I've had more than a few cables crap out on me while I was on the road, and I love the fact that I could take the thing into anyone that sold Monster--mom and pop music stores, Guitar Center, Best Buy--and swap it out, no hassle and no questions asked.

I like Mogami for my home studio setup, but I'd never take 'em on the road with me. Too expensive to lose without Monster's more convenient warranty policy.

JustThisGuy

@electrikecho: "Just remember when the power goes out in your area, some desperate crackhead will soon enjoy his rock and pipe outside."

Fixed that for you.

Xavoc

Bah! Everyone knows the best audio cables are high-tension power lines. Just remember when the power goes out in your area, some audiophile will soon enjoy his vinyl with a tube amplifier hooked to a generator outside.

electrikecho

Bent Cardan Yea the dry cleaner is my speaker wire supply. -Bent Cardan

BentCardan

@paulca82: Gold plating is so thin, resistance is negligable. Basically, the purpose of gold it is to prevent corrosion.

ripfire4

I don't mean to rain on any one's parade but.... It's not often you find copper coat hangers anymore. The price of copper is too high.

A common coat hanger is soft steel or what would be called baling wire. Its closest industrial (proper name) is Mechanic's Wire (Soft Annealed Mechanic's Wire , 18 AWG.)

10-ga steel wire measures,0.00684,(Resistance in Ohms/ft), and measures 11.8,(Resistivity
10-6 ohm-cm).

10-ga copper wire measures,0.000999,(Resistance in Ohms/ft), and measures 1.724,(Resistivity
10-6 ohm-cm)respectively.

(see [www.stealth316.com])

I suppose that a coat hanger might be coated to prevent rust with a zinc coating but most likely that would be a lacquer or plastic finish. At any rate, I wonder as a conductor, steel or iron wouldn't conduct quite as well as copper, unless it were perhaps copper coated steel.

That wouldn't seem quite right simply because of the economics of production of coat hangers would be based on the lowest possible unit cost.

I agree that if you used common 18 gauge copper zip-cord I doubt you'd hear any difference,(provided there were limitations on length, and I'm assuming this would be about 1 meter in length based on an average length of a coat hanger).

But, let's just say, if your talking about a coat hanger right out of the closet, I think perhaps is telling a "creatively enhanced version of the truth..."

At the very least, they would have to strip-off the paint or lacquer...

So much for the little details...

peegee

Yeah, but have monster cables ever been used in abortions?

Just sayin'....

Mondoz

One thing i never got was all these high end cables and using gold terminals on their ends. I dont know about you, but even my mid range sony receiver doesnt have gold terminals on it.

When you bond two different metals together, you create resistance, resistance in communication gear equals static, which is bad.

This is a concept understod in basic electrical theory.

paulca82

@t3knomanser: yeah but who cares because with the difference in price you can buy a new pair of the cheap cable every year for the rest of your life... the durability theory doesn't hold water...

doctorSpoc

@JimK: Was this guy's name Michael Fremer, by any chance?

johnnyabnormal

I personally did this exact same test with an avowed audiophile who spent 15 thousand dollars PER CHANNEL for his home theater amps.

@peegee: we actually sanded the lacquer off the ends and crimped connectors onto them.

He threw a bunch of us out of his house and has not spoken to me in the six years since.

JimK

AHA, but what they didn't say is that they paid 100000 bucks for each COAT HANGER.

Bokusatsu_Tenshi

@Xavoc: What your's don't breed in the closet? I swear I only started with two coat hangers in college and now we're buried in them. Doing AV hookups with them gives me something to do with a few.

Kingteddybear

Last edited by savelife : 06-24-2004 ????

James

@car47:
They are good conductors, but electricity travels over wire, not through it, therefore more strands = less resistance. That said, I needed a mini plug to RCA adapter cord for my truck, and right next to the $20 monster cable there was essentially the same cable, only not white, for 7.50. I went home with the one for 7.50.

TrikeKid

bump

Littlebitsofpaper

I don't want to totally rip on Monster because they do actually make a pretty decent wire - Monster XP and from what I hear the XPHP.

I have used the near equivalent of coathangers which would be the Radio Shack 18 guage project wire - not bad really.

Littlebitsofpaper

Heh... I love watching these arguments. Everyone is convinced they're right and anyone that disagrees with them is wrong. What the hell - I'll throw my hat in the ring on this.

Monster-branded cables? Overpriced, period. Do I own any? Yes. Why? They really are built better than the cheapies found elsewhere. For digital stuff that won't get mucked around a bunch, go cheap and upgrade if you need to. For anything analog, go with something of decent quality, but there's no need to blow a wad over one set of cables (of any type).

Lastly - believe in your own senses. If it looks/sounds/feels/tastes/smells good to you, then you're happy. There's no sense in thinking that a simple cable will be so much better when your own senses are really the weakest link in the chain at some point. Really, if you can tell the difference, then go ahead and buy the better cables. Just don't try to convince the rest of us that it'll make things that much better based on your sensory inputs. Mine are different from yours and everybody else's. Deal with it.

racermd

Put it another way, Trikekid. If electricity traveled "over" wire, then they wouldn't bother to put make copper wires. We could just save billions of dollars by making nylon wires, and coat them with copper.

dcartist

Electricity travels "over" wire, and not through it?

What kind of physics is that?

Electricity travels THROUGH wires. That's why the cross sectional area of a wire is a factor in resistance.

And peegee, you're missing the point and you're not "raining" on anybody's parade. People were just joking about using coat hangers in the future. The point of the article was that the special machining and design & materials of the super-expensive monster cables did not improve audio quality enough to differentiate it from soldered, non-exacting quality, coathangers.

dcartist

@nutbastard: Not so much...

The high end audio market has more flavors than Baskin Robbins. That's just in the speaker cable design. Just an example, I have some Audio Physics Steps SLE (which have an impedance of 4 Ohms) that require biwiring to the speaker yet I'm only running a single tube amplifier. I wanted the cleanest path possible so I went with bare wire. That just told me the minimum gauge I can use (need), the termination, ideal material composition, wire configuration, etc.

For the average person going out and buying a Best Buy system, they don't have the enthusiasm to spend time deciding if they need biwire/single, spade connectors, banana connectors, copper, silver, gauge, etc. They probably just need a standard cable.

Actually, the cheaper wires of the high-end companies, you buy by the foot and you terminate them yourself. The high end, you always custom order to length and specify termination (brand, type, quality).

That's just the speaker wire. You add in the millions of combinations of gear and the high-end audio market is no place for a non-obsessed, mass-market invididual. Most people want something in a pretty box that they plug in and forget about... They're not worried about using a sound meter for exact speaker placement, sound room design, tube compliments, component pairing, sound stage reproduction, or signal path to reproduce the most realistic (and closest to live as possible) sound experience.

It's not "just" a cable if you just spent $$$$$$$$ on your audio system...

PynkFloydd

brilliant

BigViper

Until reading these Gizmodo threads, I never realized how appropriate it was for Randi to jump in the fray. Also in the category of "things that sound the same" are arguments supporting exorcisms, feng shui, homeopathy, and high-end audio.

gibson042

@gibson042: Did you follow the Pear Cable debacle a while back?

johnnyabnormal

coathangers are excellent in that regard - they're low-gauge wires like the kind monster uses, so it's no big surprise they work so well..

Worf

Can someone answer this for me:

If practically everything is recorded with balanced cables ([en.wikipedia.org]), then why isn't it used much by the audiophile end users?

johnnyabnormal

@JimK: Nah, he's the douche bag from the Pear Cables comments ages back. One of those "I have golden ears" types who claim to have superior audio knowledge and experience than anyone in here. Because, you know, there aren't any composers, sound designers or audio mastering engineers who read the Giz.

*snickers*

johnnyabnormal

@johnnyabnormal: No, but that name sounds REALLY familiar. is he the guy - from a certain very large home theater forum - who would go APE on anyone who claimed that wire was wire? If so, he was the inspiration for the test we did.

JimK

@PynkFloydd: Ah, I didn't know that consumers used them. I've been using XLR forever, but I'd have no excuse to do otherwise in my line of work.

johnnyabnormal

@johnnyabnormal: Balanced Audio connections ARE used in high end audio. They're just called XLR. [en.wikipedia.org]

There's even a company named "BAT". Balanced Audio Technology.

Most high end audio is sold direct to consumer or through small boutiques. Most consumers aren't aware of the option.

PynkFloydd

I am indeed an audiophile...although the years have dulled my ears' sensitivity to a small degree. I'd love to try this test. Maybe they are right.

However, most audiophiles do not think much of Monster Cable...so the test may have been flawed from the start. Making cable bigger is not itself a virtue. I have heard obvious differences listening through cables like Kimber, MIT, and Transparency. In fact, those last two add time-align circuits to fix the fact that low and high frequencies travel down wires at different rates, smearing detail. All cables in this echelon use special metallurgy and extrusion techniques to make electrons act as if they are traveling through much shorter lengths, preventing such smearing and preserving bass below 40Hz. This is important if you need to run cables 20 feet or more. If your amp and speakers are sufficiently revealing, a matching high-quality cable does indeed contribute audibly. Thats why studios use them. I can say amplifiers from Spectral and Bryston really shine through a matched cable system feeding speakers like Dynaudio Evidence or even Quad E3's.

I'm one of those weird audiophiles that loves both home and pro equipment. My studio speakers are the modest self-powered Dynaudio BMA5's...and they improved noticeably when I replaced 20 yr. old balanced mic cables with new line-level wires from Mogami. So even the pre-amp wire can, on occasion, improve the sound.

It's worth noting that ninety percent of the possible improvement to sound comes with cables costing up to $400. It follows the principle of diminishing returns above that price and takes a very sophisticated system to project the difference.

rustyd100

ummmm... I would love to find out if any of those test subjects could hear if a speaker was out of phase either.

;-)

kekone

I think this is definitive proof here folks. Save some $$$ and just buy the regular stuff.

duranduran4ever

@PynkFloydd: Btw, it looks like their website is down? [www.balanced.com]

johnnyabnormal

@Xavoc: Wow, I'm sorry to hear that. (really, no pun intended) I can't imagine what I'd do if I had that kind of hearing loss. Is it mostly the high end of your hearing that was effected? Are you saying the ear infections caused tinnitus?

johnnyabnormal

@johnnyabnormal: Yeah, no. I don't claim to have golden ears. In fact, I have hearing lost from the sheer # of ear infections I suffered as a small child and my ears have been ringing since I was 3.

I can hear a difference in gear up to a certain point, after that it's lost on me. I was looking to buy some high-end speakers a few years back, and a friend offered me a great deal for a 5 speaker surround set of Fosgate Audionics (basically non-self powered Haflers) and 15" sub. I think I paid $560 total including shipping.

Xavoc

@johnnyabnormal: Yeah, the ear infections were the cause. I was gifted with a genetic defect in how my ears drain fluids. This was back in the day when getting tubes in your ears wasn't outpatient surgery.

My ears ring at somewhere near the hum of an old TV/monitor power supply. You know that squeal when people shut off a video source, but not the tv/monitor and it whines? Yeah, that's what I hear all the time when it's too quiet.

Listening to music/movies/white noise is the only way to drown it out so that I don't feel like I'm going slowly insane.

Xavoc

@johnnyabnormal: I think it's back up. Most of those companies have a very small amount employees. I'm not surprised if it's not maintained too much.

I think that's part of the problem with high-end audio. The crap is often hyped and promoted and some of the better companies led by true engineers (VAC, Cary Audio, DK Design, etc.) are often lost in the shuffle.

Sounds like you already have the best seat in the house in the audio area covered though. It's gotta get through you to get to us... lol

PynkFloydd

But is it an Armani coathanger?

Alucard

@PynkFloydd: Best seat in the house? I'd say it is pretty neutral or transparent, recording everything 24 bit, 192k with really good A to D conversion. I run my music composition & sound design biz from a very quiet live/work space. The only thing I have to worry about is when my wife and I have a kid...I'll have to really invest in some sound proofing to keep the baby screaming out of my mix! Btw, I just took a quick look at that site. Very cool stuff.

johnnyabnormal

High end audio at 75db? Not me.

avhed