Is Monster cable getting better?

Monster, in the early/mid 80's had the best single ended interconnect on the planet. It was the "Shotgun" design invented by Bruce Brisson, and Monster is still using it (as are a lot of other cable makers, because the patent has long ago expired.)

Bruce left Noel early in the game (I wonder why! ;--) to start MIT which he still owns. He developed many more patents, like the network box termination, which Monster and others cannot use. (Lots of folks put "me too" boxes on their cables but most are virtually empty ;--) He also designed the original Monster 'time coherent' speaker cable/wire -- you know, the stuff with the different sized, separately resin insulated strands of copper that forces all frequencies to get to the other end of the cable at the same time? You couldn't solder or terminate them unless you had a solder pot to burn of that insulation, which people used to unsuccessfully try to scape off with a knife!!

So in the beginning, Monster got very big, very fast, because Noel had the sole rights to Bruce's original patent; and thus, for awhile, had no competition. And Monster has been 'dining out' (or trying to) on that amazing initial success, ever since! They could have built on that success, even without Bruce's genius, by developing all kinds of new cable technology. But Noel was already so addicted to profits and marketing that he thought he could skip basic research. His high-end competition from that early time is still in business, and still very much respected (Kimber, Audioquest, Straightwire were basically 'it' other than Mogami in the pro audio/studio market.)

Kirkus, you are right on the money and thanks for adding that. I was ignoring the cable length and quality issues because trying to keep people from falling for the "voodoo" that's rampant with analog video and audio. Also, at one point in the "history" of HDMI/DVI all receivers and transmitters were not "equal". Some people with long connections would replace a source or target device and the connection would no longer work properly - no connection or sparklies. Although I haven't noticed this reported recently.

Getting back to Monster, their cables are usually well constructed and work - just way too high priced.

larry

We did lots of blind tests for hdmi cables and my wife picked the Monster cable every time.

The higher-end monster has never been seen as the "bose of the cable world" by serious audio nuts.
Some M series items are quite good actually, and designed by serious engineers.
What turns folks off are the marketing tactics and the fact that 90% of monster products are not up to the hype, and particularly the fact that the finish has become 3rd class (solders, assembly, etc... made in cheap factories you know where).

Never tried monster audio cable, but the connector for the monster 1000EX hdmi cable is very good. It is small and light, but you feel very smooth and secure when plugging into the TV. Other high end hdmi cable connectors are all big and bulky(make you feel it worth the extra money), but don’t fit into the TV connection as great as the monster one. Bigger and bulkier doesn’t necessarily mean better.