2. cables
  3. 1267742617

Is Monster cable getting better?

I don’t like monster cables in general and I know it has bad reputation(nothing but marketing) among audiophile & videophile. It is like bragging about your Bose system to people playing high end audio.

I don’t know why but not many high end cable company makes hdmi cable. So I picked up a Monster 1000HD hdmi at best buy and thought Monster is all about marketing and its performance would be easily surpassed by other cable company. I tried Audioquest hdmi3(not sure if it is genuine but bought from an A’gon member with 500+ positive feedback), bluejean, bettercable, monoprice… Monoprice has the worst performance but it only sell for $5. Some silver cables might render a little more detail than the Monster 1000HD, but the contrast and color and overall performance are still not as good as the Monster. The monster 1000HD looks very natural and smooth without loosing details.

I guess I am done with hdmi cable search and will stick with Monster for hdmi cable. Has anybody tried the Monster M2000 and is it much better than 1000HD? For audio cable I am using transparent and haven’t tried Monster yet. Maybe they are getting better, too.
yxlei

Showing 3 responses by yxlei

yxlei OP
31 posts
 
We did lots of blind tests for hdmi cables and my wife picked the Monster cable every time.
yxlei OP
31 posts
 
Never tried monster audio cable, but the connector for the monster 1000EX hdmi cable is very good. It is small and light, but you feel very smooth and secure when plugging into the TV. Other high end hdmi cable connectors are all big and bulky(make you feel it worth the extra money), but don’t fit into the TV connection as great as the monster one. Bigger and bulkier doesn’t necessarily mean better.
yxlei OP
31 posts
 
Thanks for all your responses. One thing I want to correct: the cable I use is Monster 10000EX instead of 1000HD. I am not sure it will make a difference.

I have to agree with Loomisjohnson that most of high end audio cables are over-priced like my transparent cables. You have to pay double the price when you want to move up one level with transparent cables. The top of line transparent Opus sells for $20,000. So the price tag can reach $1 million soon if they can come up with several levels high than the Opus.

I know it is far easy to tell the difference among audio cables than video cables especially hdmi cables. According to the specs, hdmi cables should have the same performance if they have solid construction, but I am not the only one who feels the Monster or other hdmi cables look much better than the well constructed Monoprice cable.

Maybe the difference is there, but many people are incapable of telling the difference. When you do a hdmi cable comparison, sometime people will forget what they saw from cable A after they switch to cable B. My wife can remember those details better than me. For those who can’t tell the difference among hdmi cables, lucky them because they can just happily use $10 cables.
More to discover