Gizmodo
Hey guys: I just got back from meeting with Noel Lee from Monster Cable, along with a posse of affiliated ladies and gentlemen, and their heavy equipment. I was there to talk to them about the fact that they sell—and have convinced a lot of retailers to sell—very expensive cable ($120 for 2 meters, last I checked). At the same time, there are cheaper non-Monster cables available on the Internet. My simple question Why? resulted in an organized, technical 2-hour response. I won't give you the blow-by-blow, but I have information that might make this debate interesting, and a bit more three-dimensional.
Let's start with my allegation about Monster, which isn't mine alone, because Lee helpfully pointed out the gist of it in the opening of his presentation:
I say, since everything is digital, and since HDMI is a spec, the cheap cable will get the data from point A to point B as well as any other cable. Additionally I say that if there are subtle (i.e. videophile-grade) differences in cables, the average consumer isn't going to spot them on the TV.
Am I wrong? Monster says yes, but in Lee's elaborate answer I felt both his POV and mine were justified.
Here are Monster's truths:
Bandwidth is King.
The requirements of 1080p and beyond is what separates from the high-end cable from the knock-offs. This is the same as Ethernet cable, in the sense that a cable certified for HDMI 1.3a "Highspeed" will guarantee greater throughput. The newest spec, 1.3a means just over 10Gbps of bandwidth. Standard 480p requires less than 1Gbps, the current 8-bit 1080p requires 4.46 Gbps, but the next gen 1080p formats will require nearly 15Gbps, more than the highest certified HDMI cable can support. (See chart if you can, if not I'll try to get a better one up later.)
Not all cables are the same.
During Lee's slideshow, he demonstrated via X-Ray slides that pricier cables (OK, Monster's) have a smaller chance of wear and tear damage at the point where the cable meets the connector. t's a concept that's easy for any musician to understand—remember all of those shorting-out patch cords?
Even if it has an HDMI-style connector, it may not be certified HDMI.
You have to look for the HDMI logo, says Steve Venuti of HDMI Licensing. There are tons of knock-offs, especially the bundled or online cables, since you can't look at the packaging when you buy. Really high-end cables will certify other things, such as HDMI 1.3a and even "Highspeed."
Just because digital information is made up of ones and zeros it can still degrade, especially over distances.
I get this now, because it's not about the digital info just getting there, like packet data. It's video, so it's about the digital info getting there at the right time to make sense. It's also audio, and over distances, there's a greater chance that audio and video will get out of sync. The following pictures show a test that they run that measures data throughput. In the interest of brevity, I'll just say that the more those lines crowd the center, the greater the risk of having crappy video.
This is what it looks like when a low-grade 10-meter cable tries to handle 720p:
This is what it looks like when a Monster 10-meter cable tries to handle 1080p:
Differences in cable are easily spotted by untrained eyes.
A PS3 feeding 1080p signal to a Samsung 1080p LCD TV starts to jitter and throw digital noise lines across the screen if the cable can't hack the bandwidth. We tested the two cables above on a PS3 showing a Blu-ray of Chicken Little and it was totally noticeable, there were lines and jitters, none of this videophile matter-of-opinion stuff that I had anticipated. It was totally obvious, and something that Monster says people often blame on their TV, not their cable.
Future proofing and heavy-duty cable are crucial for in-wall installation.
This probably made the most sense of all. Given the fact that in-wall cable is longer than others, you'd need something that can handle the bandwidth. (In fact, when it gets to 50 feet, you don't have many choices in the cable world for that reason—Monster says it's soon headed for 100 feet of HDMI.) Couple that with staples, kinks and other weirdness that might happen with in-wall installation, and the fact that when you upgrade your TV, you don't want to have to re-do your drywall, and Monster has a good point.
Lest you think I be drinkin' Lee's Kool-Aid, here are my caveats to Monster's truths:
• If you are going from any source to a 720p or 1080i TV set, you should really be in the clear using a full-on crappy ass cable.
• As long as you're not doing installing the wiring in your wall, start with the crappy cable. If it sucks and you only paid $20 for it, go back and spend more on something certified.
• In the demo, Monster even proved that good components can offset crappy cables: that PS3 and that Samsung 1080p were able to work around much of the problems, all the more reason why, in a non-custom non-in-wall installation, you should try out the lower grade stuff first.
So listen, you've heard it from me: there are differences in cable, but there are also differences in technical requirements. We don't all need $120 cables for our components. As to the question of why Monster won't offer a lower-priced product in recognition of these differences in technical requirements, Lee told me to "stay tuned."
OK people, let's hear it. Go ahead and vent.
Company site [Monster Cable]
Info site [HDMIInfo.org]
Comments
you should have brought some of your own cables to make it a little more objective.
They are still overpriced. When I worked in an electronics store, they were market up at least 70% at retail. God knows how much its marked up for wholesale.
This is what it looks like when a low-grade 10-meter cable tries to handle 720
Who uses almost 33 feet of cable?
Sorry - I don't care how well they are made... manufacturing these cables is cheaper than you even think it is. The markup on those things must be sick.
I'm with erockO on this one. I could rig a cable in the same way really easily.
As an electronics engineer of 24 years standing, let me tell you CATEGORICALLY that this is horseshit.
The cheap cable will transmit digital information just as well as the monster cable over distances up to 20 metres or more.
Monster have been pulling the wool over audiophiles eyes for years.
Its hilarious to see them try the same schtick on digital transmission, just hilarious.
this isn't horseshoes or hand grenades. Either a digital signal gets there fine or not.
If you're doing industrial applications you will use industrial grade cable, you will not go to Best Buy and buy Monster cable.
I was pretty horrified to find that they don't sell cheap cables at Best buy anymore. I needed to replace a composite cable that runs from a 10 year old VCR to a 20 year old TV last week. The cheapest cable Best Buy had was $20. I'm sure my sister noticed the dramatic increase in quality vs the pack in cable.
As long as people are drinking the kool-aid they'll keep serving it.
"This is what it looks like when a low-grade 10-meter cable tries to handle 720
Who uses almost 33 feet of cable?"
I'd like to second that notion. Clearly Monster was using a rather obvious example. However, nowhere in your description did I hear any discussion of cheaper certified cables being unable to handle the required bandwidth.
Of course Monster is better than "crappy." Good is better than crappy. That isn't really a claim that Monster gets to own and it really isn't an explanation of why Monster Cables are so ridiculously overpriced.
Noel is a cheap, cheating bastard. Not only does he not give his engineers raises when he is making tons of money, the day he tells them that they are not getting a raise, he drives his new Lamborghini Gallardo to work to show it off. He has a fleet of ultra performance cars all off the profits from his flim-flam cable jargon. Too bad that he also chooses not to pay vendor for the work that they have done for Monster.
Noel sells snake oil and everyone in the true high cable market knows this- he sells his shit at fry's, best buy and the like! No true high-end store wants anything to do with him.
Who uses 33 feet of cable? Anyone with a large room set up as a front-projection home theater. I have to cover 23 feet from screen to projector, plus my ceiling is Vaulted up to 18 feet high. I use a 50' cable for that. It's Component rather than HDMI (I haven't gone full HD yet) and it's not a Monster Cable. So, yeah, people do use cables that long. Though, at least with my analog setup, Monster cables are definitely not neccessary.
Noel Lee...I know and have had dealings as a supplier to Monster. He and their whole "Monster Cables are better" is a load of crap.
Real audio engineers would sooner use LAMP CORD then a monster cable....and let me give you a perfect example of why and how this is.
Take the cables from your amplifier going to your speakers. If you think that the difference between a monster cable vs same gauge OFC wire matters consider this. The SPEAKER IS THE WORST PART OF THE WHOLE EXPERIENCE. At 5% average efficiency vs the .000001% difference in cables which by the way is below the noise floor. The speakers have more distortion than the cables, amplifier, source put together. It is the nature of the beast.
In triple blind tests listeners could not differentiate between brands of cables and LAMP CORD.
There is a reason Monster spends so much on advertising vs actual product value. They sell to fools who think the cables matter. (especially in a digital connection...it is either good or not).
This from the same group of marketers that brought you DIGITAL SPEAKERS (you know the ones with the red/black terminals). ROFL.....who was that famous seer that said "A suckers born every minute"
"they were marked up at least 70% at retail."
I meant 700%. As in the store buys the cable for $7 and sells it for $50.
This is a very balanced assessment of the Monster cable. I appreciate that you've stated the caveats very clearly, because the bottom line is that a Monster cable IS better, but the great majority of the time this improvement makes no difference whatsoever for a digital signal. For me, 1080p is extreme overkill and I don't see ever needing it. So I'll stick with the cheap online cables.
The interesting thing is that 1080p video is a very recent development, but Monster has been happily selling their overpriced HDMI cables for many years. What argument could they possibly make to justify their price before 1080p came around? And the argument that "it's more durable" is completely irrelevant unless you are moving your equipment around all the time.
I also believe the big markups claim. "Bargain" retailers like Best Buy and CompUSA have been boosting their profit margins for years on accessory and cable sales, because people generally don't know better.
That's cool and all but how many people have a 1080p TV? For the moment (or until I can afford it), I'm quite content with my 50" Rear Projection CRT... which only cost me $200 ;)
No thanks, I'll save my money and buy a $10 cable on Newegg (and even that is a ripoff for a cable really).
And on a another note, while Noel the Gimp expounds about how great his cables are, did he point out that all of his cheap shit is made in Communist China from off the shelf, run of the mill parts. Nothing special at all! He has repeatedly failed to move his company into other markets because Monster is just and only will ever be a cheap cable and shitty surge protector company. Noel go ride on one of you fleet of Segways onto the 101!
I am a 25-year veteran of the broadcast and audio/visual industry. I've been observing the deal with Monster Cable, ever since it came out. The answer between me and my colleagues is simple: People are stupid...and no matter what you tell them they will continue to be stupid. I remember back in the early 90s, when Monster made only their overpriced speaker cable. I colleague of mine who had a pretty heavy-duty electronics shop in his business. They did a very complete "sweep" of the cable and they found that any difference in quality was neglibile, and essentially nullified by commonly bad installation, lousy equipment, poor signal management, and improper use. It's prettymuch the same way today.
Monster resorts to a commonly used practice known as "specs-manship". If you can prove on paper that your product performs in a certain way, under certain circumstances (usually in a laboratory environment), you can claim superior performance and a resulting premium market price. Total nonsense. Lordargent made an accurate statement in the prior posting: "Who uses 33 feet of cable?" Most people need about 5 feet. I recently outfitted my masterbedroom with a nice Sharp Aquos 1080p LCD with all the trimmings. I balked at the non-sensical price of Monster Cable. Instead, I purchased some $7 HDMI cables online. They work perfectly. No artifacting...no dropouts. Oh yeah...and for anyone who talks about Monster having greater "clarity", tell them to get their head examined! Just as we discovered in the 90s that Monster speaker cable produced frequency performance advantages that were beyond the physical capabilities of most people to hear, if you can see bit-related errors from an HDMI signal, you need to get a job with the circus.
All kidding aside, here is my advice. Go to a retailer, buy the cheapest one, if it doesn't work, take it back and get the next better product. (For HDMI cables at Best Buy, this means you have three levels of pricing choice for the same type of product.) If you're really smart, buy the cheap ones that get endorsed here on Gizmodo.
Having been in the cable design and manufacturing business dating all the way back to 1986 as the co-founder of 2 cable companies, I can say that yes differences in materials and manufacturing will affect performance, especially at higher speeds, BUT quality cables do not cost much more than a lesser quality cable as much as some of the "high end" suppliers would have you believe. Monster does make quality products, but so do alot of other companies. Our customers were all the major OEMs, Sun, HP, Compaq, Apple, Sony, Avaya, Cisco etc. and I guarantee they do not pay for perceived quality based upon price. Belkin would probably be a good baseline for quaility products at a reasonable price. Most of Monster's cost is in packaging and marketing... not materials or manufacturing.
eh hem hem:
http://monoprice.com/home/index.asp
I'm going to call bullshit on paying that much for a cable. If a digital HD satellite signal can travel from the roof, through my house and to my box via coax, then that's certainly good enough for most people.
All Monster is doing is catering to uneducated people that want HD but don't know anything about electronics. These are the people that go to the "car dealerships" of media stores and line the gold pockets of the sales-people when they could have gotten the same deal for thousands less had they had known what they were doing.
BTW,
When did a summary of a Monster Cable PR Event magically transform into "The Truth About Monster Cable?" That really isn't an accurate summary of this post. Perhaps "Monster Explains Itself?" or "Monster Cable Touts Self-Proclaimed Superiority?
I wouldn't call Wilson Rothman concession that "crappy" cables are ok to send SD to to an HD set much of a concession nor would I characterize a summary of a presser as a "balanced" article.
Monster cables may be expensive, but most people tend to only purchase them along with a High Def Television; this automatically reduces the price by 50% for Monster Cables at most of the major retailers due to the new June Monster deal that retailers have adopted until the end of the year. Retailers received high grade Monster cables packaged in flimsy plastic bags to attach Monster cables to TV sales to make the price more affordable. Monster has excellent products but most people whine about them because they can't afford them.
Don't get me wrong, I own the HDMI free cables that Comcast gives out with their DVR's to use for broadcasting signals, but on my 1080P Player to my 1080P TV I use Monster and see an obvious difference in picture quality in a terrestrial setting.
So what are the chances of a cheap cable being 'HDMI' certified? Are there any out there?
Don't buy Monster Cables. Don't even buy the stuff at Best Buy. Get the cheapest one you can find online. I can't believe you fell for their line about blaming the TV for the cable. What a load of crap. None of those tests were scientific, independent, under normal conditions (even normal videophile conditions), or tested against a kown quantity.
Spend your money on better equipment. Hell, pay extra taxes if you really have that much of a hole burning in your wallet.
Monster has great marketing. Better still, they have great channel management and train, train train retail sales people. In a nutshell, they put the effort into making sure retailers get the highest margin possible from selling Monster products - most of their profit as a matter of fact. Love Monster products or hate them, every retailer loves the margin.
So long as Monster delivers the margin and the brand image, people will be convinced to buy the product.
Oh, and monoprice.com is the place to shop. AND I have 30 foot runs of S-Video, HDMI, and component (all monoprice.com) from a/v stack to my ceiling mounted projector.
Sucker!
I buy all my cables at monoprice.com They have stuff that uses thick solid copper if you really want (better than stranded). Anyhow the point is everyone that says its digital so it doesn't matter. If you have a crappy cable that introduces enough noise into the signal e.g. long distance, crappy shielding, DC noise, and you won't get a thing. It is not like analog were the signal just slowly degrades.
So monster has a point good cables do matter, now is a $50 monster cable better than a $5 newegg/monoprice/cheap(price) cable HELL NO! Unless you are unlucky and the cable has a ton of cold solder joints, you should be fine.
great comments...except that one that just says "Sucker!"
Cheap cables are not marked up as much. Expensive cables are. Cheap cables aren't as quality as expenive cables, but like WR said, the componets may have ways around it. If you've got the budget, might as well go high end with everything. Ah, if money only poured out of a sink...
I have a 2.0 Core Duo Macbook Pro hooked into a Samsung 1080p HDMI 1.3 compatible Model 4661. When I close my laptop and use the TV as the sole monitor, the picture looks great. However, when I use it as an extended desktop, a green line runs down a little less than a 1/3 of the way from the right side of the screen. Are you telling me that it is because of the cheapo cable I got? Or could it be the DVI-HDMI adapter I use? I figured it had something to do with bandwidth from the graphics card (ATI X1600). Any ideas?
hehe Marketing Is Great.
People see the high price and think ..
$20 crappy...$120 The best.
Hahahaha!! Associating Quality with Price is the consumers biggest blunder and the Marketers biggest Achievement!
Its Called Premium Pricing!
Of course Quality Control does Up the Price, but in the end you are paying to have "monster" written on your cable.
I fall between the Late Majority and a Laggard, depending on what Product is being sold.
I'm the Smart Consumer.
Patience is a virtue, in your Wallet and your decision making.
Don't Buy Monster, $120 for 2 metres of Cable....what a joke.
I wish I thought of this earlier.
For Every 2 metres, $1 manufacturing , $10 scraping money for R&D from Suckers or Innovators(hehe, thats what marketers call them), $15 for Promotion, $2 for contacts and the Rest is all profit.
this is not a fair and balanced assesment. First off, for it to be apples to apples, both cables would be HDMI spec, and both examples would be 720p OR 1080p.
As far as monster cable in general, as an audio guy I would much rather use Mogami or Zaolla cables if I was going to buy a pre made cable. Monster makes junk for consumers and weekend warriors who want to spend more on their gear but have no idea how. You wont find monster cables in a real studio or in a studio supply store. You will find them in GC, Sam Ash etc
That would be P.T. Barnum. And if he were alive today he'd be selling HDMI cables too.
The only thing monstrous about Monster Cable are their (read: Noel's) profits. Let's just hope they don't spread out their interests and venture into the oil industry: just imagine "Premium Quality High Performance Gasoline CERTIFIED for your 2-ton Hummer" - $500/tank.... Chug chug chug goes the kool-aid
I worked at Best Buy and cables are their bread and butter. We would lose up to $100 selling a computer but more than make up for it by pressure selling people cables and accessories (why I quit). The employee discount there is 20% above cost. A $50 Monster cable would cost me about $10. The markup on ALL types of cables is retardedly ridiculous. I bought a $20 cell charger for my car for $4.
Wilson, they raise some interesting points, but I am not convinced. My issues are as follows:
- you or they didn't say where the low-grade 10-meter cable came from. What would have been more useful (albeit not from Monster's perspective, perhaps) is to compare a number of cables; dirt cheap, mid-range and theirs.
- There is an argument that it is worth putting in better cables for long runs and wiring a house. No doubt; a better cable will have less signal loss, pickup less interference, etc. But the question is when that signal loss, etc leads to data loss. I can't tell from the graphs on screen how much the signal loss is there, but if it doesn't cause interpretation errors, then it won't be an issue. Every cable causes some signal strength loss; the issue is if that is a problem or not.
- Durability is an issue, but I don't think that most people plug in and unplug their cables that often. Sure, if you are constantly switching equipment, spend the extra for cables with better headers, sleeves, etc. But otherwise, I think it's a waste.
- Future proofing; perhaps, but most new standards are going to involve new connectors, so unless you run raw cable and put the ends on yourself, you are going to need to do new cable runs.
- As you say, good components can deal with weaker signals; they have better amps and receiver components that can interpret a weak signal better. When I am plugging a device into a TV and they are next to each other, I'll use cheap cables and only upgrade if there is a problem. And if I was wiring anything over a distance like 10 meters, I'd look at using a HDMI amp or repeater.
I don't really see why anyone even cares about this subject anymore.
They have a company. They produce a product that does what they say it will do. They make a price for that product. People buy the product.
I won't ever buy a monster cable unless it's the cheapest cable available. 99.9% of the readers here at Giz hopefully won't either.
That's the great part though: everyone has a choice.
This seems, for lack of a better analogy, getting pissed off at Jaguar for selling overpriced lame cars that get one from point A to B when they could be making cars like Hyundai.
Yes, cable quality matters if you have otherwise awesome gear, but the average consumer hooking up a game console and dvr to a home theatre-in-a-box type setup does not need great cables. It sucks that big box stores are pushing Monster stuff so much, when Monoprice's cables work just as well for most people.
Also, I don't even know how great Monster cables are. I suspect you're paying a lot for the name and marketing. If I have a/v equipment that warrants it, I usually just go to a place like bluejeanscable.com that has a good reputation and makes good enough custom cables with an excellent price/performance ratio. Anything beyond that is overkill unless you're a serious audiophile.
Yeah, he drank the Kool-aid.
What about in lower bandwidth situations, like USB cables? Even if their claims of Monster cables being able to move more data more quickly, you can't assume that you can make the same comparison with the $3 USB cables vs. the $30 Monster USB cables.
I'd still like to know what purpose a gold plated optical audio cable serves. Does the gold help reflect that light the extra few millimeters that much better to guarantee the best audio I can get?
I'm happy with my $14 HDMI cable and $7 optical audio cable in my home theater.
I can confirm what some others have been saying. I worked at the Canadian Best Buy, Future Shop, and Monster products were some of the best deals we could get with our staff discount. The cables especially. They are marked up to the extreme.
I work at an apple store and we sell HDMI certified 1.3a HDMI cables for $19.99.
oh btw Monster laid off most of their stateside workforce a while back to go overseas (china). they are in litigation about this as we speak.
I've been saying this for years, and I still think monster sucks. And pcmicrostore.com sells sweet cat5e cables, 100 feet for 12 dollars, as opposed to like 70 dollars for 50 feet at best buy. Stupid.
Sky516:
Wow. I never thought I'd hear the day that something was cheaper at an Apple store.
"It was totally obvious, and something that Monster says people often blame on their TV, not their cable."
Maybe if Monster didn't package their cables in blister packs that the stores give you a hard time about returning after you open them then people could actually TEST their cables to see if they get better picture quality. Until I actually start seeing these jitters and such I'll stick with the far cheaper cables I get from pricegrabber.com.
I was at the Monster briefing, and while I do have some respect for Monster's products, there's no way you can justify the incredibly high price.
Unlike what Noel Lee and co. would like you to believe, you're not paying for a top end cable. What you're paying for is licensing from HDMI, Dolby, Simplay, et al. The fact is you can purchase cables as good if not better quality than Monster for a fraction of the cost. The caveat is that you just need to do about five minutes worth of research.
Yes, the Monster cables performed better than generic_hdmi_cable001, (they refused to disclose the brand of cable) but the reality is that the techs most likely screened for the worst of the worst cables explicitly for the presentation.
I spoke with Mr. Venuti about the spec, I asked him what the point of enforcing the spec and going after "counterfeitters, and instead let the market decide. He basically said that the little sticker is used as a stamp of approval for cables.
For consumers with deep pockets that need assurances that their cables have been excessively quality tested, I say go for it. Personally, I'll keep buying my $7 cables from monoprice.com.
Here's the thing. Monster delivers good quality cables, so I would not go as far as calling them a scam. However, they price them so outrageously compared to the competition that you'd have to be a fool to buy them. Nothing illegal here, but they have to be exposed for their indecent markups. I sincerely hope that anyone working to produce these cables, all along the food chain, receives decent pay and is able to work in decent conditions. Maybe that should be investigated. Anyway, I bet they are aware of the Web noise and ready to announce a new, cheaper line, as they suggested in your meeting. While they will keep selling the "high end" line for all the fools who insist on a lifetime guarantee and things like that.
And good job for giving them a voice anyway. That was being fair, not being naive.
Monster has no reason to make 'reduced priced/ cheaper/ every man' cables. It would immediately kill most of the sales of their standard lineup. And the fact that they make USB cables just about floored me, which shows how long it's been since I went into a Best Buy.
My father in law asked me if he should get the $120 or $36 HDMI cable for his 50 inch Bravia... a setup where it might actually matter. I told him to find the cheapest one, for all the reasons you guys laid out. He came back with a $100 1.5 meter cable, 'just in case'. Give people your version of the facts, and then let them do what they're going to do.
Ok, so I began to read these comments and although I didn't end up reading every single one I kept hearing the same thing over and over again...That the cable doesn't make a difference. Having been in the music business not only for a number of years but also having done work with some of the largest bands in the industry in many many concerts of over 10,000people I KNOW that the cable makes a HUGE difference as to sound quality. I have utilized monster cables in some venues and been reasonably happy with how they have performed. I will say however that there is a reason that the specs are out there. For me it was only a matter of having one of the roadies sit down and splice me whatever audio cable it was I needed, (because we bought cable 1000 ft at a time) but some of the artists that I worked with used them and loved them. If you have the money to buy a Porsche why in the hell would you drive a Pinto?
Monster Cable is a litigious warden of the apocalypse. They rank up there with Bose. Gizmodo should know better.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=425...
They also sued www.monster.com - go there and scroll to the bottom of the main page.
@xthemusicmanx
If you connected all the audio equipment up with HDMI cables you'd have a point. But you didn't.
"If you have the money to buy a Porsche why in the hell would you drive a Pinto?"
Think of buying Monster cables as paying sticker price on that Porsche. Sure, you could take the car sale