HELP: Identify Monster IC directivity


Maybe someone here can help: I have a pair of Monster M950 interconnects where all the lettering is worn off. These cables once had directional stickers and lettering on the cables itself which is all gone. I unscrewed the termination sleeves and all soldering terminations look the same to me.

I'm wondering if directional arrows are just there to establish a set route or is cable orientation crucial?
Can anyone help?
theduke
If you unscrew RCA, you'll se weather the shield soldered onto the chassis(ground) or not. If that's the case than its out of component.
No difference in sound though.
The lettering on the interconnect should follow the music flow. In other words if you use them for a power amp the music is going into the amp so hook the interconects to where you can read the lettering as it is going into the back of the amp.On a source CD/Tuner/phono hook them up so that you can read the lettering going into the back of the pre.
IME I really wouldn't worry about the directionality of Monster ICs. I have a bunch of Monster THX I100 analog ICs and Digital coax cables and when I mixed up the directions I heard no difference in sound quality. Gear used at the time was Emotiva ERC-1 CDP, Marantz CD-5003 CDP, then a McCormack DAC-1 connected to a McCormack TLC-1 preamp.

On a different note when I had a pair of Tice Audio speaker wire that had arrows showing the direction of the signal flow but the instructions said the proper direction is the one that sounds good to you.
Direction of signal will be concidered burning in the IC's. The flow of the signal will leave a signature on the IC in that direction.
But not all is lost. Make a decision on what direction to use the IC's and mark them accordingly. Then hook them up and with a little burn in time the cables will sound like they where meant to go that way.