If you are trying to replace Monster Studio Pro 1000, there are no other "cheaper" alternatives that sound as good.
If you are talking about Studio Pro 500, or Performer 500, or any of the "lesser" cables, then you can get stuff as good or better for cheaper for sure!
The best sounding wire I have heard that is less than Monster Studio Pro 1000 is the Mogami Quad 2534 . For balanced connections, this would be a good choice. For unbalanced, maybe overkill.
You have to consider how you are going to use your cables. If they are patch cables between pedal effects, and for a patch back, you will probably want wire with a braided shield. This type of shield remains flexible for many years, and if a strand of two of the wire shield breaks, it doesn't totally kill the effectiveness of the shield.
For "interconnect" cables, like from patchbay to rack mount devices, since these cables won't be "flexed" very often, you could go with cable that has a solid foil shield, which tends to be smaller cable, and cost quite a bit less! The problem with using solid foil shield cables as "patch" cables, or as instrument cables is that if you flex them a lot, you will cause cracks and splits in the shield, and can effectively render the shield useless. Simply, they are not as robust, but, for applications were the cable will not be moved much at all over it's life, they are a great cost effective solution, and actually, solid foil shields are MUCH better shields than braided shields in outright effectiveness.
You really can't go wrong with Mogami. If you called around to state of the art studios, you will find that at least 75% of them are wired with Mogami.
There are two reasons why I don't recommend Neutrik connectors.
First: They tend to be hard to work with! Once you have to deal with a gazillion of them, you will find that out! ESPECIALLY they XLR connectors. They are almost impossible to make an effective "jig" for.
Second: The plastic parts can easily break. In my years of doing live sound work, I have NEVER had a Switchcraft connector break, but have had SEVERAL Neutrik connectors break.
I think Switchcraft is the better way to go. They are easy to make jigs for (a jig is a "holder" of the connector. So, when you are trying solder the wire to the connector, you have the connectors firmly in place), tend to be a hair cheaper in price, and will last FOREVER.
They DO require that every once in a while, you check the screws hold it together and tighten them. This is NO MORE maintnance than having to get that the plastic parts are Neutrik connectors are tight (cause if they get lose, you can EASILY break the plastic part...
).
You are going to hear some people recommend Canare, because it is a tad cheaper than Mogami. Me and the other engineer that did the cables listening tests agreed that the Mogami Quad was VERY marginal. In the "sort of expensive" catagory of cables we tried, it was the dullest sounding cable. BUT, it DID sound better than the ProCol/Whirlwind stuff we tried. But, it didn't measure up to well to the Mogami/Belden/Gotham. So, for what that is worth to you.
All my opinions about cables above are based upon a blind test me and another engineer conducted on each other comparing about 30 different cable brand/models. Every time, after listening, in random order (with the listener not knowing which cables the recording used) we picked the Monster Studio Pro 1000 as the best sounding cable. We did a second group of recordings to make sure it wasn't some freak recording thing. Truely, it was the best sounding cable. There were a few cables grouped into the "second place", with both of us having a different opinion, but we had to agree that none of them sounding as good overall! Some had as sweet of a top end, but seem to lack bottom end, some has a great bottom, but not so good top. Etc.....The Monster SP 1000 just seemed to have the overall excellent sound!
We didn't WANT the most expensive cable to be the best sounding! HELL NO!!! We were looking at buying a LOT of wire, and frankly, if the second place cables "pretty close", we would have saved the money for sure! But, it is an obvious difference, and the studio owner decided that the extra expense was worth it to retain an excellent signal path from mic to to preamp, to recorder.
