Saturday, March 16, 2013
Do Coat Hangers Sound As Good Monster Cables?
Consumerist: Can you tell the difference between music that passed through a pricey Monster stereo Cable, and a coat hanger? A reader forwarded us a post from the Audioholics Home Theater Forum and its author says no. He says his brother ran an experiment on him and four other audio aficionados listening to a new CD from a new group blindfolded. Seven different songs were played, each time heard with the speaker hooked up to Monster Cables, and the other time, hooked up to coat hanger wire. Nobody could determine which was the Monster Cable and which was the coat hanger. The kicker? None of the subjects even knew that coat hangers were going to be used. This is, of course, “nothing new,” a Google of “monster cables vs coat hangers” shows that some users have been saying this for a while. Still, this is an experiment begging to be recreated under controlled conditions (say, for instance, a double-blind test). Science fair project!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
The so-called "audiophile" market is full of products that claim to enhance certain aspects of your aural experience, but in reality do hardly anything or nothing at all. The professional audio industry is full of people who are more knowledgeable than the average consumer, so usually there are less true professional products that claim to do miraculous things with sound quality. The market besides the audiophile one that has the worst bogus claims like this is probably those companies gearing their equipment toward musicians and performers. This is almost worst than the audiophile market, because musicians probably have just enough knowledge to make them dangerous. It all comes down to the fact that the laws of physics cannot be changed, no matter what a company may claim their product does.
I don't know much about sound engineering but the note at the bottom says the important part I think. For simple transfer of data anything made of the right metal works, but in theater thats not what we are dealing with. We regularly run long lengths of cable that have be protected from interference. I know in the Chosky even the electricity is on its own circuit and it is forbidden to even briefly plug anything else into those plugs. Based on this Im assuming that the extra money we invest in cables is worth it.
I have heard this test being done many different times and I have always stayed away from monster cables. This is true with their hdmi cables. They sell gold-plated,shielded, sheathed cables for over a hundred dollars when you could get the same length and same quality cable for only a few dollars. Its a matter of branding. Just like headphones become double the price when a famous rappers name is put on them.
I will be honest I like monster cable and I am pretty sure the main reason is because of the marketing and physiological advertising they have hit me with. Also when I first learned of Monster I was 16 and was buying sweet subs to kick it in my 1996 Ford Taurus, let me just say boy did those things rumble. But most importantly Dan is right physics does not change. So I do agree with the article on the sense of great lengths of cable, shielding, and other variables are important to consider, but not at the price Monster wants to charge us for it. I currently buy all my cabling needs from Monoprice.com and well even with shipping I am tons cheaper then a Monster.
What an interesting experiment. It's curious to find out that the noise quality is not altered, but then again that's not entirely what makes up a good cable. Sure, you could save money using wire coat hangers instead of monster cable, but do the hangers come with a lifetime guarantee? Because monster cables do.
Post a Comment