The following is my wholehearted, sincere, contribution to anyone considering purchasing Monster brand interconnects.
Monster Cables have succeeded by preying on the unknowing, so in the case of this company, knowledge truly is power. Few people will argue that Monster's products are bad, but that's only half of what you need to know. The important thing to understand about this company is the that cables of like quality need not be as expensive as what they charge. Monster Cables are in esscense a poor value, since they are overpriced. Monster would have you believe in a general stereophile ideology that cable pricing should be commensurate with the price of your equiptment, which is simply not true. I honestly wouldn't replace the quality built interconnects in my sysrem regardless of changes in my budget or equiptment. The reason is simple, any possible increases created by another brand of cables perfomance would NOT be audible.
There are certainly cables out there of lesser durabiltiy, and with less shielding, and poorer quality connectors than Monster, but there are also cables out there with equal and better quality at a lower price!
In my search for such a cable, I found Phoenix Gold's reference series cables to be the best combination of flexibilty, impedence accuracy, shielding, construction, and price. You can find these at Parts Express among other places. I welcome other suggestions, as I'm sure there are other cables which have similar properties, that are better values than what Monster can offer.
