The Speaker Cable

[voice of the theater]

I just googled Monster Cable Lawsuit and found some pretty interesting results:

Blue Jeans Cable Strikes Back - Response to Monster Cable — Reviews and News from Audioholics

monster cable lawsuit backfires... - PSU AES | Google Groups

I love these parts of his letter in particular

"Let me begin by stating, without equivocation, that I have no interest whatsoever in infringing upon any intellectual property belonging to Monster Cable. Indeed, the less my customers think my products resemble Monster's, in form or in function, the better......"

"I say this because my observation has been that Monster Cable typically operates in a hit-and-run fashion. Your client threatens litigation, expecting the victim to panic and plead for mercy; and what follows is a quickie negotiation session that ends with payment and a licensing agreement. Your client then uses this collection of licensing agreements to convince others under similar threat to accede to its demands. Let me be clear about this: there are only two ways for you to get anything out of me. You will either need to (1) convince me that I have infringed, or (2) obtain a final judgment to that effect from a court of competent jurisdiction. It may be that my inability to see the pragmatic value of settling frivolous claims is a deep character flaw, and I am sure a few of the insurance carriers for whom I have done work have seen it that way; but it is how I have done business for the last quarter-century and you are not going to change my mind. If you sue me, the case will go to judgment, and I will hold the court's attention upon the merits of your claims--or, to speak more precisely, the absence of merit from your claims--from start to finish. Not only am I unintimidated by litigation; I sometimes rather miss it.

I will also point out to you that if you do choose to undertake litigation, your "upside" is tremendously limited. If you somehow managed, despite the formidable obstacles in your way, to obtain a finding of infringement, and if you were successful at recovering a large licensing fee--say, ten cents per connector--as the measure of damages, your recovery to date would not reach four figures. On the downside, I will advance defenses which, if successful, will substantially undermine your future efforts to use these patents and marks to threaten others with these types of actions; as you are of course aware, it is easier today for your competitors to use collateral estoppel offensively than it ever has been before. Also, there is little doubt that making baseless claims of trade dress infringement and design patent infringement is an improper business tactic, which can give rise to unfair competition claims, and for a company of Monster's size, potential antitrust violations with treble damages and attorneys' fees."

Needless to say, thanks to the people on this forum I'll never buy Monster Cables again. However, with what I paid for the Monster Cables that I already have, I'll keep using them since they are good quality (with real gold on the connectors, etc.). I guess that pretty much sums up why I'm on this forum--there are people here who have the technical (and also political in this case) knowledge that I certainly don't have. I had no idea Monster Cables were such Monsters! I'm a musician and have a good ear for what sounds good--and I know the Altecs I have owned through the years are some of the best sounding speakers I've ever heard (but I'm not at all an authority on the technical WHY they sound so great--hence my involvement here). In high school, I owned Model 3's and then Model 9's, later I bought a pair of A7's, and much later bought a home made pair of speakers with various VOTT components installed. I have since sold all of those and have trimmed down to 3 pair of Altecs-- a pair of "stock" valencias 846A, a pair of Heathkit AS 101's---"stock" other than replacing caps and bypassing the L-Pads since I always left the pads turned all the way up anyways (the 101's are basically 846B's with "stock" Heathkit crossovers and cabinets), and a "stock" pair of Model 19's (the best pair of speakers I've ever heard). With EQ the Valencias, and AS 101s sound close to the model 19's, but the 19's with minimal EQ sound just plain amazing........

[oface1]

I like how Blue jeans stood up for himself... I haven't ever used MC products & after reading about a while back , will never will and I tell everyone else AI know to stay away.......Their entire biz model puts a bad taste in my mouth.

Monster cable were suing anyone with the title Monster in their name since they help the copyright to it. No matter if they were mom & pop put-put course to even pixar who released the film Monster Inc, they would try and legally bully everyone.... it was a matter of time until that someone matter of factly would tell them where to go. I love the fact that he basically told them, "Look I will love to come back out of retirement to shove back at ya."..

He's a stand-up guy in my book, and I will buy blue jeans cables if I need new cables/interconnects in the future just for his actions.

-chris

[GM]

• The little spikes. Are the within the audio band - can they be heard?
• Does the DC difference really matter? Is it enough DCR to change the sound of the speaker?
• Are any of these differences due to anything other than the LCR characteristics of the cable? Not likely

Yes, though it depends on how good your HF hearing is and how sensitive you are to phasing error. For me this equates to a little more 'air', space around/between instruments and/or 'ringing' of sustained notes. Vibe or tap dance solos are a good test IF the speaker system is otherwise highly damped.

Not AFAIK, so the bottom line for me to make a nice pretty square wave in his test is to use a single conductor wire gauge big enough to keep the voltage drop vanishingly low for the max current expected and twist the conductors along the cable run. If I use multi-strand for flexibility, I de-rate it a wire size if the strands aren't individually silver plated.

GM

[GM]

Litz wire...

I finally got around to trying this recently with some ~ 'full-range' drivers in ~35 Hz Fb MLTLs and none of us (including some teens that still have keen HF hearing) could hear a difference compared to my standard twisted pair of 16 ga. single conductor wires pulled from some scrap Romex, so all the extra stripping/braiding isn't worth it IME.

GM

[Todd W. White]

Yes, but I was always told that Litz wire only really works well below 20 Hz - the stranded might work better for other reasons, but, if memory serves, Litz wire, aka Monster Cable, has individually sealed conductors, whereas 16-gauge zip cord doesn't...

[RonSSS]

The question I have is how relevant is a comparison done at 2 khz? Last I heard is that the audio band is from 20hz to 20khz.
Also, what impedance does the crossover network represent to the amp? It will vary with frequency. Simpler crossovers, like the Altec 2 ways, represent a reasonably benign impedance curve.
Also, what happens when you use a tube amp with a relatively high output impedance?
I have tube amps that produce a perfect, and I mean perfect, square wave at up to 10khz into a resistor load. I don't know what it looks like into the speaker....I should test that someday.
BTW....I have a bunch of excellent Tektronix test gear, I just happen to work there. My source is not a generator, it's an audio oscillator, and has nil for distortion, and makes perfect square waves. This gentlemans claims that all that is needed is a simple test set up doesn't wash with me.

I have never agreed that all you need is 14GA lamp cord, or cheap RS wire for speaker connections. I do believe inedaquate affects the sound. Simple engineering practices will suffice. Maybe something more esoteric will help, if you can hear the diff. But the rediculous expensive stuff is for folks who can afford it.

I use Lowes large 10GA lamp cord for the subs. Looks like the old MS cable to me! Cheap, easy to work with. For the rest, go ahead and laugh, I use CAT 7 internet cable paralleling the many twisted pairs. any proof it's great? Nope! I got it for free.

ron

[Old Guy]

I just use good quality wire.

Some of the cheap crap has sulfur and other impurities in the insulation that can corrode the wire.

I've never found the need to waste lots of money.

I am the type who will spend what it takes to get a good microphone. Or to buy Altec speakers, or other good brand....

I still follow the rule that the transducers are the cake. I suppose in the digital realm the DA converters should be added to that list.Anything else is icing.

You can slap fancy icing on a cheap cake, but it's still a cheap cake covered up.

[Nipper]

I will believe some of this cable crap when I start seeing them making the amps with the same wire INSIDE the amp leading to the speaker terminals, inputs, etc.... Case closed.
:snickerpup:

[sba2]

here's a lot of info in one location--

Speaker Wire

[mah]

The last two paragraphs are interesting:

Audio Cable "Break In" Science or Psychological? — Reviews and News from Audioholics