How do you justify Monster Cable Prices?

Question

I went over to the circuit city to get an HDMI cable. I walk over to where the cables are and notice a guy standing in-front of the monster cable trying to decide whether he should get the $100+ monster brand cable or not.

Next to the monster cables are a bit cheaper $40 cables, and around the corner somewhat hidden away are real cheap ones at like $20-.

Now, I stood there with him for like 10 min unable to choose which one to get, and I ended up picking the $20 one and left before the guy who was still unable to decide.

The cable is going to be used for connecting my ps3 to the 1080p samsung. Tell me, is it really worth the money to get the monster cable priced over $100? I personally think cables priced at even $50 are expensive. How can you ever justify a freakin cable being priced over $100? It's some people's whole day's worth of paycheck..

Let me know your opinions.

Answer 1

There is somewhat of a differnece.  But not a difference that is worth 80 dollars

Answer 2

The most expensive cables are for those people that run bars and venues where they need and can afford them. Get a $20 cable and enjoy PS3. It will be $150 b4 you know it and then I'll buy one.

Answer 3

Especially for HDMI cables.  Its digital.  Either it works or it doesn't...and the $20 ones work. I buy my cables from Amazon.  Got one for $14 and it works perfect.

Answer 4

My advice: make them yourself at a fraction of the price: http://revision3.com/systm/avcabling/

Answer 5

I've answered this many many times before: never ever buy Monster cables.  I always suggest Monoprice.com  Great cables at a great price.

Answer 6

You don't cable suck, Dish Network all the way!!!

Answer 7

Actually there is a good reason to buy them at $100 or more.

But not for what you use them for.

With high end stereo equipment it is really worth it.

You can tell the difference in the sound quality between the $20 one and the $100 one.

What's really cool is trying a $500 cable, I've seen them for $1000 or more too.

Now if you have a crappy stereo there is no need for spending that much, you will NEVER hear the difference.

Strange but true.

If you really want to know goto a audio store a real one.

They will let you try different cables and you will hear the difference in the sound.

But best buy or circuit city isn't going to let you, even if they do their stuff is cheap.

Answer 8

im a retail sales person at futureshop (bestbuy) and let me tell you a secret. we sell hdmi/hd components cables/usb cables h**l any cables at twice and sometimes 7 times the cost. The retail price of the monster cable is 100$ and the cheaper ones 20$. but their costs (the price which the company purchased the cables) is less that 10$. so essentially they both have the same price. but the retail companies want you to buy the expensive ones so they can make 80$ off you and their margins would go way up. necessarily the 100$ cables look much more attractive than the cheap ones. but thats all.

Answer 9

you can't and there is no significant difference in the cables whatsoever

Answer 10

You can't tell the difference. Cables represent a huge profit margin for big box stores. If you buy a DVD player at Circuit City and the sales-child actually manages to fool you into buying Monster Cables, they will make more money off the cables than the player. Best place to buy cables is on-line... Radio Shack.com is usually cheap (cheaper than the actual RS stores) and bensbargains.net is a good place to look for any cheap technology, including cables.

On a another note, Monster Cable is a disgusting company that files frivolous lawsuits against anyone trying to use the name "Monster". They even tried to sue Disney for the name of the movie Monster Inc, but I think they bit off more than they could chew on that one. They especially like to sue small companies out of business. So when they aren't gouging the American public for over-priced cables they are suing small businesses in their spare time. I actually avoid Circuit City because they push Monster Cable so hard.... I go with Best Buy instead for the technology, and go on-line for the cables and other stuff you need.

JUST SAY NO TO MONSTER! If a sales person tries to tell you Monster cables are better, tell them they just lost a customer and go somewhere else. Eventually they'll get the message. I actually had a Circuit City rep try to tell me a new flatscreen TV HAD to have monster cables, and also said that the company had "never sued a small business". I haven't gone back to Circuit City since.

Answer 11

Definitely not worth it. I bought 3 - 6 foot HDMI cables at monoprice.com (a great cable site) for about $5 each and they work great. As another responder already said, it's digital it works or it doesn't unlike analog where crosstalk and other types of interference can influence the signal. And if you're only going short distances you certainly don't need to spend that money. As for "Chunky and his $500 dollar cables...he's smoking something that the rest of us will never see - his own money. But then again, he's probably talking about analog cables and not HDMI. Even with analog, and normal distances, nobody's hearing is good enough to tell the difference even if an O scope or other test equipment can.

Answer 12

Monster cables are more of a status thing, like iPods. (having no real benefit over other products that have better features and are priced more fairly) There is no reasonable difference, in my experience there is no notable difference in monster cables, and sometimes the monster cables actually performed WORSE than the cheaper ones because the redundant gold lacing on the inside of it created crosstalk (signals from parallel cables getting mixed up with other ones.) and being less durable.

I could justify the 40$ ones as the absolute cheapest can present durability issues, but other than that, just go with the cheaper ones. You won't notice much of a difference if you aren't constantly bundling them up and moving them from place to place.