Monster Cables vs Coat Hangers

rentadrummer · Post by **rentadrummer** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 4:26 am

http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/03/audi ... cable-and/

kassonica · Post by **kassonica** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 4:58 am

Classic

I posted the same thing under the Subject buying new speaker cables

rentadrummer · Post by **rentadrummer** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 6:01 am

Sorry. Didn't see your post.

kassonica · Post by **kassonica** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 6:21 am

tis a OK

Personally I'm off to buy the slightly more expensive coat hanger as they have a warmer sound

I wonder what Brad Lyons makes of this..

rcannonp · Post by **rcannonp** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 6:43 am

Painted white or bare?

kassonica · Post by **kassonica** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 6:48 am

Bare

Painted white effects the warmness of the sound and I've heard it will distort the summing in some DAWs but please don't tell anyone, I don't want to start internet rumours

monkey man · Post by **monkey man** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 6:52 am

Once during my gigging days the band found itself short of a cable.
As there was a shortage of electrical gear on hand we had to make do with what we could find.

We laid a crowbar, a front fender from a Chev pickup, some chicken wire, a bunch of kitchen utensils and a brass monkey end to end.
You wouldn't read about it, but... it worked!

According to the highly inebriated crowd, we sounded fantastic.

kassonica · Post by **kassonica** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 6:57 am

I hope not POWER cable

OR there could of been much poo flying

monkey man · Post by **monkey man** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 7:04 am

No worries there Mark; it was the desk main L out to FOH.

kassonica · Post by **kassonica** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 7:08 am

SPeaker cable eh

Classic rock n roll story Nicky with a happy ending

AHHHHHHHHHHHHh

If only life was like that

monkey man · Post by **monkey man** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 8:21 am

If only. It sure can get crazy at times... like right now.

'Night Mark. Be good.

mhschmieder · Post by **mhschmieder** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 12:37 pm

I can hardly think of any purchases I have made over the years that have had a bigger impact than cables.

Having said that, I will never again buy a consumer-grade cable from Monster -- though their pro-grade cables are fine. The problem with the consumer-grade cables (the ones that deliberately have coloured sound and are sold most often in the Guitar Department) is bad soldering. They're guaranteed for life, but I had to return at least eight replacements in a row and finally demanded a refund, many years ago (maybe 2000-2001).

I have "good enough" cables to not want to prioritise an upgrade, due to the phenomenal cost. But when it comes to patch cables, I will only buy Mogami, pro-grade Monster, or Whirlwind/Canare. I have a few fallbacks when I need a specialty cable that the others don't make or that are hard to order/find.

For gigs, I only use Canare, as they are built for abuse and have great connections that are well-designed.

The new trend is borrowed from the Neutrik connectors that my company helped inspire through its specs many years back, and is a similar application of that concept to power connectors vs. IEC's which can slip out (though not as easily as AC wall wart daptors and floor lumps). This is also along the lines of recent trends for pro-level connecotors on Ethernet devices (vs. the standard telephoen terminator, on its own without protection or even as the terminator type to start with), and a few other less-than-robust cable/terminator types.

It doesn't have to cost more than twice as much (or even less) to get a cable that is 10x as good as a stock Guitar Centre special, and which will last much longer and be less likely to fail during a gig or session. Even the much-maligned high-end cables are mostly worth the extra money in terms of value added, but one always needs to identify the weakest link, and by the time one is ready to do that sort of wiring upgrade, often one will find that room acoustics and other considerations more easily justify additional expenditures and upgrades.

I agree, however, that fancy cables oriented towards guitarists and which claim to warm up the sound or make it more aggressive or whatever, is a bunch of marketing hype. The cables do indeed achieve those goals, but why would one want to use the cabling as part of the colouring of sound? Cables should be transparent, reliable, etc. But people are welcome to spend their money however they wish

.

BTW, the general concept behind high-end cables is supposed to be that they're more efficient and thus don't lose any headroom and thereby preserve more of the musical content (if analog) or data flow (if digital). This goal is in line with the transparency principle; anything else is Flavour of the Month nonsense (which, again, people are welcome to spend on).

WSVP · Post by **WSVP** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 1:13 pm

I personally feel that high priced cables are a lot of hype. I think there are plenty of bad cables out there and you will know when you find one. But I think it is virtually impossible to distinguish between good & great cables.

I stopped purchasing anything from Monster Cable after I heard about some of their business practices. They were filing lawsuits against any company that had the name "Monster" in their name (even little local companies that had nothing to do with cabling or audio). These lawsuits spawned a huge boycott of Monster Cable.

cuttime · Post by **cuttime** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 5:56 pm

madboy · Post by **madboy** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 11:00 pm

monkey man wrote:Once during my gigging days the band found itself short of a cable.
As there was a shortage of electrical gear on hand we had to make do with what we could find.

We laid a crowbar, a front fender from a Chev pickup, some chicken wire, a bunch of kitchen utensils and a brass monkey end to end.
You wouldn't read about it, but... it worked!

According to the highly inebriated crowd, we sounded fantastic.

There's no shortage of #2 with you