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Who or what is Monoprice?

#63
If you have a length of unbroken cable, where is the most likely failure point? At the ends--where it is soldered or fused by hand or by a machine, which introduces error such as mis-alignments, cold solder, shorting, or contamination with other material. These errors are so common and easily explained that it becomes silly to try to point to things like the directtion the wire was wrapped, or whether the inner core wire was thicker diameter than the outer wrap, or whether there is silver instead of copper. In fact if we consider how many (millions?) of HDMI cables are churned out of sweatshop factories in third world countries with almost no quality control, it doesn't surprise me at all that some of them would fail in an extreme temperature test.

I guess that does make me rethink my position though. If a cable is highly likely to have a mechanical failure, then that does affect its performance. :) So I'll agree--not all HDMI cables perfom the same, on that basis.
 
#64
Got my Monoprice cables in today. Five 18" labeled "guitar cable," and four 8" labeled "audio cable." Looks like the same cable on both sizes. Tried two 8"s and an 18" before I gave up. They're microphonic, just as Smeet said his were. They will be going back, along with a rather stern email.
 
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#65
So I got my "instrument cable", "cloth series" cables today. They are NOT microphonic/noisy. So, the rubbery looking ones (16AWG) are speaker cables, the cloth ones (20AWG) are shielded instrument cables. But...

This is subjective, but I went back and forth many times between a few cables and to my shock, they all sounded quite different (I've never really felt that before, and I really don't believe cables have any "magic"). The differences could be my imagination, but I don't think so.

In passive mode, here's what I heard:
  • Crappy old Fender cable with loose jacks: Strongest bass, loudest
  • Planet Waves Pro cable: A bit less bass, more pristine highs
  • Monoprice: Less bass, less highs, sounded kind of mid-rangey
I rolled the tone all the way off so I wouldn't be fooled by the highs, but even then the Fender was the loudest and bassiest.
When I switched to active mode, there wasn't too much difference between them, but I think it was still there.

***? Could this be real? The Monoprice cables really don't seem to have quite as much lows or highs as the other cables.

OK, my fading sanity aside, the cables work and are not noisy.
 
#66
No, that's very possible depending on the cables' capacitances. That does change the sound slightly when using passive instruments and no buffers in your system such as wirelesses or preamps. But it's totally unrelated to how much money you spend, as you've just seen with your own ears.

Er...
 
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#67
Usually durability is what you pay for, I'm curious to see how these work out for everyone. I've never been opposed to cheap cables as long as the plugs don't break if you look at them funny. Sometimes the really cheap ones the pin that connects the solder lug to the tip is flimsy and connections become intermittent over time. Heck even had that happen on a set of mogami silver cables I bought 10 years ago. They weren't cheap, sounded phenomenal but the pins worked out over time and they barely make a connection now. A cheap ibanez cable I bought the same year is still going strong and sounding great, was half the price of one of the mogamis.
 
#68
Funny you mention durability, 2.6. These Monoprice cables look like they're very well built. Heavy duty plugs that feel solid in the hand, very thick cable (a little too thick IMHO but would have been OK). A shame they have to go and pull stunts. I mentioned this speaker cable switcheroo they did when I requested my refund, but they didn't address it in their reply. They sent me a form letter with a shipping label.
 
#70
smeet said:
Jimmy, you got patch cables, right? I think their "patch cables" are unshielded. :mad:
Click to expand...
That's the scuttlebutt around the internet. But they were labeled "audio" and "guitar" cords. I should have listened to you. I am ashamed. Well not really ;) But I should have listened for sure.

I'd go for the EBS patch cables, I like those.
Click to expand...
Got a few coming later today!
 
#74
David Jayne said:
So Jimmy you got non-shielded cables or are you just assuming that? Did they hum? They may very well be shielded audio cables, but cheaply made ones that are meant to be installed and not moved. Not suitable for guitar.
Click to expand...
I am assuming that based on the reports I saw on the internet that they were unshielded. Sounds like what typically happens with unshielded cable, too. But it very well could be that 3 out of these 9 cords were just defective in the exact same way...but I'm not opening up all nine just to see if there's one that works because I have a life ;)
 
#75
bongomania said:
I bought a handful of "guitar patch cords" from them a couple months ago, but hadn't used them yet. Now I'm sure they are these bogus cables people are talking about here. Have to go test them.
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I'm in the same boat. They work alright, but they definitely sound like a mic when they're unplugged and you tap them. I'll get around to getting the right ones soon when I can afford it, and I'm guessing even the right ones from them are still close to the cheapest available.
 
#76
The website says they're shielded, and the instrument cables are even MORE shielded, whatever that all means. Monoprice (like some other brands I've checked out) don't seem to offer shielded short patch cables. Maybe they feel it's so short it doesn't matter?

Anyway, so far I think the instrument (cloth-wound) cables are good, if a bit inflexible. I'd go elsewhere for patch cables. Also, I wouldn't get speaker cables from them, if they can't even figure out if they are shielded or not, I wouldn't risk frying an amp with a cable of indeterminate construction ("general audio use" my ansible).
 
#77
So I learned a good lesson today...never return cables in the box they came in unless you want to pay out the wazoo! $12.47 they wanted! Forget that...I'll just put them in a padded envelope.

So far the EBS cables are killing, BTW. I didn't get huge space gains but they were pretty significant and made a difference between comfortable spacing and cramped ridiculous spacing.
 
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#78
JimmyM said:
So I learned a good lesson today...never return cables in the box they came in unless you want to pay out the wazoo! $12.47 they wanted! Forget that...I'll just put them in a padded envelope.

So far the EBS cables are killing, BTW. I didn't get huge space gains but they were pretty significant and made a difference between comfortable spacing and cramped ridiculous spacing.
Click to expand...

That's how I fit all those pedals on a PT-Pro ;)
 
#79
smeet said:
This is subjective, but I went back and forth many times between a few cables and to my shock, they all sounded quite different (I've never really felt that before, and I really don't believe cables have any "magic"). The differences could be my imagination, but I don't think so.

In passive mode, here's what I heard:
  • Crappy old Fender cable with loose jacks: Strongest bass, loudest
  • Planet Waves Pro cable: A bit less bass, more pristine highs
  • Monoprice: Less bass, less highs, sounded kind of mid-rangey
I rolled the tone all the way off so I wouldn't be fooled by the highs, but even then the Fender was the loudest and bassiest.
When I switched to active mode, there wasn't too much difference between them, but I think it was still there.

***? Could this be real? The Monoprice cables really don't seem to have quite as much lows or highs as the other cables.

OK, my fading sanity aside, the cables work and are not noisy.
Click to expand...
In my opinion this is mostly an exercise in the subjectivity of human hearing. True, cable capacitance may in some cases be a factor, but where you will hear it (if you hear it at all) will be in a loss in high frequency transmission. There's nothing in a cable that can make it transmit more or less bass or midrange.
 

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