Why are guitar cables so stinking expensive?

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ggunn said:
I don't and never will use Monster Cables. In the first place they are (IMO) grossly overpriced and their claims are (IMO again) snake oil. In the second place, their practice of suing the pants off anyone who uses the word "monster" in any sort of commercial venture (google "monster litigation") disgusts me.
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Huh. How can something that can be replaced for free for life be too expensive? Especially since they seem to last a VERY long time, and produce great clarity? And I could give a flying crap about who they are litigating against for using the word "monster" for a product...All I know is that they work for me - I thought it was strange that NOONE else in this thread had mentioned them....

Each to his own...
 
boingoman said:
Me too. That's one problem I have with CBI, they never seem to use the same Belden stuff twice. One will be nice and supple, the next will be unusable. :mad:

As far as Monster, for me they were too expensive up front, other companies have similar warranties, and for the same price I could have spares. Now I just make my own anyway.
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I wasn't aware that other companies had the same policy of free lifetime replacement...That's good to know, if they are cheaper up front and give that same nice clean sound...
 
One of the ones that I have that is crackling is the one I would have though would never fail. It's an AXL 20', and it has thick shrinkwrap at both ends.

I have only used it at home too.
 
Yep, as stated earlier....any kind of accessory is marked up HUNDREDS of percent.

I work for a big retailer, and my employee costs are only 5% over what the company paid for it. So, for example I can get a 30.00 phone charger for about 5 bucks....50 dollar video cables for about 10...I got a 60.00 bluetooth headset for about 12 bucks....it's insane.

Not to mention blank cd's/dvd's....anything like that is insanely marked up. That's where the stores make the money. They don't make much money on the guitars or amps. It's all that little crap.
 
gibson59neck said:
Huh. How can something that can be replaced for free for life be too expensive? Especially since they seem to last a VERY long time, and produce great clarity? And I could give a flying crap about who they are litigating against for using the word "monster" for a product...All I know is that they work for me - I thought it was strange that NOONE else in this thread had mentioned them....

Each to his own...
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The Monster people can go fuck themselves. Their bullshit arrows telling you which way the signal should flow are just stupid. (the signal coming from your guitar is AC, it needs to be able to flow both ways equally) Most of the rest of their claims are the same kind of garbage. The fact that they are sueing the guy that wrote 'Monster under the bed' (a childrens book) because he used the word 'monster' in the title just adds insult to injury.

Monster is the worse than Microsoft and Halliburton IMO. Fuck them!

BTW, Proco has the same replacement policy. The biggest difference between monster and proco is marketing hype and superstition.
 
Farview said:
The Monster people can go fuck themselves. Their bullshit arrows telling you which way the signal should flow are just stupid. (the signal coming from your guitar is AC, it needs to be able to flow both ways equally) Most of the rest of their claims are the same kind of garbage. The fact that they are sueing the guy that wrote 'Monster under the bed' (a childrens book) because he used the word 'monster' in the title just adds insult to injury.

Monster is the worse than Microsoft and Halliburton IMO. Fuck them!

BTW, Proco has the same replacement policy. The biggest difference between monster and proco is marketing hype and superstition.
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Wow. I was going to fire off a rejoinder, but yours is better than what I would have written. Well said. Have a chicklet.
 
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saint_berzerker said:
Yep, as stated earlier....any kind of accessory is marked up HUNDREDS of percent.
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Maybe in the consumer electronics industry, but in the MI industry the vast majority of products have MSRP's of 100% above the wholesale price (or, more to the point, the wholesale cost is 50% of the MSRP). But you will be pretty hard pressed to find many places which sell things at MSRP. The Only time I charge MSRP is for special orders - everything else is marked down 10-30% from the MSRP, making my margin in the 30-45% range, which is far from being "insane." There are SOME things which get marked up by more than that, but not many, and cables are not one of them.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Farview said:
The fact that they are sueing the guy that wrote 'Monster under the bed' (a childrens book) because he used the word 'monster' in the title just adds insult to injury.
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That shit in and of itself is enough reason not to use their product.

But don't worry, if the guy (or, more to the point, the guys publisher) has a good attorney, Monster will either go away, or they will end up paying for the counter-suit, as it is a case with no merit no matter what trademarks they have on the word Monster. It is clearly a non-competitive industry, and they only own the trademark for the word Monster in relation to cabling.

They've been taught this lesson many times before, but somehow they have never learned.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
cephus said:
I do that with extension cords and speaker cables, but not signal cables. You want to avoid twisting it or having it break at a sharp angle. I used to have problems with the ends, but since I started being careful, they'll fail by getting a wonky spot at some point on its length.

I have rolled them the same way for a long time. It may be stupid, but a pro sound guy showed me how to do it when I was impressionable. Everyone can make that loop so that you end up with what is essentially a slinky. That is cool, but the cable twists up while you're rolling it. I flip every other loop over so that the long end comes out underneath the last loop. It's hard to explain. I call it over/under. That way, no matter how long the cable, it won't turn into a rats nest from rolling it up. Short ones are just slinky rolls.
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plus they don't tangle as often when you unwrap them. they do occasionally, but for the most part with the over/under wrap, you don't have a tangling problem.
 
Light said:
But don't worry, if the guy (or, more to the point, the guys publisher) has a good attorney, Monster will either go away,
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The fact that the guy would have to pony up the money to defend himself is bad enough.
 
monster. one of their sales guys or distributors went to the local music store that i purchase most of my stuff from and were trying to get the store to buy a bunch of cable.

The guys were trying to get the store to do an a/b comparison, so the owner of the store asked them to guess which was the monster cable. the guy refused.

the owner told the guy which one he thought sounded better and it ended up being a horizon cable or something like that. horizon may be the wrong brand, but it was something much cheaper than monster.

I agree with what one of the other guys said in this thread....monster is snakeoil

in my opinion, making your own cables is the way to go if you have the soldering skills and time
 
I drink Monster energy drinks.

I buy my non-perishable food at Wal-Mart, and I noticed that at the front of the store they have musical equiptment. Drums, Guitars, Basses, Acoustic guitars, tamborines, guitar strings, drum sticks, and Cables.

I noticed that a Wal-Mart 20' cable was $8.00. It had the shrink-wrap and looked aright. Actually, I bought my 4 year old a guitar/amp combo (not at wal-mart), and the cable that comes with it has a steel spring where the shrink wrap normally is on regular cables.
This tightly wound spring my be something for the top cable makers to think about, because this thing is rugged.
 
Now that we know which cables not to buy, does anyone have recommendations on which to buy that won't break the bank. Although, a $40 cable doesn't really bother me that much.

I do use Mogami for mic cables and cables to my monitors, but their pretty expensive too. But I have been thinking of using them for guitar also.
 
Most people who think they can hear a difference in sound use George L's. Really old school cables, but they do unquestionably have lower capacitance than any other cable on the market, which is arguably a good thing. They are not at all robust, but it doesn't really matter as they use solderless connectors, so if they get damaged, you just cut out the damaged part of the cable, unscrew the end, and screw it onto the new (shorter) cable.

Personally, I don't use George L's, but I have some old spectraflex cables I got back in college which I like a lot. They have the braided fabric covers on them, have a capacitance almost as low as the George L's stuff, and are all but bomb proof. They are a little more expensive, but will last a long damn time, if you coil them right.

If you just want good cheap cable, most of the well known brands are fine - i.e., Whirlwind, Quantum, Pro Co, really anything with real switchcraft ends and decent cable (Belden is nice, but there are a lot of brands of cable which are fine).



Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Light said:
...but I have some old spectraflex cables I got back in college which I like a lot. They have the braided fabric covers on them, have a capacitance almost as low as the George L's stuff, and are all but bomb proof. They are a little more expensive, but will last a long damn time, if you coil them right.

Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
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I've had the same set of spectraflex cables for 15 years; every practice/gig and they're still in my gig bag.
 
Everytime someone comes into the studio and their cable craps out, I give them a Pro-co cable that I bought in the 80's. They had a lifetime warranty as well. I've never had to use it.
 
Back in the early 90s I worked as a sales rep in a local music store. One of the first things I was taught was how to coil cables correctly. At first I though it was a rather stupid thing. I had always looped them from my palm to above the elbow. But I did as I was told and it turned out to be one of the best lessons I've learned. We had a Kaman rep that would come in once a month and sell the employees things at highly discounted prices. I bought ten 12' cloth braided (I call them toaster cables) guitar cables. I've only had one go bad in approximately 15 years and it was simple solder job to fix it. The little things really make a big difference.

I also believe Monster cables are highly over-rated and wildly over-priced.
 
plays41 said:
Back in the early 90s I worked as a sales rep in a local music store. One of the first things I was taught was how to coil cables correctly. At first I though it was a rather stupid thing. I had always looped them from my palm to above the elbow. But I did as I was told and it turned out to be one of the best lessons I've learned.
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We've had a few spirited discussions in here about over-under vs. over-over cable wrapping, but one thing we all agree on is that the around-the-elbow method is by far the worst on cables. It stores stress on the cable while it is sitting there wrapped while the other two methods do not.
 
Everyone mentions the Velcro ties. Great idea, but I like these better for myself:

http://www.cableclamp.com/

MF sells black ones but price gouges because musicians think they're an exclusive product. I got mine (same brand, different colors) at Wal-Mart for pretty cheap. The only downside is that unlike a Velcro tie, they can break if someone steps on them. I had a guy step on one at a jam and now the ratchet doesn't work. Of couse, asshole shouldn't have been stepping on my cables, either, but oh well.
 
BrentDomann said:
Everyone mentions the Velcro ties. Great idea, but I like these better for myself:

http://www.cableclamp.com/

MF sells black ones but price gouges because musicians think they're an exclusive product. I got mine (same brand, different colors) at Wal-Mart for pretty cheap. The only downside is that unlike a Velcro tie, they can break if someone steps on them. I had a guy step on one at a jam and now the ratchet doesn't work. Of couse, asshole shouldn't have been stepping on my cables, either, but oh well.
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I get Velcro ties at Home Depot at a couple of bucks for about a dozen of them. Pretty colors, too. ;^)
 
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