Monster Cable Kicks Butt?

I credit Monster with making me realize that cables mattered. To make a long story short, I replaced Monsters with a pair of AQ I had received free a year or two before, and it was painfully obvious that the Monsters were grainy and muffled.

KP

I had bad luck with the monster twist bananas. The AR ones weren't any better. Even the "piercing" twist-lock one never gave nearly as "solid" of a connection as crimped on spade lugs, or bare wire on the binding posts. The difference was clearly audible. Even my non-audiophile brother would hear the difference, and were were using the same 8ga. monster speaker wire at the time.

The best bananas I've used are the "flat" screw-type bananas you find with most "scientific" equipment. Those old a connection with the bare wire like "nothing else." And come to think of it, so do the BNC terminiators on most coax, lol. I wonder if there is a connection (no pun intended)?

As for other monster cable... The 2m and 0.5m toslink isn't bad. Both sound better than the 1m, go figure! I also at one time, had some 400i series (I think that was what it was called) interconnects. They weren't bad. They charge you way to much for what you get (no surprise with cables). And transparent, they are not. They are a little veiled in the lower mids, and bottom end. At least when I switched to audio quest, I sounded a lot clearer down low. I think those AQ's were cheaper, too. but even the AQ's weren't perfect. I switched them out for better AQ's, then Wireworlds, now I running mostly Straight Wire. I think I finally got the mids and lowest to sound "correct" with my system.

monster cable may be OK, but it's far from transparent. Some say their ICs act like "filters." I dunno if I'd go that far. But they sure aren't transparent. You could probably due better for the money, IMHO.

An for FWIW, some say the straight wire encore II's I'm using aren't all that transparent, either. But one thing they are is "synergetic" with my system. Someone might have a system where monster cable is the synergetic match. So I guess, in that case, they'd be appropriate. Use you ears....

Mar00, You are exactly correct. This thing with cables is wild. I do believe everyone should use decent cables, but these people who spend thousands on cables has been fooled into believing something that's not there.I myself have tried various cables(some in the $200-300.00 range). I simply sold them bought some cheaper monsters, then enjoyed the music. Spend the money on good speakers, and don't waste your time and $ on this cable fraud.

I apologize, but I find it hard to believe people with high resolution systems can't hear any difference at all.
I can often hear a difference between different pairs of identical interconnects, let alone a different model or brand.

A person with perfect pitch or music training is going to notice small changes more than someone who is tone deaf or un-schooled in music. I think hearing ability and skill plays a part in this difference in opinion. Anyway if someone is happy with their Bose Wave Radio/CD player, more power to them and I am sincerely happy for them. I just wish Paul Harvey on the radio would not claim his son the "Audiophile" loves his and has tweeked it further.

To use a golf analogy: Tiger Woods has custom clubs made to his exact specifications. They cost many thousands of dollars to make. With his skill they enable him to control ball flight in inches. If you're a 24 handicap, will a pair of megabuck custom golf clubs make much of a difference over a $300 pair from Sears? Probably not. They would be a waste of money. Does that mean they are a waste of money to a serious player?? Many times one stroke lost will cost a pro 10 to 20 times what the clubs costs.

With due respect to many of the other respondees, I have found that Monster Cable cables fall short of their advertised claims. Last year, I had my own shoot-out of 8' biwired speaker cables (Krell 200c amplifier to Dunlavy SC-IVs), and both my wife and I were shocked at how inferior the Monster Cable M-2.4s cables were to the Transparent Audio MusicWave Supers. Now, admittedly, the Transparent Audio cables were more than twice as expensive, but, still, the advertised claims of Monster Cable implied that speaker cable did not get any better than the M-2.4s.

The best way I can describe the difference is using a computer analogy in terms of color graphics. The Monster Cable product was VGA resolution using 256 colors; the Transparent Audio was UXGA resolution using 16.7 million colors.

No, Monster Cable did not "kick butt"; rather, it showed itself, at best, to be "all talk/no action."