Someone should start a class action lawsuit...

[THOR]

This cable crap is just outta hand you can't even go to a store and get even a basic IC anymore. All I need is like a 3' toslink cable, cheapest one I could find was $20 Damm I only paid like $8 thru parts express for a 12' one, needless to say I will wait and get what I need from them. But while I was looking I both at CC and BB I kept seeing Monster this and Monster that and prices like $40 for a 6' set of RCA's and they carry on with all these bogus claims of what their cables do that others can't, I'm just sick of it. Too bad there is no way they have to PROVE their claims

 

[HBombToo]

This cable thing is the most perplexing aspect of this hobby imo.

With the prices paid for this stuff perhaps the FTC should get involved. I would pay for a product that could substatiate their claims but untill then I'm on the low road.

HBomb

 

[opt80]

Yep,I'd never pay big bucks for cable

 

[AudioGeek]

The really stinky part is: some of 'em actually DO make a difference. It's that other 75%-85% of hype that screws things up for this hobby. :uzi:

 

[VinylHanger]

I get all my RCA's at Goodwill. Usually I can find decent gold ended ones for a buck. I got fed up at going to Rat Shack and having them want 5 dollars for a cheap lowest china made potmetal molded ended connector. Sheesh, what a load o' crap.

 

[radiolee]

Monster Scam

One of the worst parts of my last job was sitting through Monster Cable sales meetings.

They'd basically sit you down and tell you what the best lies were for selling their grossly overpriced lines and promise you some kickbacks for pushing their crap.

A lot like BOSE. They've got the name, so they're going for it. The uninformed (aka moronic) buyer who knows nothing about what he's buying, so goes with the guys that advertise the most so aforementioned idiot doesn't have to worry about his friends laughing at what he bought.

Like Bose, they have some decent products. Their low price line carries a full lifetime warranty and is only a little more than Radio Snack. That's how I sold 'em. Explained to folks that they are like Crafstman tools- beat 'em up and break 'em and they'll give you new ones.

If they didn't have the decent cheaper line, I'd probably feel about them the way TA feels about BLOSE.

Lee

 

[mhardy6647]

Marky's high-end cable receipes

Interconnects. 30-ga Radio Shack enamel insulated magnet wire (twisted pair), with whatever RCA's you prefer (I use Radio Shack's, of course). Sleeve 'em if you want a sturdier and/or more attractive package.

Speaker cable. Plenum-grade CAT5 (solid conductors). I prefer using two runs of cable for each channel; one as "+" and the other "-". Twist all eight individual wires together at each end of each length of cable and solder together, and/or use whatever sort of terminations you like or need (double-banana plugs, spade lugs, etc.). Again these can be sheathed and/or cosmetically improved with heatshrink as desired.

These recipes are inexpensive, easy to build, and actually do (at least IMO and on my system) sound better than the buck-apiece I/C's (which, as observed earlier, are becoming rare) and zip-cord speaker cabling. I can't guarantee that they'll outperform any "high-end" cabling, but the price/performance ratio is hard to beat, as is the satisfaction of building them oneself.

Caveat: I cannot guarantee that CAT5 cabling will be appropriate for amplifiers that may be unstable into reactive loads. They work really nicely with my 2A3 SET's.

 

[MikE]

Anyone using Monster Cable should suffer. I really hate that stuff, along with M.I.T. As Mark said, you can build better cables for less. Yuk!!! MikE

 

[Ski]

I too have done the braided cat5 speaker wire. I had some left over so I put some RCA plugs on a twisted pair (24awg solid copper) and they sounded quite good.

 

[Bauhausler]

Monster cable story; My cousin is into home theater (don't get me started) and bought a new DVD player. To close the deal, the salesman threw in a $50 set of Monster ICs at cost. That line item on the sheet was $5. Yup, that's a 10X markup, folks. And I thought that kind of chicanery ended with mass market phono cartridges.

I needed to make some longish custom lengths of speaker wire. I bought a bucketload of 16ga copper/silver/teflon mil surplus wire off eBay. I twisted pairs of opposite colors, then braided 3 pairs together. Terminated with Ratshak's nice spade lugs they make a flexible speaker wire of about 11ga and will resist being walked on repeatedly.

Re Ratshak 30ga magnet wire. I happened to have a spool of the very thing sitting on my monitor at the moment I read mhardy's post about the ICs. Used it to repair a tonearm ground wire. Great minds...

For custom ICs I use mil surplus copper/silver/teflon coax that I bought in a 50' roll for cheap. Just cut a hunk off, splice on some Ratshak ends & Bob's yer uncle.

That's not to say I haven't indulged in snakeoil wire. Anybody want to buy a $1300 set of Highwire ICs and speaker cables at a drastic discount? Didn't think so. How about a half dozen XLO power cords? Green for analog or purple for digital.

My friend L asked me what IEC power cable I was going to use for a particular installation and I said "one that's long enough but not too long". That sums up my criteria today. Oh, yeah, and it has to not fall off, and be wired in correct polarity. Not foregone conclusions with today's esoteric gear, but DON'T GET ME STARTED!!!!

Cheers

 

[AudioGeek]

Speaker cable. Plenum-grade CAT5 (solid conductors). I prefer using two runs of cable for each channel; one as "+" and the other "-". Twist all eight individual wires together at each end of each length of cable and solder together, and/or use whatever sort of terminations you like or need (double-banana plugs, spade lugs, etc.). Again these can be sheathed and/or cosmetically improved with heatshrink as desired.

Don't you think that's gonna cost something for labor/materials if someone built those for you, and tried to make 'em look like something better than a home-made mock-up?

This is what gets me with the "cable argument". Some cables actually DO sound better, regardless the cost: cheap OR high-zoot. But regardless of the insane mark-up's for much of it, a reasonable profit is not an evil thing to expect to get.

If I have more $ than brains, maybe I'm going to buy a pair of, let's say, XLO The Limited's, or NBS, or Siltech, or Purist Audio, or Nordost, at several thousand bucks per few meters, just because they probably DO sound better - and definitely LOOK better - than any DIY stuff I've seen, right?? I guess some lucky people get to impress their friends, and some don't.

Then again, some of us think that if we buy the cheapest $3.00 per 50' roll of telephone wire, twist up a few pair thinking that'll take care of any inductance problems, then we'll have something "just as good" as the "good" stuff. In My Humble Opinion, that's the OTHER EXTREME of the cable argument.

Anyone think there might be a happy medium in there somewhere? I do.

 

[F1nut]

Well said Audio Geek, well said.

I think we've been down this road before, but I'll say it again. A parachute is like your mind, it only works when open.

Mike, I'll put my MIT's up against any DIY cables you make. You obviously think that there are better choices than zip cord, but I take it that you object to the money pre-made cables cost. No problem, that's your choice, but it's only money.....you can't take it with you.

I am curious. You guys that think cables cost too much and can make better ones (cheaper) yourselves. Do you know what the mark up is on gear? Why not build your own gear, maybe it would be better, at least it would be cheaper, eh?

All of the audio companies (gear/cables) are a business and the main point of a business is to make money.

 

[mhardy6647]

ummm... I do build my own gear (kits and from scratch). Everything except CDP's and tt's. So far.

If it doesn't sound good, I have no one but myself to blame.

Please note the parameter I invoked was price/performance ratio... not absolute performance.

I approach hifi the way I approach wine. I look for value. It's more fun that way and a little more interesting and challenging.

Besides, I wouldn't want to find out how my wife would react if I bought a pair of $1000 cables

 

[willysan]

Oh Lord!! The cable stuff strikes back!!
Last time I engaged in a cable thread I promised I'd never do it again but now I've just broken my promise.
Making our own good cables is easy and brings a lot of fun. Perhaps it's the easiest DIY thing.
We only need good material and textbooks. It's incredible how much we can learn there. They teach us how a good stranded wire is done and many useful things. There is no magic or "hidden knowledge" only available to the high priests.
Of course, we won't ever achieve the lavish appearance of ultra-mega-bucks cables but can have the same performance.
Come on, pick up the soldering iron!

 

[Bauhausler]

I'm with willysan here. I use XLO and Highwire products in my system because they are well made and do the job. I also make my own ICs and speaker wires as needed. There are great IC and speaker wire products out there that represent good value. I also urge anyone who can solder to try a simple DIY IC or speaker cable to see what happens. The results may surprise you.
Note that there are better RCA ends than the ubiquitous Ratshak ones. I find that those often are too tight and I have damaged RCA sockets with them in the past. Parts Express has good ones for not a lot of $ that are easy to solder, give good contact and most important, let go when you need them to. They have a cool locking type that's a copy of a Neutrik. I have a couple pairs of ICs with those on them that I use on vintage gear with worn or distorted RCA sockets.

 

[THOR]

I am not opening the can of worms about the usual cable debate the reason I am so pissed off is that it's getting to the point where Monster Cable or it's Rat Shack equivalent are the only choices the consumer has when you walk into a store.

In my case I just wanted a couple certain kinds of IC's to finish hooking my son's XBOX to my HDTV, I wanted them now but all I saw at every store and Rat shack were these high priced Monster crap. They are making it neccessary for anyone who has a brain attached to their wallet to have to get stuff by mail, which is inconvenient when hooking up new gear and you don't have that certain cable you need since they are giving us no choice you either pony up the inflated price or you have to wait to buy what you need online

 

[Bauhausler]

The place I go for garden variety ICs and such is the local dollar store. They always have ICs, zipcord speaker wire, Male to Male and Female to Female adaptors, 'Y' adaptors and so on. Some of it seems to be decent quality. I keep a bag of that stuff around for temporary lashups and I end up using the stuff a lot.

 

[MikE]

F1

My tone was joking. Though, I'm not a fan of Monster Cable or M.I.T. In my experience they have ruined some otherwise fine sounding equipment. I reviewed them some years ago and found them to introduce more electronic artifacts than they "fixed". Euphoric is a good descriptor. I'm sure in some systems they could be helpful. And no, that was not a slight on your system or every product they manufactuer. As I've not sampled every cable but everytime I have they did more harm than good. That is my experience, past and present, nothing more. In fact, my friend has the very top of the line M.I.T. right now in his system, though I haven't done comparitive listening with other cables. So while yes I don't care for them, please use whatever to achieve your desired result.

As some of the other spokesmen have said, I like my $80 999.99% pure 24awg solid silver/teflon "cables", but are they the best? Who knows. They are cheap and work for MY SYSTEM. There are other [core] aspects I need to focus on rather than descrete improvements resulting from expensive wire rolling. Others find pleasure and success with different applications. I have no objection whatsoever with SOTA products, including cables. If I had the means I would pursue that avenue. Example: I own a $2500 PLC and readily recommend David Elrod power cords. Expensive but damn good. Instead my associations have shown that wire is not at the top of my list of fine tuning measures. I can change tubes in my amp at a faction of the cost of new cables and enjoy a much greater performance upshift. That is what has soured me on wire; the deminished value on your investment.

MikE

 

[Dan ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ]

Hey! I put an Audio-Quest power cord on my Toastmaster and never before has my bread been so golden brown and yummy!

*Boutique* and *esoteric* cables add or subtract (depending on the brand and model) capacitance and/or resistance. All cables impart their own sonic signature, but the companies that are pushing this stuff are taking it to extremes. In other words, they make their cables *tone controls* rather than trying to make them affordable and more importantly, neutral.

 

[AudioGeek]

Thor -

I know what you mean, and I don't blame ya for being pissed. Seems like a lot of these companies can see a big fat golden goose, and they'll exploit it as far as it has legs to run. A guy just wants some cheap wire or connectors/adapters to hook up nothing too fancy, and he ends up paying way bucks for RatShack's crap.

I mean, look at how much they want for a 75 to 300 ohm transformer, or say a 6' piece of 1/8" mini-jack to stereo RCA cord that costs them $0.13 to make in the Philippines and they sell for like $5.99 or $7.99. If you look at it as a percentage, it's fecking ridiculous!!!

:tongue: :thumbsdn: :uzi:

MikE, et al -

I agree on the MIT stuff. I used to use the MIT 330 i/c's for tone controls on certain bright SS units. Nothing really bad about the MIT, but it did tend to soften things a bit. But I've rolled tubes AND wire, and the gain in fidelity just depends. Sometimes a different tube doesn't do much at all, and I've heard big leaps between different cables. I think that's why most of us enthusiasts end up being crazy. :lmao:

But yes, the 'cable argument' could go on indefinitely, and accomplish not much but usually pissing everyone off.

I would also agree with Celt generally, except to add that there IS no "neutral" cable or connection, because everything has an electrical value it imparts to the circuit as soon as signal is passed through it.

I'd say that ideally, the trick is to have the least amount of electrical change through the cable/connector/solder as is possible. And I think that is much tougher in practice than it seems on paper.

Also, I think there is much we don't fully understand yet, like skin-effect, back-EMF, various forms of noise & interference, magnetism, etc. So no - it's not just about The 3 Basic Electrical Food Groups of R, C, and I.

...akin to the old "bits is bits" argument with digital. Remember how lousy the early CD players sounded, and no one could quite put their finger on why? Then somebody discovered jitter and quantizisation noise...