Monster Cable uses Special Solder and Special Molecules in their Specially Wound Cable with Special Insulation and Special Connectors for their Special Bass Player Customers.
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Bass cables different than guitar cables?
- Thread starter Acoustic356
- Start date
yeah the tone-shaping stuff is total garbage. They are overpriced, but I will admit that the Monster cables I've bought are pretty darn sturdy (Home Theater and Guitar/Bass). For that, I'll give em a nod on being tough cables. Past that, a cable is a cable. If it feels solid and it works, it's a good cable. As long as you don't hear crackling you're fine.
I got the Fender Custom Shop black tweed cables simply because I think they look cool.
I have not A/B tested them against the Monster Cable bass cable.
/s
I have not A/B tested them against the Monster Cable bass cable.
/s
I don't understand all of the Monster cable hate! I've owned and used one for many years now and never an issue with it. Oh, it's the one made for bass guitar. 
My Sennheiser wireless transmitter has a cable emulation mode, but it doesn't specify bass cable or guitar cable. 
I bought 3 Monster cables 20 years ago, and those suckers have been used hard, I mean bar band hard, but I've taken care of them, wrapping them the correct way when I'm done, and heck, they still look practically new and have never once given me any issues. Sure, you can make your own cables cheaper, but I honestly feel like I've gotten my money's worth out of them.
LoveThatBass
Supporting Member
what??? In the 60’s they were 8 gauge Oxygen free pure fired gold cable with Diamond studded sheath covering and sporting silver rings strategically placed to stop the flow of eddy currents for the most unique sound patterns one has ever heard
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Back in the 90's my shop tried to work with Monster, the Auto and home cables were taking off like wild fire, they made "back in the day" some damn good quality conductors, they wanted 99.9999 Oxygen free copper then we could only provide 99.999 they claimed audiophiles can hear the difference, have no clue what they use now. most speaker conductor mfg's now use only a lower grade twisted (litz) wire with certain amount of recycled copper mixed in the pure copper to lower the cost ....AKA China.
it would be a fun read to see someone do a ohm/resistance test on 20 ft leading brand cables to see who makes a good to great cable .
it would be a fun read to see someone do a ohm/resistance test on 20 ft leading brand cables to see who makes a good to great cable .
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D
Monster cables = snake oil.
Having said that, I did have a weird experience with a cheap instrument cable once. It worked fine for guitar. It worked fine for bass too... except for the lower notes on the E-string. For some reason it seemed unable to transfer the lowest frequencies. It must have been faulty somehow but I've never understood how or why or experienced anything remotely like this ever again. Maybe Monster deliberately cheapens their "guitar" cables so they cannot transfer low frequencies, lol.
I certainly don't go cork sniffing when I buy cables but I avoid the cheapest types. Not because they necessarily sound bad but because they are often unreliable. The most important things for me in an instrument cable are the following:
-Length. I get the length that I need and not an inch longer. Excessive length in an unbalanced HiZ guitar/bass cable means unnecessary noise and degradation of the sound.
-Reliability. If I experience any repeated, premature breakage with a brand I drop it and never look back.
-Quality plugs that can be easily opened and soldered/re-used.
-The cable must not get sticky over time and attract dust/dirt.
-The cable must not be flimsy and get easily tangled and yet not too stiff.
-It must be well shielded and not pick up excessive noise. And it must not be microphonic. Some cheap cables are and can actually pick up foot steps or rumbling from a stage floor. The Thomann Pro Snake guitar cables do this and are useless IMO (plus they've got those horrible Youngsheng connectors that unscrew themselves all the time). I complained to Thomann about this years ago (and got a refund) but they still sell that junk.
My favourite cable manufacturer is Sommer. Top quality, reasonable prices and tick all my boxes.
Having said that, I did have a weird experience with a cheap instrument cable once. It worked fine for guitar. It worked fine for bass too... except for the lower notes on the E-string. For some reason it seemed unable to transfer the lowest frequencies. It must have been faulty somehow but I've never understood how or why or experienced anything remotely like this ever again. Maybe Monster deliberately cheapens their "guitar" cables so they cannot transfer low frequencies, lol.
I certainly don't go cork sniffing when I buy cables but I avoid the cheapest types. Not because they necessarily sound bad but because they are often unreliable. The most important things for me in an instrument cable are the following:
-Length. I get the length that I need and not an inch longer. Excessive length in an unbalanced HiZ guitar/bass cable means unnecessary noise and degradation of the sound.
-Reliability. If I experience any repeated, premature breakage with a brand I drop it and never look back.
-Quality plugs that can be easily opened and soldered/re-used.
-The cable must not get sticky over time and attract dust/dirt.
-The cable must not be flimsy and get easily tangled and yet not too stiff.
-It must be well shielded and not pick up excessive noise. And it must not be microphonic. Some cheap cables are and can actually pick up foot steps or rumbling from a stage floor. The Thomann Pro Snake guitar cables do this and are useless IMO (plus they've got those horrible Youngsheng connectors that unscrew themselves all the time). I complained to Thomann about this years ago (and got a refund) but they still sell that junk.
My favourite cable manufacturer is Sommer. Top quality, reasonable prices and tick all my boxes.
You know what kills the best cord, no matter how anal-retentive you are about winding it up? You and your bandmates stepping all over it onstage. Get the coily ones.
No one steps on the coily kind.
No one steps on the coily kind.
Just to add, type of solder makes a big difference also, how much silver is used in solder will change the conductivity connection....... just say'n
Used to sell it to transformer and motor repair shops.
Used to sell it to transformer and motor repair shops.
You know what’s funnier
monster Car audio wire
and monster 4K HDMI cables
And monster Surge protectors
monster Car audio wire
and monster 4K HDMI cables
And monster Surge protectors
A friend of mine fell for the Monster cable shtick a few years ago. Hard.
Upon demonstration, I could for the life of me not hear a difference between a Monster cable and other brand ones (I forgot which, but no cheapos).
Upon demonstration, I could for the life of me not hear a difference between a Monster cable and other brand ones (I forgot which, but no cheapos).
One year, we found one of our customers, who bought bulk antifreeze from us, was bottling it with two different labels. One for domestic cars, and at a much higher price, the same exact antifreeze, labeled for “import cars.” He sold three times as much of the antifreeze for import cars. Salesmen have been selling snake oil for thousands of years.
way back in the 70's (stationed in Berlin) a fellow Army musician HELD the French horn, he had the worse ear of any horn holder Ive ever met. So in the band bar he starts on about Karajan and the Berlin Phil and their performance.
Over several weeks this expands and gets worse, so one day he walks in to practice and we all get invited round to his pad for an unveiling (behave not that kind of unveiling). After several beers the allotted time arrives and we walk over to his place.
He has the most expensive hi-fi I have ever seen including the gold tipped cables. Apparently he had to measure the volume of the room, the distance between speakers etc etc etc etc . . . . . . .
As I said this was after a few beers and how we kept a straight face I do not know. We then proceed to trash his house as we moved everything because it was interfering with the sympathetic resonance and underlying over tones (or other such made up BS) and the cooker needed to be in the hall along side the bed!!! We had talked him into pasting a carpet on the ceiling, but one of the Sgt said no as it was an army house and he would get into trouble for that (spoilsport).
Now bring back to that vision in your head that this guy couldn't tune his own horn.
