gizmodo.com — It never pays to buy a Monster cable first. It doesn't even make sense to buy the "marked down" $50 cable you can buy if you don't want Monster. Go online, order your cables, and wait. The only people who should buy Monster cable are people who light cigars with Benjamins. Fortunately for Monster, there are plenty of those people.
Jul 26, 2007 View in Crawl 4
onlyclaveJul 27, 2007
Don't have to explain the power cable. I don't have to explain how I used to love f**king guys like you over with extended warranties. You guys paid for my house, and as long as companies like Monster Cable keep putting the same s**tty wire into a fancy package that I can sell by literally reading the back to the customer I'm going to keep making lots of money. But in the meantime, I've done the research, I've seen the results and I prefer my stuff to function properly and at the level of performance it as originally intended so I will buy my expensive HDMI cables and my $750 Straight Wire Black Thunder power cables at ridiculous discounts because I'm in the business.
mikeliemanJul 27, 2007
And even if we were, GREAT Belden cable is RARELY more than 75 cents a foot.
thedongaJul 27, 2007
analog is a whole different ballgame....
chazpseJul 27, 2007
Monster = complete rip-off. I totally agree with the article. For long digital runs the best and cheapest are usually cable runs (I've run over 75 ft of S/PDF).
pyroboy1080Jul 27, 2007
$250 for 30 feet!! That's more expensive than laying 200 feet of outdoor fiber. That is ridiculous. Who would buy cable that expensive???
Closed AccountJul 30, 2007
Yeah....unless you use them for a profesional use. See the comment right above yours.
Closed AccountJul 30, 2007
Or you could just make your own cables like I do.
vadimrusAug 22, 2007
I think people are right about the sound/video quality being the same in Monster and cheaper alternative cables. However I think there maybe some added noise filtering in monster cables. I'm not sure if you can get that with the cheaper cables but I think that is the selling point? Correct me if I'm wrong.
ne0x1tyJan 17, 2008
Obviously, the majority of the people that surf the web do NOT know what they are talking about when it comes to these HDMI cables. There is a reason why Best Buy sells these cables... First off, they do not get commission nor do the employees themselves... The store actually makes more money off the cheaper HDMI cables than Monster brand...Everyone mentions that it's digital... it's either there or it's not. Which is partially true. We are still talking about a signal here being sent with an electrical current. The highs are 1's and the lows are 0... however, with lesser quality cables these 1/0s can meld into each other when the signal isn't as strong.... where it causes motion noises and jitters, information loss...The whole speed issue is important... we basically talking bandwidth here. How much information can pass through at a time. Lower brand cables can handle HDMI 1.2 and 1.1 because the speed was near 5gbps and you only have near 4gbps of information going through... with the advent of HDMI 1.3 the amount of information that passes through could reach up to 8.6 gbps.... Monster's own 600 series can handle these amount of info and it will lose picture information... also on top of this if you LCD is 120hz, then you need more bandwidth as well... add DTS-HD sound and you need more bandwidth their too... I agreed the cables are marked up, the store can't maintain it's operating costs if they didn't make any money.... however, you must have a cable that has enough speed to carry information through in that second... Other benefits to Monster cables are that they are guaranteed for a lifetime, HDMI cables (especially cheaply made ones) are prone to breaking... we have it all the time at my store. Second, they are rated for inwall use... Not all cables are, most are only in wall rated for their very long counterparts.Generally, I bet most of the people on this board would tell me that Clean Power doesn't matter, Calibrating your television does jack, they don't need a service plan or that the best TV's are at CostCo...
ne0x1tyJan 17, 2008
BS... You're taking that analog stream and taking points along the curve, which is digital. When you have enough points or information, the picture is "perfect" however, if don't have all the points or points are missing... there is a degradation in image quality... It's like encoding an image in 1080p and taking it down to 720p... There is obviously not the same amount of information in the signal. If you don't have a cable the handles a high enough speed, it loses 1/0s. It's really that simple folks... It is true, it's either there or its not... but is all the picture's information being transfered? or do you have packet loss?Also, I don't know if a mass majority of people know; but Best Buy doesn't carry the top of the line. It's all consumer level products... There are professional and pro-sumer grade products out there... and people know of Monster 1000s... but I bet they never even heard of Monsters M Series.
ne0x1tyJan 17, 2008
It does matter where he stands when you're talking about digital... Under stress or distance, the electronic signal can be more level. In your analogy, it would be like the man standing in the exact middle of the ladder or a rung up or a rung down... is he up or is he down... The processor can then mix 1/0s and you have interference or signal loss....Say also that the ladder if the bandwidth or path for information in the cable... and the man is the information. If the man is of average stature with the average ladder, he can get up and down with no problem. However, say it is a very fat man, a 1080p 120hz DTS-HD man and he uses that average ladder... He's still going to be able to get up maybe, but chances are that he is going to need a better ladder, one that can hold his weight.With analog, you need a thicker wire gauge to handle more power... with digital, you need a faster cable, to handle more information.
ne0x1tyJan 17, 2008
Problem lies in that salesman showing you a top of a line cable when all you really needed was a stand cable that would have cost like 85 for a Monster or 60 for a cheapo...He didn't know what the appropriate cable would be for that player.
chrix3001Jan 14, 2009
LOOK peoplepeople !!! I just bought a Sony KDL-46XBR4 LCD 1080p, and the biggest advise I can give you is to buy your HDMI cable(s) BEFORE you buy your TV, and shop online (i.e EBAY AMAZON) . That way you dont have some dumbA** salesperson tell you , you need this 135.99 HDMI cable. In conclusion , do what I did . Go online where I bought 2 Monster Ultra 800 4ft cables for $60.00 on EBAY. So when the salesperson told me I needed that $135.99 cable I told him to shut the hell up and get my damn TV....NOW