I had bad luck with the monster twist bananas. The AR ones weren't any better. Even the "piercing" twist-lock one never gave nearly as "solid" of a connection as crimped on spade lugs, or bare wire on the binding posts. The difference was clearly audible. Even my non-audiophile brother would hear the difference, and were were using the same 8ga. monster speaker wire at the time.
The best bananas I've used are the "flat" screw-type bananas you find with most "scientific" equipment. Those old a connection with the bare wire like "nothing else." And come to think of it, so do the BNC terminiators on most coax, lol. I wonder if there is a connection (no pun intended)?
As for other monster cable... The 2m and 0.5m toslink isn't bad. Both sound better than the 1m, go figure! I also at one time, had some 400i series (I think that was what it was called) interconnects. They weren't bad. They charge you way to much for what you get (no surprise with cables). And transparent, they are not. They are a little veiled in the lower mids, and bottom end. At least when I switched to audio quest, I sounded a lot clearer down low. I think those AQ's were cheaper, too. but even the AQ's weren't perfect. I switched them out for better AQ's, then Wireworlds, now I running mostly Straight Wire. I think I finally got the mids and lowest to sound "correct" with my system.
monster cable may be OK, but it's far from transparent. Some say their ICs act like "filters." I dunno if I'd go that far. But they sure aren't transparent. You could probably due better for the money, IMHO.
An for FWIW, some say the straight wire encore II's I'm using aren't all that transparent, either. But one thing they are is "synergetic" with my system. Someone might have a system where monster cable is the synergetic match. So I guess, in that case, they'd be appropriate. Use you ears....
