Paid $5 for these

leftwinger57

I found the ad on C/L and his apt. was 1 development away from mine. Literal walking distance. He had all Monster Cables of every kind and I was only interested in a single pair of of 1 mt. I/Cs for back up. Now the very suspicious thing is they had directional arrows on them that clearly were self applied like w/ number tags I used to use when I installed alarms to # wires. Are these counterfeit or just self labeled. Again only $5,he wanted $15 and said not in your life time so it's not a tragedy

.

MrBuhl

yep - my old MC are all the same too.

pitdogg2

Be careful Lew the monster grip of death is real. If they are tough to get on they could pull off the ground shield on some RCA's so just be careful speaking from well you know experience.

worth 5.00 all day

leftwinger57

What threw my was I got some way better Audio Quest i/Cs w/ imprinted directional arrows and thought that it was the industry standard. Good to know they are not home made w/ MC ends. Again I have decent I/Cs now thanks to Tony and Pumpkinman but you never know because sh$t happens.Thanks.

leftwinger57

Pit, I know all about that. I almost destroyed my long gone Onkyo P-301 pre trying to remove MC I/Cs. I was so bummed out I call MC complained that their product does this to gear and something should be done about it. Low and behold, about 7 months later I get a package from MC with a better set of I/Cs w/ no apology or any note. I can't make this up.
Skip what is this Karma thing, someone else mentioned it in passing and I thought they were goofing on me for some reason.

daddyjt

Those are completely legit - I have a couple sets I purchased new in the early 90's, and they came with the directional stickers on them as well.

Basically, the arrow denotes which end of the cable's shield is grounded. The origin , or starting point of the arrow is the grounded end, and the target is not. You want the grounded end at the source, hence the arrow letting you know which end is which.

daddyjt

And $5 is a great buy - They ran about $40 new, in 90's $....

leftwinger57

That's all well and good but only 1 arrow still exists. What do I do now ? Now some say they can't hear any difference no matter what direction the arrow points but I was told the in arrow goes to the source and out to the pre/amp just like you said. A bunch of threads over at AK on the subject as well as other forums and of course everyone has an opinion on whether it does anything or makes a difference. It's way better than getting burned I guess. He does have a trunk load of ALL kinds of MC stuff cable wise.

daddyjt

In your photo, I think I can see the sticky residue on the blue one, where the arrow was. that arrow is always at the "target" end of the cable, so in your photo, both target ends are side by side. Mark the target ends with a Sharpie...

jimithng23

Just thought I'd further comfort the OP -- I have plenty of Monster Cables with these el cheapo directional arrows on them.

leftwinger57

I'll do that right now while that residue is still there. Thanks for the tip.

heiney9

For $5 and some exercise, not bad. Monster cables basically suck sound wise. The death grip of the "turbo" ends is extremely frustrating and will ruin basic gear in a hurry. The direction arrows are real, as in applied at the factory, IIRC.

Best thing I ever did was get rid of my Monster Cables and I had much pricier models than this one.

But, it's better than not having a cable at all.............right? LOL.

H9

cnh

heiney9 wrote: »

For $5 and some exercise, not bad. Monster cables basically suck sound wise. The death grip of the "turbo" ends is extremely frustrating and will ruin basic gear in a hurry. The direction arrows are real, as in applied at the factory, IIRC.

Best thing I ever did was get rid of my Monster Cables and I had much pricier models than this one.

But, it's better than not having a cable at all.............right? LOL.

H9

I have a pair somewhere and Brock is right, getting those things on and off an amp is a frightening experience, you feel like its going to rip the RCAs off the back of your unit! Loosen those ends up if you can you'll thank us later!

heiney9

I think one needs to twist and gently pull at the same time. Just don't force it off or you'll be sorry. Maybe put some De-Oxit on the inside of the sleeve. It's a good idea to use De-Oxit on cables anyway.

H9

daddyjt

heiney9 wrote: »

For $5 and some exercise, not bad. Monster cables basically suck sound wise. The death grip of the "turbo" ends is extremely frustrating and will ruin basic gear in a hurry. The direction arrows are real, as in applied at the factory, IIRC.

Best thing I ever did was get rid of my Monster Cables and I had much pricier models than this one.

But, it's better than not having a cable at all.............right? LOL.

H9

As long as a cable has a sufficent amount of cunductor to transfer the required current without resistance, rejects noise & RF, and has acceptable (as in very, very little) capacitance, it's a great cable. That leaves build quality, which Monster does ok with.

I don't use my Monster stuff any more, because I went through the "high end" cable phase. I continue to use my Kimber stuff because I paid so damn much for it. I have some of Doug's cables, not because of any "sound", but because his build quality is top notch.

Most all well-constructed gear will have quality RCA jacks that are imune to being destroyed by removing a tight fitting cable. For all others, a gentle twist as you remove will prevent damage...

heiney9

I am not going to get into a cable discussion with you, every Monster Cable I have owned compared to Kimber, Signal, Canare sounded horrible.

I finally settled on MIT's because they sounded the best, by a wide margin.


Wire is not wire...................

deronb1

Here we go, here we go!

heiney9

deronb1 wrote: »

Here we go, here we go!

No, I don't think so, because I've said my piece and I'm not engaging in a cable debate. Beat -- Dead -- Horse

H9

daddyjt

heiney9 wrote: »

I am not going to get into a cable discussion with you, every Monster Cable I have owned compared to Kimber, Signal, Canare sounded horrible.

I finally settled on MIT's because they sounded the best, by a wide margin.


Wire is not wire...................

I respectfully disagree, but I've seen the cable debate play out enough times to realize that no one is changing anyone's mind.

I was simply trying to reassure the OP that he got a good deal on a decent cable...

No offense intended.

heiney9

I agree $5 for a working I/C is certainly worth it. Cables do tend to polarize and MC tends to polarize even more.

No offense taken

Enjoy Lew and just be careful when removing them

H9

leftwinger57

I think I didn't hit post hope it does not double up.. I can't believe what I started here. Like I said in a prior post I do I think destroyed an output channel on my Onkyo P-301 by TRYING to remove a MC i/c. Now as most here know I never bought into the quality and cost of cable especially after reading Rodger Russell's take on speaker wire but I did learn. It's way better than anything generic out there. I learned my lesson well going from spindly CDP packaged i/c to MC> Signal Cable>Audio Quest>DH-Labs (from Tony)> to clears w/ great ends thanks to P-Man.

cvc

Also, read the small white printing on the cable that you can see in your second pic.. I think there might be a tiny arrow printed there too..

[Deleted User]

I would just karma them before the debate starts.

daddyjt

heiney9 wrote: »

I agree $5 for a working I/C is certainly worth it. Cables do tend to polarize and MC tends to polarize even more.

No offense taken

Enjoy Lew and just be careful when removing them

H9

Nice pun BTW:-)

tonyb

Can you see me, shaking my head at you LW ?

IMHO....you wasted 5 bucks, wouldn't take them if they were free. Plus you blame the Monster death grip on ruining a plug, why would you want to use them again ?

MrBuhl

cvc wrote: »

Also, read the small white printing on the cable that you can see in your second pic.. I think there might be a tiny arrow printed there too..

Yes - that's correct.