Accessories & Cables

Monster Cable is a brand of audio and video cable for electronics, primarily speaker cable and cable for audio and video components. It is made by Monster Cable Products Inc., a privately held company in Brisbane, CA. with 800 employees. more...

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Monster Cable Products (Monster) was founded in San Francisco in 1979 by musician and audiophile Noel Lee. In addition to cable, the company has created an industry of high-performance consumer electronics accessories, including power conditioning centers and iPod accessories under a breadth of brands including Monster Cable, Monster Power, Monster Mobile, Monster Performance Car, Monster Game, Monster Photo, and M•Design. The company holds over 200 U.S. and international patents and offers more than 4,000 products in more than 100 countries. In November 2005, the company launched a DVD-music label, Monster Music, releasing popular recordings in surround sound at high definition. Monster holds the naming rights to the San Francisco 49ers stadium at Candlestick, Monster Park.

Controversy

Monster Cable and similar "boutique" cables are a main source of revenue for retailers of electronics such as DVD players and TVs. While the margins of DVD players and TVs are usually quite low, the high margins of Monster Cables and similar products provide important revenue for these retailers. The heavy marketing and corresponding bundling of Monster Cable and similar products are de-facto procedures for employees at these resellers.

Whether Monster analog cables actually provide better quality sound or video than generic cables is a highly debated topic among the audio and videophile communities. Digital cables will produce the same quality, no matter how cheap the cable, as a digital signal is either totally present or totally lacking. Therefore, using Monster for digital interconnects, such as HDMI, DVI, Toslink (optical) audio, or digital audio, will yield no higher sound or video quality than the cheapest cable available, if the environment is correct to support digital signals, such as using cables with magnetic shielding.

Monster Cable is aggresively protecting its name and trademark by filing numerous lawsuits and trademark infringement claims against dozens of companies for using the word "monster" in names, products or services. Some consider this simply a strong-arm tactic against small and large companies. Monster Cable CEO Noel Lee defended these actions by saying "We have an obligation to protect our trademark; otherwise we'd lose it". Some of the items they are sueing about are: Monster Garage, Monster House, Monster Energy Drink, MonsterHTPC, Snow Monsters (a kid's skiing group), MonsterVintage (small used clothing store), Monsters Inc., Monsters of the Midway (Chicago Bears), Fenway Park's Monster seats, and the Monster.com employment website.

Various reviews have reported that listeners are unable to tell a difference between Monster Cable products and inexpensive gold-plated RCA connectors.

Read more at Wikipedia.org