Who Is Mourning The Death Of Circuit City? Monster Cable
The notoriously litigious manufacturers of insanely and (some would argue) needlessly expensive cables, Monster Cable, are apparently hurting after the death of Circuit City. USAToday says that the company is slashing prices in order to increase market share.
"We're lowering prices, due to the recession, but we're also increasing performance," says founder and "Head Monster" Noel Lee.
An 8' HDMI cable that used to cost $125 will now retail for $99. (For comparison's sake, an 8' HDMI cable at Monoprice.com goes for about $4.)
Monster would certainly like you to believe that their cables are worth the extra money, but it seemed like most experts interviewed by USAToday weren't buying it.
"Cables are enjoying percentages consumers would scream about if they knew the markup on them," says Richard Doherty, an independent analyst at Envisioneering Group.
...
"Monster used higher-quality products in the analog era to give you better sound, but as things went digital, it either works or it doesn't," he says. "Now there's an awful lot of $15 cables out there which would give you the exact same performance as Monster Cable."
Monster Cable lowers prices during recession [USAToday] (Thanks, Everyone!)
Post a comment
Comments:
I'm having trouble feeling sorry for them... I wonder why that is.
@Kimaroo:
Cause they're a collection of litigous ass gobbling douchnozzles with a penchant for shovel fucking?
monoprice.com FTW!
Oh boo-hoo for Monster. They deserve everything crappy that comes their way.
@shepd: I believe he meant to say, "Monster used higher-quality products in the analog era that would theoretically give better sound"
Am I a believe in gold plated conductors, twisted audio cables, etc. for analog applications? Sure. We use them for much more advanced stuff in the electronics industry all the time because they have a definite performance edge (normally less signal attenuation and less noise pickup). Does a digital video cable with "oxygen-free copper" and gold plated ends make a difference? Pretty doubtful.
There is a special place in hell, reserved just for them! When I'm on site, if I see a single Monster Cable product, they get an earful and most are absolutely disgusted at how they bully other companies using litigation.
Just plant the seed...:D
I came to this site looking to purchase Monster Cables and instead found this negative article about them. I am very confused and distraught, because this site said Monster Cable, but there are no cables to be had. I'm afraid I will have to report this to Monster Cable Products Inc. so they can protect their copyrights.
Die slowly.
These jokers get no sympathy from me.
Get equivalent quality from the jumble of miscellaneous wiring in the drawer under the TV in the basement.
They should hang themselves with that hdmi cable.
So the article implies that Circuit City customers were dumb as posts.
Not that I have any problem with that.
I can't wait for the posting titled: "Monster Cable finds home in Monster Island, gone forever."
@PSN: kingpsyz: My HD TV CAME with an HDMI cable, and it's not even really name brand (it was a gift). I didn't realize that wasn't normal until a few weeks ago.
I use monster cables for my bass, but they weren't outrageously expensive and I wouldn't have bought them if they were. I fail to see the continuation of a business model that jacks prices up to unreasonable levels. Other than "some people are stupid, lets try to fool them."
The real downfall of Circuit City was the prices. I went in one time just looking around, I went over and saw the price of cables. $15 for a power cord for a computer! I have tons of those at work, I could be making some serious coin to all the idiots who bought the cables at those prices.
No sympathy at all.
@shepd:
I still want to start a wire coat hanger company called "Monster Coathangers!"*
*this is not a speaker wire, the fact that this coat hanger can possibly sound better then actual speaker wire of a product of similar name is only coincidence
"Ed Kasza, a salesman for Chicago area retailer The Little Guys, says his store uses only Monster cable because it is the most reliable cable. "Would you really want to put a $25 cable with a $3,000 TV?" he says.
"You'd be wasting your money on the TV if you were to do that.""
Seriously? Is this guy for real? If their salesmen are actually that retarded he just convinced me to never walking into a Little Guys store.
@gqcarrick: I was catching up with past podcasts of This American Life and one of the stories was about the CC liquidation, and that at the very last day of liquidation, someone bought a USB printer cable that used to be $33.99 and it was finally marked down to $2.16 and tax. I have a hard time accepting that a printer cable should have been $33.99 to begin with.
Monster is the Bose of the cable world
all bark, no bite
@gttim: But it's working. A good friend of mine who is pretty smart but absolutely not a savvy consumer was almost in shock when I told him a couple weeks ago that Monster wasn't worth the money. I forwarded a few posts from here and Engadget to him, so hopefully he's been set straight, but in the context of consumerism, the "some people are stupid" thing is more common than we would like to hope.
@Nettwerk: We should hang them while in court for hanging them with the HDMI cable. Lets use the $600 one....should sound and show a lot nicer than $4 one.
One of my clients got to pay $22 for a USB cable from Staples the other day... I didn't know I would be hooking up a printer, otherwise I would have brought one of my $2 USB cables with me. I thought it was grossly overpriced.
@gqcarrick: I bought a USB printer cable at Walmart for 10$ (this was before we had monoprice selling us dirt cheap, good quality cables). Big Lots near me has a whole set of USB cables and connectors for something like 7.99 and they are the light up kind. I have never had a problem with the cheaply priced cables, so I agree that monster is complete BS.
@darkjedi26: A salesman is by definition nothing but a shill for his products, so he's just doing his job...I think it would take speaking to him candidly after he's taken off his salesman hat to figure out whether he's really that retarded.
@gqcarrick: Virtually all B&M retail stores seem to have turned "accessories" into a category they can put a 500% markup on. Best to shop online for that sort of thing.
@PSN: kingpsyz: That's what I paid for my HDMI cable at Fry's.
It came in a clear plastic bag and they had a shopping cart full of them, right next to the shopping cart full of HD-DVD's for $5 a pop.
Just for laughs, I went to their Audio/Video cable section to price compare. Turns out an HDMI cable, same length, with fancy packaging would run me $50.
I decided to save $44 and go with the one in the plastic bag. Took it home, hooked up my PS3, and watched Wall-E on Blu-Ray. I'm no A/V expert, but the picture looked pretty damn good to me.
@docrice:
My favourite fun fact: Obviously, when it comes to sound transmission over either distances, or to speakers, you need to ensure you use material that is low in resistance. Here's the resistance chart for popular metals:
silver - 14.71 nOhm/m
copper - 15.80 nOhm/m
gold - 20.11 nOhm/m
aluminum - 25.00 nOhm/m
So, if you actually cared you'd reduce gold usage, and increase silver usage. Your best "speaker wire" would be made of pure silver. As a reasonable substitute, copper comes pretty damn close, which is why it's used. And, for price, it's aluminum, which is what the electric company uses (And you would use it in your house, too, if your electrician weren't an idiot).
The only reason gold is used on these connectors is because it doesn't tarnish. And that means you can be a lazy ass and not clean the connectors before using them. Wooooooo!
Of course, if you just remember to clean the connectors (if they are tarnished) prior to using them, you don't need to spend the extra.
@Megladon: No, don't - Monster Cable will sue you for using the generic term "monster" in your company's name!
@Ichiro51:
...unfortunately, more like "the vast majority of people believe marketing hype."
And screw the analog era - the wiring that Monster sold then still provided no perceptible benefit over, say, a K-Mart $2 extension cord with the ends clipped off.
Monster has always existed purely based on the business plan of fleecing gullible consumers. Same as Bose. Evil from the business plan up.
Reminds me of the days when people believed your CDs would sound better if you colored the edges with a dark green marker!
@gttim: I can't remember if it was Twain or Vonnegut or whoever, but someone smart said:
"No one ever went broke underestimating people's intelligence."
In fact, I think investing in people's ignorance is a pretty good guarantee of returns.
@darkjedi26: "Reliable Cable" is such a bullshit term. If you plug a cable in once, and leave it there, as probalby 99% of consumers do, it will be reliable.
Reliability is an issue when cables are constantly disconnected and reconnected. In that case, it's the plugs and jacks that matter. Monster's cables do not impress me in that department.
@darkjedi26: There is something to be said for using a quality cable.
The problem is that monster cable isn't quality. I own a lot of cables, and I don't take particularly special care of them. They get coiled up and tossed in closets, plugged in then pulled on, etc. I don't think I've ever had a radio shack cable go bad on me. Monster cables, on the other hand seem to constantly have problems with being poorly crimped with fragile connectors that are prone to failure. When I've dissected monster cables, I've found bad solder joints.
Monster cable: Slipshod quality, audiophile pricing.
Is Monster in the worst companies in America bracket? If not, they should be.
What a ripoff. I know monoprice sells dirt cheap cables, but I was able to snag 3 Phillips 6ft HMDI cables from sellout.woot.com for $5 each.
I've read several times over that with digital cables, they either work or they don't. There's no gray area like there is with analog (composite) cables.
I'd check your dollar stores for USB cables. I picked up a few that have the little disc in the middle that retracts the cable.
Just call me curious...
Why haven't they sued Coca Cola yet, for their "Monster" energy drink?
but we're also increasing performance
What, they wave their magic wand over the cables twice now, instead of just once? It's like watching a shell game where the con artist is openly holding the ball for all to see, while prodding the player to pick a shell.
@darkjedi26: Would a cheap cable cause the TV to catch on fire? I don't see how a cheap cable would somehow be detrimental to an expensive TV. Maybe affect the picture quality slightly, but I'm about half-blind anyway, so who cares? Not me.
@shepd:
NO.
Sorry we use copper because if you use aluminum you need to go up 2 wire sizes which costs twice as much destroying almost the entire cost advantage of aluminum. Copper has other advantages too which make it far superior in home use, especially when the cost savings are measured in the lower hundreds CDN.
hahahahahahah... boy i hope they whither and die. scum bags ripping off the unbeknownst public.. that's all they are.. salesman. knowledge is power.. and hopefully soon everyone will know how bullshit you are.
@Dooley:
Because Coca Cola has lawyers too. Unlike Monster Mini-golf and the other small business Monster Cable likes to pick on.
Coca Cola would chew them up and spit them out.
Watch out USA Today, lawsuit incoming.
@Keavy_Rain:
That's cause as the article started it's either there or not.
So really there's no signal issues.
Monster used higher-quality products in the analog era to give you better sound
Que? I mean, really, you can get better sound with coat hangers.