Audio-Cable Reviews

...you can buy the Phillips RCA Y-adapter for $4? Amazon carries the Phillips too, save your money and buy a pizza instead with the $10.

Monster Cable might be good for speaker wiring if you're an audiophile with actual supersensitive audiophile eardrums, but otherwise it's just a huge marketing gimmick.

I bought this cable a week ago. My movie watching experience has been enhanced because i used the cable to hook up my TV to stereo. The sound quality is much better. I suggest this others. It's a must have if you are a movie, TV, or stereo person.

There are better choices than Monster, look into Kimber or Audioquest cables. For the same price, they are considerably better than Monster. Monster has the lion's share of low-end (read:zip-cord) and entry level hi-fi cables, because of great marketing. Go to any chain store (e.g. Best Buy) and you'll see Monster for sale.
Like most things in life, however, if you put a little effort into research you will find better choices, for similar prices. Make sure you buy from a place where you can return the item, however!
In my first real eye-opener as to cable differences, I switched from Monster to Audioquest 4's (.. no terminators, just bare wire)and my _wife_ noticed improved sound (she didn't know I'd changed anything).

Ever since I started building a home theatre, I have upgraded the speakers to try to improve the quality of the sound. While the speakers were getting better and better, the sound wasn't improving like I was hoping. After purchasing these speaker wires and the subwoofer cable, I can tell what a difference the cables make in the sound quality. Don't buy high price, high quality speakers without investing the extra money to buy quality speaker wire. If the sound signal isn't pristine when it gets to the speaker, the speaker won't produce pristine sound.

I sent my son out to pick up another base and he brought this back. It's nice and all but I asked for a base. I coach little league and some dog's run off with second base for the third time this month. The boy's just mixed up. Anyway it's got good color and a deep sound - but I always thought these things had six strings. You learn something new every day.

This guitar was awesome. I got it yesterday. Totally sweet.

Monster makes good cables and often has products other people don't have, but this isn't the case here. This is a very common cable available in your choice of lengths from stereo and electronic stores. I have an iPod and a Bose home theater system and get perfect sound from the 6-foot, $6 version from Radio Shack. All you need is a stereo mini-plug on one end (plugs into the top of the iPod) and RCA red and white stereo jacks on the other (plug into the "input" jacks on your stereo).

If you intend on hooking your ipod up to your home stereo, go get the cheap $5.99 cable at radio shack. If you intend on taking your ipod with you while you're in your car, get this cable. Monster uses twisted pair wiring for a reason, to reduce noise, the kind of noise you might find in a car with an expensive system. I installed this cable on the head unit in my truck, the contacts are indeed tight, but I know for sure that they won't come unplugged while i'm driving.

7' is pretty long, it could be shorter. I only need a good 4' from the back of the head unit, down around and up to the front of the head unit where the ipod is mounted. And it is a bit expensive, but I think its worth it for this purpose alone. I don't see it as paying for hype, i see it as paying for a quality product that will probably outlast the ipod itself by years and years.

This is for owners' of Klipsch ProMedia 5.1 Speakers, including the New Klipsch ProMedia Ultra 5.1 Speakers.
I assume of course you already own the Klipsch DD-5.1 Digital Decoder PreAmplifier for these speakers.
The Price has dropped from $170.00 for the Klipsch DD-5.1 Digital Decoder PreAmplifier,
to a much lower price of $100.00 for the Klipsch DD-5.1 Digital Decoder PreAmplifier,
as of the date December 13, 2003.
Purchase three (3) of the Monster Cable iCable for iPod, for each set of the Klipsch Speakers and the matching Klipsch DD-5.1 Digital Decoder PreAmplifier.
Your ears will not have to contend with,
the three (3) poor quality Klipsch Y-Adapters which are supplied with your Klipsch DD-5.1 Digital Decoder PreAmplifier,
and the three (3) poor quality Klipsch cables which are supplied with your Klipsch ProMedia Speakers.
A total of six (6), *** POOR *** Klipsch Cables.
The three cables go / route from the back of the Klipsch ProMedia Powered Subwoofer to the back of the Klipsch DD-5.1 Digital Decoder PreAmplifier.
The Monster Cable iCable for iPod's only limitation is the short seven (7) foot length.
You must place the Klipsch ProMedia Powered Subwoofer within seven (7) feet of the Klipsch DD-5.1 Digital Decoder PreAmplifier.
Sure the cost is a very expensive $90.00 for three of these Monster Cable iCable for iPod,
but once purchased and hooked up,
you know the sound signal is being transmitted via a quality single cable,
rather than having the sound signal being transmitted via a cheap cable with an additional cheap Y-adapter added / joined.
!!! NO MORE two seperate cheap cables, &
!!! NO MORE two seperate cheap cables which MAY disconnect from each other.
One single cable is always better than two,
PLUS
QUALITY is what you are paying for.
NOTE: Monster Cable iCable for iPod has a 1/8" Mini Jack on one end which is the correct size required for use by the Klipsch ProMedia 5.1 speakers and Klipsch ProMedia Ultra 5.1 speakers.

Don't listen to any of us.You already have an internet connection because you are here. Go to a browser and ask the question you asked here. You will find that any review that is NOT a store will tell you that ALL speaker wire is the same. They just look cool. If that's what you need, then buy it. Otherwise, stay away from monster. It's just like bose speakers. BUZZ word, that's all. These companies can't make any money selling you a 10 dollar cable.

Ultimatly where it makes a difference is in the connector and the quality of the fiber. Since the signal doesn't have to travel a great distance, the quality of the fiber doesn't really matter all that much unless it's so bad that it actually attenuates the signal. But that's really bad!
Second, the connector is the most important part of the cable. Since that is where the end of the fiber is and where the lite must leave the fiber, it has to be either clieved very well or highly polished so the signal is not refracted.
All of this attention to detail adds to production so ultimatley, you get what you pay for. Paying $20.00 for a Monster cable is very reasonable. If you were to buy a professional cable you would pay close to $100.00, you don't see those cables on amazon.

The first reviewer is somewhat correct. Don't spend too much on digital interconnect cables....the digital format is used so quality will not depend on the transfer medium, that's the whole purpose of digital. I'm an electrical engineer, PCM audio for all intents and purposes is a pretty slow bitstream, you could use pretty cheap cable and not notice a difference. Just my humble opinion.

I would give it zero stars if I could. This product may be good for something, but it certainly does NOT do what its packaging advertises; i.e. "easily turn old records and tapes into MP3s or CDs." If you have a PC, stay far, FAR away from this bogus item. The packaging claims that it is designed for Macs AND PCs, and also claims to include a full version of Final Vinyl Recording Software. Both these statements are *technically* true... what the packaging does NOT say is that Final Vinyl does not WORK on a PC--and the only software included for PCs is 30-day trial software you will eventually need to buy for an extra ~$50. Buying such extra software (not even made by Griffin) may or may not be worth it to you--but this does not change the fact that if you did, it would be THAT ADDITIONAL SOFTWARE allowing you to convert your LPs and tapes into mp3s (together with a good RCA-to-3.5mm cable for your sound card), and NOT this product at all!! As far as converting old LPs, the only thing you can do with this product alone (using the Sound Recorder that YOU ALREADY HAVE preinstalled in Windows) is to record sound bytes NO MORE THAN 60 SECONDS LONG... now tell me how many of the songs on your old LPs and tapes are less than 60 seconds long? So without additional software, from another company, at an additional cost, this product will do absolutely nothing for you (unless you have some burning need for sound bytes under 60 seconds long).
But just to be fair, before returning this product to the store (not Amazon), I e-mailed Griffin to make sure I was not overlooking something, and got a defensive and insulting reply from someone in tech support (we'll call him Wendall), who told me, "I apologize that *you* do not have a full understanding of what our product does." To which I reply, "Well, Wendall, I understand that your product does not do what its packaging claims." Another amusing piece from Wendall was his technical(ity) argument that "Nowhere on the packaging does it say that you do not need any recording software." Is this man a lawyer or what? Okay, Wendall... this is exactly what it says on the packaging: 1) that the product works on PCs and Macs (presumably, the *whole* product--including the enclosed software?); 2) that a full version of Final Vinyl Recording Software is included; and 3) that the PURPOSE of the product is to "easily turn old records and tapes into MP3s or CDs" (for goodness' sakes!). But I guess we are just supposed to guess as to whether 'working on a PC' extends to the included software?? Wendall's take on this was that "we do not say anywhere on our packaging that [Final Vinyl] is either a Mac or PC application." (MY POINT EXACTLY!! Ya don't think that might have been a helpful thing to mention on there somewhere??)
In addition to the misleading packaging, there are next to no setup/installation instructions included (for these, you have to go online--and even then they are very brief, unclearly written, contradictory, and do not answer the questions you would think one would need to ask). One precious design gem is that you have to push the switch to the opposite side from the function you actually want to use; e.g. to enable the microphone, you push it AWAY from the mic symbol... nice, huh? My iMic (otherwise known as the headache of this past weekend) is going right back to the store for a full refund, as is the 3' RCA extension cable I had to buy to hook this useless gadget up in the first place... that is, if Radio Shack will even take it back opened (if not, that is six bucks down the drain, thanks to Griffin).
NUTSHELL: maybe this device improves sound once you have all other not-included required components in place (I wouldn't know, since I was duped into thinking it came with software that would work on my computer--and since it doesn't, I can't use it)--but it *definitely* does NOT serve alone to convert old analog music to CDs, as its packaging implies with a capital I. Consumer, beware!!!!!!

I'm using it to record NPR. I used to use a PCI sound card but got annoyed at all the noise and buzz coming from the computer. The solution was move the sound card outside the computer. It records faithfully and quietly. I'm not going to say it's easy to get it working under Linux, since sound is still not trivial, but I was successful and am very happy with this product.

I currently using Redhat Linux 9, with Alsa 1.0 patches and ecasound to do the recording. One upshot of switching to usb audio was that the quality of the recording improved so much that the size of the recordings got smaller. Now I get excellent sound quality using VBR and average about 12kbps.

This device is a totally plug-n-play way of adding sound input capability to your Mac. It plugs into a spare USB port and accepts a mini mono mic/line input. G4 Macs, among others, come with a line in audio jack, but they have no mic input and can't amplify a mic enough to make it audible. So, if you want to use an unpowered mic for direct sound-in to your mac, this is a cost-effective way to go!

The driver came installed with Jaguar, so there was no installing to do - I plugged it into the USB port and the Mac OS immediately recognized it. It shows up in the 'Sound' pane of System Preferences and is easy to select. There's a handy level meter there, so you can twiddle the amplification just right.

I've used it for a couple months to DJ my live internet radio broadcast, which goes out over the "airwaves" as a 56K internet stream. I'm using it with a cheap Radio Shack combo phones/mic headset (nine bucks), and the sound quality is totally adequate. I'd agree with the manufacturer, though, that you oughtn't expect to use this for studio-quality sound; although I can't discern any distortion or hiss from the peripheral over my cheap speakers or headphones.

This device works best when plugged into its own USB port. I had trouble when using it on USB busses that already had a lot of activity.

It fails to get 5 stars because the cable is too short - only about 18 inches - not really even long enough to make it around to the front of the computer. Also, there's an occasional (once a week) bug/problem with sound degradation after the computer's been asleep. Unplugging and re-plugging in the peripheral fixes this problem, but it'd be nice if it wasn't there at all.

In short, if you need average quality mic-level sound input into your Mac, and price is important to you, this is the peripheral you need!

I was given one of these as a gift. I replaced it in my Dolby Digital DVD to Amp signal path. It sounds no better than the cheapo Wal-Mart video coax cable I had been using for a couple of years. Then I thought, isn't that the whole reason to go digital in the first place? 1's and 0's don't know the difference between Oxygen-free copper and regular wire! Save your money.

There's no such thing as a 1 and 0 on a wire... just high frequency analog signals that need to be passed well enough that they can be deciphered as 1's and 0's by the receiver. Guy from Providence is absolutely right - it has to be the right cable. A cable for digital audio has to be balanced and have low enough loss that it can pass high bandwidth (ie - digital) without attenuating or causing excessive jitter, etc. If the cheaper cable sounds no worse in your setup, maybe it's not so bad... or maybe the bit error rate was higher and just not enough to be noticeable.

The Hatfield reviewer doesn't know what he's talking about. A regular RCA cable will transmit some signal but will NOT transmit digital audio no matter what brand it is. You must have a digital coax to do this.

Monster makes a great affordable digital coax and this option provides the advantage of durability when compared to the optical cables.

Most of the time sounds through this cord are much quiter than they sound when I hook the headphones up directly to the source. When it isn't so quiet (this cord is temperamental) odd noises are accentuated, and speech is garbled. I could of course just have a faulty one, and most might conduct sounds perfectly. I'm giving one star to my specific cord.

I bought this extension cord solely because it claimed to be 20 feet long -- so I could listen to CDs while doing computer work.

The cord, plus the 5-foot cord on the headphones, would give me about 25 feet -- more than I needed for the distance.

However, this cord was so tightly spiraled that it stretched only about 10 feet before the plug pulled out -- useless for my purpose. I have been straightening it between the doorknobs on two doors off and on ever since I got it, but it still hasn't straightened out enough for me to use it.

The sound quality is good, but I don't need a headset when I'm in the living room with the stereo. Unless and until the doorknob caper works -- and I'm about to give up -- I wasted my money. Which means, BTW, I also wasted my money on the headset --which I bought solely because I could get a 20-ft extension cord.

I think the manufacturer should have been candid about the distance this cord actually will reach -- which is only about half the stated distance. Saying "up to 20 feet" is, IMO, an unreasonable exaggeration.

I know others have commented that the cord is rather heavy, but the connection snaps very tight between the headphones and the extender, so you don't need to worry about them separating with a sudden movement. Great alternative to wireless headphones, and useful if you alternate an your computer or stereosystem between headphones and speakers ( it comes with a y connector, allowing you to plug two devices into one output source). My only objection is the price, but it's tough to find products out there like this.