THX Moster Cable audio/video cables (1 Viewer)

[Kevinkall]

I just picked up the THX Monster Cable sub cable from Circuit City for $19.99. Seems to be made very well. Has anyone heard anything about these cables? Good? Bad?

 

[Bob McElfresh]

Monster makes good stuff. The price is not bad when you add in all the costs that make it possible for you to go out to many stores and just get what you need.

(Monster's marketing - dont get me started.)

The subwoofer cable only has to carry signals between about 10 and 120 hz. This is a trivial challenge for nearly any coax.

I have found subwoofers seem to be sensitive to liking a tight connector. Monster has a reputation for having "Turbine-grip-of-death" RCA plugs so this puts them a notch or two above many other brands.

And for $20 - you got a deal. Enjoy.

 

[Kevinkall]

Thanks for the response.

I'm thinking about upgrading all my audio/video cables with the THX Monster Cable series. They seem to be made very well and are pretty reasonable. Since I was planning on upgrading my cables anyway this seems like a perfect fit.

 

[Mark Hedges]

Also consider some of Tara Lab's products. Some people at the local high end store felt Tara's $10 interconnect was as good or better than Monster's $50 product.

Mark

 

[Chu Gai]

out of curiousity, just what are you 'upgrading' from?

 

[Kevinkall]

out of curiousity, just what are you 'upgrading' from?

I have all different types of cables. Nothing really too good, thats why I'm upgrading all of them. Just went thru and changed all my speaker wire, now I'm going to go thru and change all my audio/video cables. No sense in having nice hardware with junk cables.

 

[BrettP]

Do THX cables work with non-THX recivers? I just upgraded some of my cables from crap ones to monster. 1 comp, 1 optical, 1 coaxial and 1 video cable. I need to get more when I get the money.

-Brett

 

[Bob McElfresh]

Do THX cables work with non-THX recivers?

Yes. There is nothing different about a THX cable except that the manufacturer has sent it to Lucas and had it tested to make sure it meets minimum standards.

Think of it as a "Good Housekeeping" label.

While I dont like paying more for THX-certified products, I do respect Lucas for setting standards for commercial movie theaters where little/none existed before.

 

[PaulT]

/rant on/
IMHO the only ones really benefiting from THX-certification is Lucas and Holman. Tom is now trying to sell us 10.2 and George is licensing everything from DVD's to Lincoln car audio systems.

THX has made it possible for every mass market receiver to be stuck with an 80Hz LFE crossover .

What I would like to see 'standardized' is the methods by which companies publish their equipment specifications so they have some true sense of reality ie. power output for one. THX has done nothing for those 'important' aspects of system standards.
/rant off/

I feel much better now....

 

[Bob McElfresh]

THX has done nothing for those 'important' aspects of system standards.

I know you feel that way about home equipment, but what about commercial theaters? What 'standards' do you know of? Lucas found the lack, created the standard and refused to show his movies in theaters unless they met minimum standards.

Yes, many non-THX equipment for home use has as good/better specs than THX. But can you name some other standard for home equipment?

Like it or not, THX does have an un-abigious standard for power. I'd love it if people could report "THX-Power" numbers, but they dont allow the spec to be broken out this way. All parts of the speakers/receivers must pass THX or none of it does.

So THX does represent a standard. You may not like some parts of it, but ... what alternative do you know of?

 

[PaulT]

There is no alternative that I know of, but I object to Companies passing along the cost of THX licensing to Consumers for something that 'could and should' be much better.

How many Consumers out there can read a spec sheet and figure out what has been written down. Is it 100W x 5 into 8 Ohms, 4 Ohms, all channels driven, One Channel driven, continuous, etc etc. I don't think THX would sell so many front panel logos if they included standard measurement techniques - is that the fault of THX, no, it's the fault of the Manufacturer's, but it would make people like myself look for the THX label rather than question it. THX knows the Manufacturer's it is licensing would not pay for the logo if you could compare the products all the same way.

Unless you are prepared to pay for a THX license, you will not be able to get any information on what the THX specs are for cables and speaker wire for example. Kind of sounds like Monster's sales pitch to me.

I'd rather have nothing at all for HT than the minimalist standards set by THX. When people think of THX as a 'Product', and that THX gear must be used with other THX gear, then that to me is nothing more than Marketing.

What HT equipment needs for the Consumers benefit, is a way to compare 'apples to apples'. The less confusion, the more products go out the door with much happier people. Unless of course the confusion is meant to be there for an over-rated, over-priced product.

I certainly agree that THX in it's original form for movie theatres was a great idea. I just will not be joining the army of people paying to take Lucas' course and visit the Ranch.

 

[Shane Martin]

I use Monster's THX 12 guage speaker wire that wires my rear speakers and indeed they are very well built and were an improvement from the standard 12 guage(home depot) I had before. I needed longer lengths and got a good deal too

Is there better sounding? yes

I have other priorites though.

 

[RobWil]

I'm thinking about upgrading all my audio/video cables with the THX Monster Cable series.

I just bought some cables from heartlandcables that I like better than the Monster Reference II's that I paid $69.99 for. In fact they normally sell for $99.00. I'm taking them back. The cables from heartland (audio pair) were only like $25 or thereabouts, plus shipping. Very nicely put together also.
I also have a Monster THX digital audio coax cable I think was $19.99. I like the Radio Shack equivalent I paid $14.99 for better. Better sounding and looks to be better build.
Bluejeans cables are similarly priced as heartlands and they use similar material. I ordered some to try them out but haven't received them yet.
Just some options to think about and to make Paul happy.

 

[PaulT]

Well, I'm never really happy .

Going back to the original posters question:
Kevin, I have some Monster products that I purchased a long time ago. They are of good quality and I have had no problems with them. The price you paid is a good one for your sub cable.

The questions that always come up about 'upgrading' always lead to subjective answers. Some on the Forum believe that 'wire is wire' to a certain point, and others believe they hear a difference between oxygen free copper, silver, etc etc. Rather than try and filter through all the arguements it would be best if you were able to test drive some high priced speaker wire and cables and compare it to what you currently have. That way your ears (and pocketbook) will make the decision for you.

In my case locally, Monster is a high seller because there is a large markup for the retailers, therefore they push the product. Since they don't really publish any Specs of any meaningful kind, I have found them to be overpriced since I have since found a lot of Products available at Radio Shack (their own lines as well as Acoustic Research) that do not 'sound' any different to me, and the cost is a lot less. I have std 12 ga wire for my speakers (had Monster for many years in my old Stereo system), and a mishmash of home made and store bought interconnects.

Try different products if you can demo them, and decide for yourself if you would pay the price for the upgrade.

Good Luck.

 

[Chu Gai]

and an email to RS will get you quite a bit of information regarding their cables too.

 

[Kevinkall]

Thanks for all the replies...I will check out some of the other brands mentioned.

I could tell the difference from the sub cable included with the sub, another cheapo sub cable and the THX Monster cable. I'm no audiophile but I could hear the difference and the THX cable sounded the best. For $19.99 I'm happy.

 

[Bill Kane]

I like to think of it as ...wires just dont make a better and better "audiophile' difference, so much as the cheaply made wires are just exposed as worse ...

bill

 

[RobWil]

I'll buy that...and what it tells me is that my Monster cables were crap, because if they were decent at all I wouldn't hear such a difference between them and my new heartlandcables which are made with Canare L-5CFB coax. I used to think most of my older rock CD's were just poorly recorded so I rarely played them because they were very harsh and annoying sounding. I'm not sure why the Jazz recordings sounded OK though...it's wierd, but I stayed up past midnight last night listening to some CD's that previously sounded really bad that now sound great. I had to keep playing different ones to convince myself it was true.
Now when I get my new bluejeans cables I would not expect to notice a difference since they use similar coax (Belden 1694A).
edit:
Before knocking the Monster cables unjustifiably I wanted to add something I had thought about, but forgot, and that is that maybe I've just found a cable that is more of a match to my particular system.

 

[Pete GTP]

I purchased that Monster THX sub cable for $20 at CC. Ended up bringing it back and buying the Acoustic Research Pro II sub cable from another store. IMHO the AR pro cable is definately a step up from the new THX series Monster cables. More inline with the higher end Monster cables. The best part is that since Recoton (parent co. of AR) filed for chapter 11 the store I purchased them from is no longer going to carry AR. They are switching over to all Monster. I ended up getting the 15' $25 AR sub cable (which is a very good price to begin with) for $15. Of course I had to buy some other cable as well for the discounted prices. As a side note I do hope Recoton manages to sell off companies like AR to other corparations. I would hate to see AR vanish. And what would we do without Jensen.

 

[Chu Gai]

Now everyone here is calibrating their systems and subs I take it