Monster's Noel Lee Struggling For Survival

Ever open up a set of Monster Cables? They are exactly the same on both sides, so there is no directivity....at all.

The arrow direction was to aid the user of which way a cable might be running, like is this cable from the tape in or the tape out? Pretty hard to see the back end of a preamp or receiver. I put arrows on my own DIY cables for the very same reason. BTW, if you think a cable can work with the shield disconnected on one end, you are not in the know.
They work very well as such, made with cross-connected Mogami mic cable.
I've never messed with Monster ICs. Had some Audio Technica that were basically similar to coax 75 Ohm RF cable, bidirectional, later salvaged the connectors for a project.
My experience seems to indicate that capacitance matters, there are experiments I'd like to do to investigate different configurations with similar capacitances.
 
BTW, if you think a cable can work with the shield disconnected on one end, you are not in the know.

There's a bunch of those 'wiring schemes' where twin core shielded is used and the shield dropped at one end. I'm not a proponent of such interconnect designs, but plenty are. The low output impedance of digital sources has allowed people to use any and all type of 'interconnects' with impunity. If it was still the vinyl/tape era, they'd have all sorts of hums and noises with dropped shields.

A lot of Japanese tape decks in the 1980s used single end earthed shielded jumpers inside the units themselves from point to point across the PCB. Akai did it a lot.
 
Arrows on single-end-connected-shield dual conducter shielded cables put the shield connection at the end least likely to introduce noise. In practice, the output end, which is how I do it. This is done to avoid having the shield as the return signal path.
Afaik, the end marking is not copyright.

I was kidding. I am fully aware that some manufacturers (to include Monster Cable) will sometimes use cable intended for balanced connections (such as microphone cable that is made with 2 or 4 conductors and a shield) will leave the shield unconnected at one end. The humor was that I have a set of Coaxial Monster cables with arrows on them. I don't think they would work very well with the shield disconnected at one end. Coaxial cables have a single conductor in the center and an outer shield. which servers as the negative (-) or signal return. Coaxial cables are not directional.
 
There's a bunch of those 'wiring schemes' where twin core shielded is used and the shield dropped at one end. I'm not a proponent of such interconnect designs, but plenty are. The low output impedance of digital sources has allowed people to use any and all type of 'interconnects' with impunity. If it was still the vinyl/tape era, they'd have all sorts of hums and noises with dropped shields.

A lot of Japanese tape decks in the 1980s used single end earthed shielded jumpers inside the units themselves from point to point across the PCB. Akai did it a lot.
I've done it as a mod, dropping one end of the shield signal return for a wired return in a 1940s octal radio and a Sony D5 docking adapter with audibly improved results. Scott used twisted pairs in their tube era stuff instead of shield return coax. My Muse amp uses twisted triples for the balanced inputs, no coax anywhere. I'm a believer but modifying everything is a pita.
 
My apologies if my attempt at humor derailed this discussion. All joking aside, Monster Cable is actually responsible for getting me to realize that in SOME cases, cables can make a significant difference in sound quality. A short little story if you will humor me. A long time ago, I had taken my newly-acquired CD player to a company party so we could spin come CD's. The next day back at home, I connected my CD player up using one of the cheap factory Pioneer RCA cables for an old cassette deck. (I could not find my CD player cable.) Yes, it was a Monster Cable with the arrows. The salesman at Sound Distributors talked me into buying it with the CD player. I never thought anything about it until I turned the CD player on and the sound was terribly "off" in comparison to before I took it to the party. Craig, my roommate, found my Monster Cable and handed it to me. I thought something was wrong with the CD player until I reconnected the Monster Cable. That fixed the issue. Shortly thereafter I replaced all my el cheapo RCA cables. No, I didn't buy all Monster Cables, but I did buy good quality cables.

A lot of the marketing hype surrounding Monster Cable was just that - hype. And, I poke fun at them at times because of it. However, it has been my experience that they did make a good quality product at the time I purchased mine. Hate to see them leave the marketplace, but the audiophile cable business is highly competitive these days. Just making a good quality cable doesn't cut it anymore. For example, I have a set of Monoprice cables that are every bit as good as my old CD player Monster Cable.

Cheers,
dB116
 
I've done it as a mod, dropping one end of the shield signal return for a wired return in a 1940s octal radio and a Sony D5 docking adapter with audibly improved results. Scott used twisted pairs in their tube era stuff instead of shield return coax. My Muse amp uses twisted triples for the balanced inputs, no coax anywhere. I'm a believer but modifying everything is a pita.
Also, I noted that the effective shunt capacitance remained the same in both examples, but there was an audible difference I heard as improvement in naturalness. The Sony example involved lengths of coax of only about an inch, which I still think remarkable.
Expectation bias? I really don't think so as I had a 1/8" stereo plug to RCA sockets adapter to parity check the change against. Unmod'ed, the docker sounded inferior to the adapter. Mod'ed sounded identical and much better than previously.
 
Also, I noted that the effective shunt capacitance remained the same in both examples, but there was an audible difference I heard as improvement in naturalness. The Sony example involved lengths of coax of only about an inch, which I still think remarkable.
Expectation bias? I really don't think so as I had a 1/8" stereo plug to RCA sockets adapter to parity check the change against. Unmod'ed, the docker sounded inferior to the adapter. Mod'ed sounded identical and much better than previously.
Memory being what it is after 34 years, I have to edit the last post here to note that I pulled the prime conductors from the shields in the docker and reconnected them outside the shield, so capacitance in this case would *not* have been the same as previous, but it couldn't have been much.
This concept needs a comparitive approach that keeps shunt capacitance identical, but uses a wired return against a shield return on identical lengths of the same coax, the point being that configuration, against merely shunt capacitance, makes a difference.
 
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Here is a photo of both ends of a pair of Monster Cable Interlink 400 MKII. Shield connected at both ends.
IMG_1613.JPG
 
Actually, they are not bad interconnects, Pf is a little high on them, but they are well made and pretty indestructible. The Politics or choices of the company aside, they served their purpose for me back in the day. In fact, there were not too many choices back then, other then to use the wimpy cables that came with the unit bought.
 
Switchcraft coax with stamped plugs were the US standard way back. Milled plugs, who heard of that?
Actually, stamped plugs on polyethylene coax in clean tight order aren't bad, for coax.
 
They work very well as such, made with cross-connected Mogami mic cable.
I've never messed with Monster ICs. Had some Audio Technica that were basically similar to coax 75 Ohm RF cable, bidirectional, later salvaged the connectors for a project.
My experience seems to indicate that capacitance matters, there are experiments I'd like to do to investigate different configurations with similar capacitances.
I put a set of cables made from Mogami 2549 mic wire with one end disconnected after my preamp. It was one of the rare times that cable switching made a big difference in the sound. It made the Blue Jeans LC-1 sound rolled off. Since they only cost about $20 I replaced all of my cables with them.
 
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