CEO-of-Monster-Cable-Their-cables-aren’t-necessary

CEO of Monster Cable says their cables aren’t necessary for today’s technology.

I’ve been telling people for years that HDMI certified cables from companies like WhataCable! are just as good as the expensive fancy packaged Monster Cables that you’ll find at Best Buy for $129 (8 feet length). However, some people just can’t believe that there will be no performance difference. I try to explain that if you have a 1” pipe at one end (Blu-ray player) and a 1” pipe at the other end (HDTV) and decide to run a 2” pipe in between (Monster Cable), you still only get the same amount of water that you would with the 1” pipe, because the limitation is wherever there is the smallest pipe. In other words if you have a 1080p HDMI 1.3V Blu-ray player and a 1080p HDMI 1.3V HDTV, as long as you have a cable that meets those specifications, 1080p and HDMI 1.3V compliant, there is no need to go above and beyond those specifications.

When asked if you really need a Monster Cable for today’s technology, Monster Cable CEO Noel Lee said, “Do you need the high performance (Monster) cable today? Probably not. But with bigger displays and 3-D TVs coming down the pike, you will, eventually.” (USA Today, April 28, 2009 Page 6B) Are you kidding me? You are asking people to buy cables for technology 3 years down the road when we don’t even know what the specs. are going to be 3 years down the road. In 1999 maybe I should have been selling super high-quality parallel printer cables for the future 2002 parallel printer technology. But, oops. By 2002 everyone was using USB for their printers. Yeah, that makes sense.

So there you have it. You don’t need a Monster Cable for today’s technology. This is what I’ve been telling people for the past few years. HDMI cables, like the ones that are found at places like WhataCable.com meet the HDMI 1080p 1.3V standards, which is what all the electronics out on the market require. However, the sales rep. at Best Buy will tell you that you need the $129, 6-8 feet Monster Cable, because it is even better than what the HDMI specs. require. Well, that might be true, but if you put high performance racing tires on a VW bug, you still have a VW bug. It won’t make your Blu-ray or HDTV perform any better than the technology that is in them.

Other bloggers feel the same way. Joshua Topolsky, editor-in-chief of tech blog Engadget says “You buy a new cable with the new TV – not three years ahead of time.” And the fact is, I guarantee that in three years if we have higher demands and new HDMI requirements, Monster Cable (and the sales guy at Best Buy) will be telling you that your 3-year old Monster Cable is no longer sufficient for today’s high demands and you’ll need to buy a new cable. Speaking of huge profits the Monster Cables at Best Buy provide, Richard Doherty an independent analyst at Envisioneering Group said, “(Monster) Cables are enjoying percentages consumers would scream about if they knew the markup on them.” He goes on to say, “Monster used higher-quality products in the analog era to give you better sound, but as things went digital, it either works or it doesn’t. Now there’s an awful lot of $15 cables out there which would give you the exact same performance as Monster Cable.”

But despite the evidence, people every day across the nation are gladly paying the $129 for the feet Monster HDMI cable at Best Buy. I guess if they’ve just thrown down $3,000 for a TV, it makes them feel good to buy the fancy packaged cable.

So how big is Monster Cable? The Oakland Tribune recently cited Monster’s yearly sales at $100 million, but Monster Spokesman Daniel Graham says that’s “Way too low.”

It goes to show you that marketing works. People have been told for so long that they need a Monster Cable for high performance, that they believe the message.

Please save yourself some money and give the cables at WhataCable! a try. They back them with a limited Lifetime Warranty. They have supplied thousands of HDMI cables to professionals installing million dollar home theaters. Yet it continues to be the do-it-yourselfer who will pay the big bucks for the Monster Cables, because they don’t know better. I guaranty the professionals aren’t running Monster Cables on their jobs, especially in the media closets where nobody can see them.

Until Next Time
The Cable Guy