[MisterTea]

> I had no idea Monster sold anything other than over priced guitar cables...

Basically, someone asked themselves "how do I port the audiophile scam to the home entertainment space?" And monster cables was born.

When Monster first came out it became a meme.

Their advertisement was laughable and remember joking with tech savvy friends about how all wire was vastly inferior to the alien technology monster used in their oxygen free high purity copper that "allows more music to flow" (actual quote from their shitty packaging.) They sold cables for everything AV and then invaded the musician space with their trash.

Overly aggressive salesmen in electronics stores would push them on every sale. It was tiring. Buying a little TV for the kitchen? "Dont forget the monster HDMI cable and monster coax cable to hook up the cable box! oh and the monster surge strip that purifies the electron essence before the harmonic protuberances make it into your music!" Sure thing chief, lemme spend a hundred bucks on five bucks worth of cable. No wonder they turned into a meme and a lot of people hated them. But there's always a sucker who loves showing off his $80 cables to another sucker.

[chrisdhoover]

If you travel back im time you’ll find audio connectors corroded. It was standard practice to use an eraser to polish the jacks. Monster offered gold plated connectors. It really made difference. Any benefits beyond non corrosive is questionable.

[chipotle_coyote]

Back in the day, Radio Shack offered gold plated connectors on their cables, too (IIRC, there was "Archer" and "Archer Gold"). To this day I always get a little prickly at people who sneer at audiophile cables and specifically rag on gold-plated connectors rather than, I don't know, oxygen-free silver cables or whatever. The gold plating was actually a real valuable thing, and the cables could still actually be pretty cheap (e.g., Radio Shack!).

I actually did have Monster-brand speaker cable many years ago, but it was the original version with no connectors, just a bare spool. I don't remember it being much more expensive than any other 12-gauge speaker wire at the time, and it was both more flexible than some other brands and prettier when exposed -- which is arguably a selling point. I still have a segment of that original cable, actually, and use it for my center channel. Somewhat amusingly given the actual linked article, the rest of the cable I have is from Blue Jeans.

[paradox460]

I still have a radio shack 3.5mm cable with gold connectors that my dad and I bought when I was 5. Still works great. One of my favorite cables. Has a lovely soft touch rubber insulation, which has survived all these years

My town has a radio shack still, and I visit them as much as I can, but I have yet to find a cable that nice

[remcob]

And now they sell gold-plated optical connectors.

[egberts1]

And it so totally rugged against tarnished contacts, unlike copper or brass contact.

Would recommend.

[sandworm101]

The sad part is that, once upon a time, those crazy claims mattered. There were once good and bad cables. But over the last centry all the best practices were universally adopted (twisted pairs, shielding, consistent conductors made of soft copper). Monster now sounds like a car company shouting about seatbelts and crumple zones, things we now just expect but were once important to look for when selecting cable.

Given Monster some credit for at least being a brand. Have fun trying to reclaim a warranty from the discount chinese numbered company that tops your amazon search. It will be out of business before your delivery arrives.

[maxglute]

>Have fun trying to reclaim a warranty from the discount chinese numbered company that tops your amazon search

Well it's not fun because most of them have very painless warranty claims - hammer the product with a 1 star review and applie for replacement, most will just give you full refund, no / barely any questions asked. Anything to keep their top Amazon search positions and reviews. I remember when Amazon was slammed with MPOW bluetooth products, I had minor hinge issue after almost a year on a set of cans and they just shipped me a new one, didn't even need photo evidence of destruction of old device. That's been my experience with multipe "Chinesium" products on Amazon, and essentially why Amazon > Aliexpress for the RMA premium. Buy from a top ranked product where seller doesn't want to compromise position with bad reviews, pay a few bucks extra on Amazon, get faster shipping and no question asked exchanges/refunds because seller already have it built into margins.

[thaumasiotes]

> Have fun trying to reclaim a warranty from the discount chinese numbered company that tops your amazon search.

I remember seeing someone else raging about how a Chinese company on Amazon had no accountability because the business address field was filled with unintelligible gibberish and there was no way to find the company.

So I looked it up. Not only was it very easy to find the address, it was obviously the address of the owner's personal home. So even if the company did go out of business, odds are good you could make contact and ask for redress.

People will assume anything.

[Sardtok]

Yeah, 1979 was totally the biggest year in meme history.

[neuralRiot]

What if we bring the idea into 2025 and sell subscription-based cables?