In a series of PMs with a poster, I have been discussing better wires. For the sake of convenience, we can call these all Monster Cables although there are tons of other wire companies out there, each with their own special designs. I said I have heard the difference Monster Cable makes.

I first heard super-duper speaker wire back in the 1970s when its very first incarnation, Cobra Cable, was sold by Polk Audio. Besides having a lot of capacitance and tending to blow up amps (it was quickly withdrawn), it sounded great on my Dynaco 400 power amp into my Dahlquist DQ-10 speakers. I was using double runs of 14 gauge before that and thought nothing could be better. Cobra Cable was.

A lot of specialty signal cables use what I call a pseudo balanced line. You pro folks know what a balanced line is. In a mic cord, the hot, common and shield are all individual wires. That allows you to go for hundreds of feet without picking up hum and noise. In a typical RCA cable, the common and shield are the same wire (the hot is in the center). In a pseudo balanced line, there are again three connectors, with the hot and the common wires in the middle. The shield is only hooked up to the RCA at one end. You have to do it this way with an RCA plug as you only have two connectors. The wire is still shielded and yet the shield is not carrying signal as it is in a conventional RCA cable. I use these kind of cables in my Element, although made by IXOS instead of Monster. My E is dead quiet. I have commented before that the noise floor of my stereo is the thermal amp noise. I have zero hum in my system and I credit the cables for at least some of this.

What has been your experience with specialty wires? Do you think that Monster Cable is worth it? Or is it all snake oil?

Or another perspective on this.... if you think it IS worthwhile, is it something that's only noticeable in a dynamatted-super-audio-high-end-expensive-mod car, or would it also be noticeable in a unmodified Element with, say, an additional small amp just to run front speakers and sub....

Or comparable to home audio, does "monster cable" make a difference without a high end system.

Or in both these cases there are weaknesses in other components (no dynamat, inexpensive speakers, factory HU, etc,) that even if there IS a difference it woudln't be noticed?

Inquiring minds want to know....

First, I'll caveat my statement with the fact that I"m no expert. I deferred to the experts when i did my home audio system.

They basically summed it up for me saying that the top quality cables are best utilized with top quality components and speakers. Its the weakest link in the chain theory. If your speakers are low quality, or your receiver doesn't have an exceptionally clean signal, then you're just cleanly moving mid-quality sound when you buy the mega cables.

I have a mid range quality home audio setup and I went with some mid-grade wiring in my component signal cables, subwoofer cable, and speaker wiring. I did the same in my E. Also, don't buy "Monster", you're paying for a name.

I have never upgraded the cables in my car because I have never had an amp or sub so I have just used the stock wiring. For my home a/v stuff, I don't use the radioshack brand cables, but I also don't use the ones that will cost over 100 dollars. I get the low-to-middle of the line stuff and I have been very happy with it. I got my component video/audio cables for my new tv from walmart and also my cables for my surround sound from walmart and couldn't be happier. I have a sony 700 watt system, its nice but not top of the line. Same with my tv and dvd player they are definately nice pieces but I didn't spend my savings on them.

Hum and other line noise are caused by Inductance. The proximity to other electrical components, and AC wiring. There is not much in the way of AC noise in the E. The Ignition system is done well, so that is not an Issue. The shielding of the Positive conductor does help. The 3 wire system also helps.

If you are going to the trouble of adding the 3 wire system. Take the time to ground the shield at both ends. It only takes an extra few seconds, and will will make the shielding contiguous. A slight gain at best. Then someone going to all that trouble, IS looking for the small gains.

The best sounding system I have ever seen, had the 3 wire system. It also had GOLD Plated conductors. Lots of $.


Dom

My thoughts on this are it is very difficult if not impossible for 99.9% of drivers on the road to hear the difference in cables and cost prohibitive to actually compare them in a car.

You can much more easily compare cables (any kind of cables) in a home audio/HT system. The wires are rarely hidden behind walls, through ceilings or under floor of most homes. Not talking crazy custom installs, just the usual high or low end system.

In my last car which had a full out custom system in it the installer used all Monster cable throughout, the cable cost me a small fortune to say the least. Would I have noticed a sound difference if lesser or higher quality cable was used? I don't have a clue. Gregg being in the business can much more readily compare cables in a car environment. The majority of us go with what's sold in the store that does the install, or if doing the install on your own you go with what a friend recommended or you read about online.

Cables are not easily compared and when they are compared the testing is usually very subjective... like most audio.

I think that for most people, telling the difference between expensive speaker wire and generic speaker wire is hard to tell for a home theater system. If you've spent a lot of money getting the best equipment you can buy, then why not get comparable cables and wire. That being said, for car audio, the difference would be hard to tell, especially if the system you are using the expensive speaker wires is for an everyday driver, AND especially on a relatively noisy vehicle like the Element. If you have a competition level system, then you might as well change the wires, but for a lot of people, that is simply overkill.

On another note, I refuse to buy anything by Monster cables. Not only are they the BOSE of cables and speaker wires, they're ruthless with anybody that happens to have Monster in their title.

http://www.fearlessdog.com/posts/2005/01/10/monster-cables-sues-everyone/

The only way I've found to successfully compare cables is to make a swap and listen for weeks. To try and A/B cables is useless. The differences are generally too subtle. But to take a system you are well familiar with and replace the cables, that is the way to audition them. Then the differences become quite audible.

I understand the animosity towards Monster Cable. They are the 600 pound gorilla. But I have heard exceptional performance from their higher end cables, especially their M-Series. As to them being a ruthless competitor, so is Coke. So is Microsoft. So is most anybody at the top of their industry. That's how they got there. Monster Cable is not unique. Anybody here own an iPod? Do you think Steve Jobs would take kindly to somebody releasing a too similar mp3 player?

Dom, by hooking up the shield at both ends, aren't you defeating the purpose? The electricity will travel where there is the least resistance, which could be the center wire. You'll lose any sound quality advantages of having the shield and the common be different wires plus noise could be inducted into the system. By only connecting the shield at one end, this can't be the case.

BTW, anybody with an EX has a pseudo balanced line connection in their car. The shield fron the subwoofer to amp wire is only connected at the deck end.

Can anybody address trombe's question. Has anybody with a mid-fi system used regular wire and then stepped up to better wire, either speaker or interconnects?

I can tell you one thing...the $7 I spent on a DVI-DVI cable from www.monoprice.com (http://www.monoprice.com) was well worth it than spending $120-150 at Best Buy or Circuit City for the same Monster brand cable.

Not from a fidelity side, but I will add that i prefer high quality power cables. I found one day when I ran out of my Phoenix Gold power cable I ran down to the local install shop to get a short piece of 8 guage ground cable. They didnt have a Phoenix Gold or Monster cable available. So I took the name brand wire they were selling thinking I would be ok. Well when I got home and tried to use the cable in my power clamp of my amp it wouldnt hold it. When I was clamping down the wire it just fraying apart and not providing a surface to hold onto. I have never seen this happen before until now. After that I never bought that brand again!

PS...I thought it was Stinger cable, but I am not 100% sure.

John

I use a lot of cheap cables. The poor sources in my home theater all use cheap cables. My main DVD connection, now that's a good cable. Monster Cable if I remember correctly.

I tried a step up RF 75 ohm cable from my outside antennas (DirecTV dish and RF antenna) from IXOS. It is their XS190. It uses a special dielectric (insulator) and better quality wire. The signal strength on my antenna, which varied widely before, is now rock steady, and on the high side of what it was before.

Well in my Element, I used some cat5 computer network cable for my HU to amp. signals. This cable formed four twisted pairs for sub and front channels. For speaker wire, I went with a 16ga generic rip cord but used a little better quality 11ga. No noise just music!

You'd do <<better>> by getting low noise tires, road/air noise reduction devices.

Regards,

If "parts is parts" then "wires is wires"

So (unless it's an industrial secret and the monster people would have to kill me) what is it that makes Monster wire monster? For any given wire, the Monster equivalent appears just to be bigger wire. It's got to be more than the gauge of the wire.

I'm more familiar with home stereo.... Suppose I run "normal" speaker wire, probably 18 gauge or so. Then I switch to 14 gauge, then to 10 gauge, then to Monster wire. Am I improving all the way along? Does a larger gauge make a difference?

Is all 14 gauge (for instance) wire the same in terms of the number of strands of wire? Is the composition of the wires the same?

Outpost4 earlier pointed me to an EXCELLENT site on car audio... http://www.bcae1.com/. It is very detailed and often over my head. But I just went there and Panel/Topic 16 is wire. There are some excellent charts there where you can plug in your own numbers and see the results. So, just to eliminate the gauge of the wire, my amp is 40 rms per channel and lets say I want 15' of speaker wire run. The decibel loss due difference in resistance between an 8 gauge wire and a 20 gauge wire (both with 4 ohn load) is .6 db. He says that less than 1 db is inaudible. If he's correct, the gauge of the wire isn't going to affect output from the speakers (assuming I'm reading all this correctly)

Therefore, it's NOT a gauge difference in Monster wire that accounts for what (if any) differences are found.

Now this is dealing with speaker wire. Is the wire more important from the source to the amp? Someone mentioned "cleaner signal" this must mean input to the amp....

Does Monster wire make a difference for one part of the system and not the other?

Does a super high quality cable make a difference. Yes... It does. However, you have to justify the cost. Believe it or not, there are speaker wire makers that make Monstor brand look like cheap zip cord. And you pay a huge premium for them, sometimes $10 a foot or more. True audio nuts will spend that kind of money.

My rule of thumb is don't pay for anything you can't hear. If you compare 2 amps side by side and can't tell the difference, then don't spend the extra money just because a salesman says it's better. Always judge equipment with your own ears and your own source material.

I've found for home use, that I can't see a measurable difference between large gauge wires (the 10 ga premium stuff) and high quality 14 ga wire. So my systems are wired accordingly. I would probably follow the same threshold when wiring my new stereo up in my new to me Element. I'm not going to dynamat the doors are put a huge subwoofer box in the back. Just nice quality stuff in normal proportions that doesn't steal space or sacrafice utility.

that I can't see a measurable difference between large gauge wires (the 10 ga premium stuff) and high quality 14 ga wire.

So part of what I'm trying to learn is what IS premium or high quality. If I've got 3 14 gauge wires -- one is premium, one is high quality and one is cheap (by whatever measure we use) then what is the difference in the wire itself???? More strands? Different material?

So part of what I'm trying to learn is what IS premium or high quality. If I've got 3 14 gauge wires -- one is premium, one is high quality and one is cheap (by whatever measure we use) then what is the difference in the wire itself???? More strands? Different material?

The quality of the copper is the first difference. fewer impurities in the better brands = better conductance of the signal. There is also something to do with less oxcides on the conductor wires because the strands are smaller allowing less room for air or something like that. I'm not sure if that was real or hype. Sorry that I don't have a scientific answer for you.

The difference is many things.

It certainly is the quality of the wire. OFC - oxygen free copper - became quite the rage a few years ago when it came to super duper wire. Supposedly it transfers the electricity better. The purity of the wire is an issue. The number and gauge of the strands makes a difference. At one point people tried to reduce this all to skin effect, that at higher frequencies the electricity travels on the surface of the wire. The more strands, the more surface area and the easier it was to pass electricity. Since then, I have seen skin effect poo-baa'd, but you do find better wire has more and finer strands. It is the wrap. Better wires are often braided or twisted just right to reject RF. Sometimes you'll find bi-wiring incorporated into cables, where there will be separate wire runs for the tweeters and the woofers. Europeans especially seem to believe in bi-wiring. It can be the dielectric. The better the insulator, the better the cable. That RF cable I mentioned up thread used an air dielectric in it - expensive to do but seemingly worth it.

And all of this is just for speaker wire. :D

When it comes to interconnects, add into all of the considerations above whether it is a three conductor or two conductor cable, also discussed up thread. The quality of the plug makes a big difference. Does it grasp the female RCA firmly? Gold is often used, but the best thing I've ever read about gold connectors is there are two different valid points of view. Depending upon your perspective, gold is either nice but not necessary or not necessary but nice. I'd rather have a tight nickel-iron connector than a sloppy gold one. Some people swear by silver connectors, as opposed to gold, even though gold always checks out as a better conductor. The best interconnects I've ever heard were silver wire interconnects. Pricey but good.

Designing a good cable is as much of an art as a science. Some people would say it's all artifice. They might be right. There certainly is a certain amount of showmanship and self fulfilling prophecies going on here. If you've just spent $100 on interconnects, they damn well better sound good.

On the other hand, I've seen excellent interconnects give a TV a better picture. I have heard them make a difference in sound. I've been listening to better speaker wire for 30 years. And yet, right now at home have cheap speaker wire on my main speakers because good wire would be too ugly (the speakers are out in the middle of the room). On the other hand, I am spending a $100 today for better interconnects for my car stereo.

When it comes to wire, I do what I can and don't sweat the rest.

BTW, I can hear half a dB changes at the right frequencies. As a musician, I'm sure you could, too, trombe. They might be hard to quanitfy experimentally, but in mixing down music, those 1/2 dB differences are what makes something go from feeling wrong to right.

[QUOTE=outpost4]T

Dom, by hooking up the shield at both ends, aren't you defeating the purpose? The electricity will travel where there is the least resistance, which could be the center wire. You'll lose any sound quality advantages of having the shield and the common be different wires plus noise could be inducted into the system. By only connecting the shield at one end, this can't be the case.



No .

Having both ends connected to ground, giving a shorter path to ground. That will = less induction. It's often referred to ( incorrectly ) as a quiet ground.

They are encasing the conductors in a ground. Causing all spurious electrons, magnetic fields, Rf energy, all to flow to ground. That's the theory!
It's like when your XM goes out in a tunnel. If you are close to an open end it WILL WORK ! It will go inside the tunnel for a short distance.
However we know that, Magnetic fields are not attracted to ground!

It's the old saying " Ground is ground the world around " It's True. You will do better to ground, ( called bonding the shield ), at both ends!

Dom

So it seems that this is very similar to trumpets. You can buy one in a pawn shop for $100. You can buy a new student model for $500 or so. A typical professional model sells for around $1700 or so. I just bought one used on ebay for $2300 (lists for $4500 and best new price I've seen is $3300). Now since I've been playing for 40 or 50 years and do a lot of professional work, I CAN tell you that the new $2300 trumpet is one of the best I've played. For a typical junior hight student, there would be no difference. For a typical good high school student, there would be a difference between a student model and a professional model, but probably not (to them) between the $1700 professional model and my new $4500 model. To me there's quite a bit of difference between my previous $1700 model and my newer $4500 model.

Now on the other hand, a top professional player like those in, say, the Chicago Symphony, could probably pick apart my $4500 model and point out all the defects and problems it has.

So... we're dealing with the quality of the instrument AND the ability of the player (the quality of the compents AND the quality of the wire). Putting my $4500 trumpet in the hands of a beginnner isn't going to make a noticeable difference over the $100 pawn shop model (using Monster Wire to connect a boombox to $40 speakers probably won't make any noticeable difference). Give a top professional a $400 student model and the pro will still play that $400 trumpet at a FAR higher level than the beginner (using "normal" speaker wire with expensive components will still sound good) but giving the top professional the best instrument can take the entire performance to a higher level (using top quality wire with top of the line components can lead to a better listening experience). While I could play a $400 pawn shop instrument on a real gig and get away without most people noticing (as most people will still be impressed with great amps/speakers without top quality connections) I'd prefer to have the best instrument, valve oil, etc. to make the instrument disappear and the music take over (as is the case with any stereo)

If a student can afford it, GET a professional model. It IS better (if you're building a system and can afford it, GET the best wire). You'll aways do better with the best instrument you can get your hands on. (I don't have the $13,000 one Wyton Marsalis has....)

With car stereo I'm probably a high school student. I'll be attempting Mike's Mod (4 channel amp for front speakers and sub, rears on factory amp) and since it won't HURT to use more expensive wire even if it might not be noticeable with the somewhat lower quality of system (compared to all the great installs I've seen here!!!!)

Just to pick a website, I looked at bestbuy.com and searched for Monster cable. This page (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=4223977&type=product&id=1051384781386) says of the Ultra High Performance speaker cable "Time Correct windings and Magnetic Flux Tube construction for natural music reproduction. Full-size construction for optimal performance over long runs" -- for $130/100'

But this page (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=3183842&type=product&id=1051384447379)talks about Navajo White cable: "Magnetic Flux Tube construction and special cable windings for natural music reproduction. Impressive clarity, bass response and dynamic range in a compact design. Special LPE insulation reduces signal loss and distortion." for $65/100'

But this one (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=3183799&type=product&id=1051384447132)only has magnetic flux tube and special cable windings for $60/100'

Can someone translate "time correct windings," "special cable windings," Special LPE insulation" and "Magnetic Flux Tube" into plain English?

(Yes, I know I over-think these things..... like what happens if you cut the LAST piece of wire a foot short.... if you crimp on another foot, have you destroyed the integrity of the wire???)

You're on your own here, trombe. Outside of "time correct windings", which would imply that all the the signals from 20-20K HZ are traveling in phase, I'm as lost as you. I try to ignore this kind of gobbledygook and go for sound quality. Maybe the manufacturers websites might help. The often have technical pages.

The other website at which I hang out a lot is TrekBBS. I may post over there and see if anybody remembers an episode where Scotty or Geordi had to repair a magnetic flux tube.

:-P



(Seriously, "magnetic flux tube" might have something to do with the plastic tube they wind the wire around. On the Monster Navajo White cable, there is a tube down the middle of the wire. I have no idea beyond that.)

I understand the animosity towards Monster Cable. They are the 600 pound gorilla. But I have heard exceptional performance from their higher end cables, especially their M-Series. As to them being a ruthless competitor, so is Coke. So is Microsoft. So is most anybody at the top of their industry. That's how they got there. Monster Cable is not unique.

I use nothing but Monster on my home theater system. The difference was extremely noticeable on my 57 inch Toshiba HDTV over other brands. I even bought the $70.00 cable for my xBox because it made that much a difference.

(Seriously, "magnetic flux tube" might have something to do with the plastic tube they wind the wire around. On the Monster Navajo White cable, there is a tube down the middle of the wire. I have no idea beyond that.)I was wondering if it had to do with a Flux Capacitor, but I think I need a DeLorean for that....