Eugene, Monster Cable is a good cable. Just like anything, people are going to have opinions. I have met and talked extensively with Noel Lee-The Head Monster, and his contention was that powerline 2 plus is not supposed to be in the same class as the Transparent cables. That's why Monster makes "M" series and Sigma series cables. Bottom line, I use Monster Sigma Bi-Wire cables with an Adcom GFA-5500, GFP-555II, GCD-750, and Kef Reference Model Two's. I have tested Kimber, Audioquest, and Transparent. The one thing I found was the monster sounded just as good as all of those at less money. Do what's right for you and what you can afford. If you can, buy the cables from a reputable dealer that has a 30-day MONEY BACK guarantee, and return the cables you don't like. |
Yes, cables can make hugh differences in sound on your system. I too have heard a number of cables from both Kimber and Cardas, and they blow away anything I have ever heard from Monster, IMO. Transparent cables may be good, but seem to be even more system dependant than most. I would recommend the Select line from Kimber, or Purist Audio Designs. I was using PAD on my ReQuests with a Levinson No.38 pre and Classe CA300 power to good success. One last thing, never buy cables outright, money back guarentee or not. Most dealers charge a restocking fee at the very least. Any half decent dealer will let you borrow the cables to try at home in your system, for no cost. The length of time they'll let you borrow them for varies with each dealer. Good luck and Enjoy! |
The Monster cable is a pretty good cable. However, Transparent sounds better to my ears. But: maybe it doesn't sound better to your ears, and for the money you can buy a neat pile of cd's. Decide for yourself whether or not you're missing something in the sound of your system, and if that's worth the money. If you buy another cable, get some kind of money-back guarantee. |
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The best is JPS or Miller Sound. I have used Monster Sigma. Got rid of them after Miller Sound which is a cheaper version of JPS. No cable better to my ears unless you get into thousands of dollars for exotic cables. |
Problem is probably with the Martin Logans. Owned a pair of Quest's once. Was constantly fighting the room. If you have the speaker's closer than three feet from any wall they are too close. If you have cathedral ceilings, give up ,,,, you loose. |
Most of our customers use Transparent or NBS analog cables with that type of set up. MIT & the new higher end Monster is also a possibility. Forget about Cardas with your particular set up. Goodluck. thanks, Brian@HelloHiFi.com ph805.527.9739 fax805.527.9808 www.hellohifi.com eCatalog available. New equipment demos by appointment. All quotes are good for 30 days. Customers in every state, & 26 countries (angol/ingles/englisch/beszelunk magyarul!/ hablamos en espanol/wir sprechen deutsch). |
I will only recomend only one cabel..Transparent Audio and that best match for them. |
Having owned the Quest Z's myself, I experimented with many different cables with them. Monster Sigma Reference, JPS Labs Superconductors, etc. The JPS cable will provide adequate performance levels. They are extremely neutral, and JPS offers a bi-wired version if you desire to bi-wire the Quests. However, no other speaker cable has come close to providing the performance that my current Transparent Audio Wave Ultras provide. These cables have brought the greatest single improvement to date within my system. They are pricey to be certain, but these are the only cables I know of which deliver the goods. If you really want to hear what your Quests are capable of, experiment with a pair of Wave Ultras yourself. You'll find them used for around $900 for an 8' pair. About the price of an average CD player, but providing far greater benefits. The gentleman who suggested checking your distance to the front wall provided you valuable information as well. Proper set-up with any Martin Logan speaker is absolutely critical. They will require breathing room. Having said that, I actually sold my Quest Z's simply because I found they were actually too large for my modest 15'x 20' room. The SL3's and Aerius I's both provide much better performance and dynamics in this room than the Quest Z's were able to. Enjoy! |
I purchased a pair of reQuests last year and tried the following cable Manufacturers: Transparent, Cardas, Goertz, JPS Labs, D. H. Labs and Harmonic Technology. Although each different cable had a positive virtue or two, only one released the "magic" hidden in the reQuests. The Harmonic Technology speaker cable was dead even or clearly superior in all categories to all the other cables. It was so good that I upgraded all of my interconnects and power cords as well. The speaker cables were about $900 per 8 ft. pair(bi-wired) and the interconnects were $250. The power cords were $180. The "single crystal" design of all of their products is simply a result of a better manufacturing process that leads to superior sonic results. Since the reQuests have to be plugged-in, I would reccommend buying the power cords first. The interconnects second, and finally the speaker cables last. Jim Wang of Harmonic Technology suggested that strategy for me and the incremental changes were astonishing. |
What about..MIT MH 750 bi...? |
Since you have already had many responses, I am not going to offer any specific recommendations except for power cords. In my opinion and the opinion of Audio Research, the best power cords are from Aural Symphonics (Univocal). I was not ready for the improvement, especially on digital sources and preamp. Amazingly, they make a major difference on ML's as well. A general piece of advise. All audio systems are just that, systems made up of components that all have some type of skew. Use the cable to tune to your tastes, but insure that the capacitance is right for your needs or you will be inserting the equivalent of a high pass filter between components and roll off the highs. The other issue is phase coherency. Most of the recent better cables are fairly phase coherent (improved resolution). Regarding Monster. I am not a big fan, although their M2.4 biwire speaker wire is a steal for a cable that is probably almost as good as the absurdly priced Transparent cables which are merely good wire with a Zobel network on the end to stablize impedence. |
10-gauge stranded zip cord. Your ears and wallet will thank you very much. Challenge you to hear the difference. |
I've had three different M-Ls (Aerius, SL3 and now CLSIIz). Have used Cardas, MIT, Tara, Nordost and XLO Signature. I've settled on the XLO with the CLSIIzs. It was a tossup between Nordost and XLO with the Aerius and SL3s (I was using biwiring for these two speakers). None of the cables sounded bad. I would have been happy with any of them if I had not compared them with each other (which, of course, is part of the fun). As a postscript, I think the Nordost bi-wires sounded best (with SL3s and Aerius i's) when I used a tube amp (Jadis Defy 7). Van |
I originally had Monster PowerLine 2s with my QuestZs and the sound was very hard. Tried a bunch, all sounded way way better than the Monsters. Others all sounded pretty close; settled on Transparent bi-wire (about $600). Dump the monsters, they really were dissapointing. |
see my response to "ML-Tara, a good match?" on 8-21-99 in this forum. Al |
I use MIT currently. I've tried Monster Powerline but they were very hard sounding. |
