It's not like we haven't seen Monster Cables used in "A-B" demos
before, but the latest in-store comparison is downright laughable. The image shown above was reportedly captured at a Fry's Electronics in Indiana, and as you can see, some clever bloke / dame figured they'd attempt to pull the wool over ignorant eyes by setting up an absolutely absurd side-by-side demonstration. The only difference between the two rigs is the use of a Monster Power Filter versus a vanilla power strip and a Monster HDMI cable versus a... no-name
composite cable. Both devices were piped to a 19-inch 720p LCD, and according to the tipster who snagged the picture, the actual image quality was only marginally different -- presumably due to the "nearly monochromatic ocean scene" that did nothing to show off the differences between the two mediums. Donuts to dollars a
coat hanger would've actually proven superior to the Monster.
[Thanks, P.]
posted Apr 21st 2008 2:02PM
So, by comparing it to a composite cable, they must realize that comparing to any decent HDMI cable would show no difference.
Ding ding ding! Tell him what he's won!
Monster pretends that they own the patent on HDMI cables.
Monster sets up these demos. I saw one with pretty clearly official Monster signage in a store.
All I can say is well, at least they're honest about the config.
also coat hangers? i dont have enough coats to require a hangar!
You dont have 1 coat?
Now let's see the same test between a generic HDMI cable and a monster cable. To make it more interesting, don't tell anyone which side is which. Chances are no one would be able to say either, short of looking at the cables.
Monster cables are for idiots and the gullible.
There are supposed to be 3 comments, but I don't see any?
Anyway, Best Buy does this too: HDMI cable compared with a composite cable, but they advertise it under the guile of "Blu Ray vs. DVD" when the DVD is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The DVD side exhibited terrible motion jag -- I doubt it was even in progressive scan mode.
Most people would not be able to tell a difference on a 42" LCD between an upscaled DVD and a Blu Ray over HDMI. Color depth on bright, outdoors scenes is the biggest difference imho.
Considering you can't use composite cables to display progressive content, I would bet you are correct.
and they were probably using a regular dvd or even worse, an hd-dvd!
(i kid, i kid)
and honestly, on a 19" lcd... you have to be close to the screen. what a dumb setup
http://s3.carltonbale.com/resolution_chart.html
This demo was not setup by Monster. Those are Fry's own printed signs. Maybe it's not false advertising, but it's very misleading and they should be ashamed of themselves.
I've seen one with official Monster signage. It was Monster component 480p vs brand X 480i composite on DVD players.
These displays are setup to show customers that they need to buy different cables for their equipment. Most people think it's cool to buy a new flat panel and just use the cables that they are using currently on their 27" CRT for their DVD player/Sat box, which are more than likely either coax or composite cables that came in the box.
Of course retailers want to display their highest margin cable in this display, which is why they usually use Monster.
Where's the monoprice.com rep when you need him/her?
The coat hanger test proves nothing when you talk about video. That test was for audio to speakers and was over very short distances. First when you talk about video the amount of data transmitted is much higher than audio to a speaker. Plus try running that over more than 4 or 5 feet and run it is a house with power wires and cell phones and so on and the results will be terrible. You have to think about all the factors when comparing.
@Josh:
What, you're saying there is ANY RATIONAL JUSTIFICATION for Monster cables? Get real dude. Monster cables have never "won" any true double blind comparison that eliminates other factors.
You could probably rig a test for HDMI which was equivalent to the coathanger test. You'd just need more coathangers (19 in all), some frame to keep them apart and some soldering to hook them up to an HDMI connector at each end.
I expect you could get a working solution which was indistinguishable from a monster cable. This would not be surprising since HDMI is digital and therefore more resilient to signal issues.
sounds like something my dad would buy into LOL
And lets not forget that other waste of money that shows up in the picture, the power filter.
I wonder if someone who didn't know any better would still be in awe if the signs were flipped... Anyone around there want to give that a shot?
@ anon,
Oh so tempting!
The great thing about it was that both 19" TV's looked bad. They had this "helicopter flying over the ocean" scene looped, and it was nearly all blue, with no contrast or other colors to actually allow you to see a difference.
Had the compared it to a Monster composite cable, or compared it to a generic HDMI cable, I would have been fine. This was just silly though.
Fry's signs are the ugliest ever used in retail. They have a cheap, almost tabloid appearance that makes me feel trashy just shopping there.
However, I do like my low-buck 32' Everex a lot, so I guess there is a trade-off.
But jeeeeeeez, fellas! Get with it!
I meant Emprex, of course.
This is hardly new. Back in the days of the Great Format War, I often saw Blu-ray compared with SDDVD disks in HDDVD players. They want to sell you the expensive cables and expect that you don't know jack.
That would just tell me not to go into that store again, them being goniffs and all.
i went into a circuit city today, and they were comparing blu-ray to their version of sdtv (which was a dvd player connected to a hdtv with composite cables). blu-ray clearly looks better than sdtv, but they were trying really hard to dumb down the dvd to make it look bad (and it did look bad). s-video or component would have probably looked decent, and hdmi (with a decent upscaler probably would have looked pretty good, especially since the hdtv's they were using for the comparison were in the 32" range).
you can't even believe this article if you're on one side or the other. Fry's has one of the worst setup of most electronics stores. It definitely depends store to store. But when a store daisy chains and uses a black box to supposable amplify the signal, how much can you really trust?
Only direct source to destination using different cables is a valid test. Fry's definitely won't do that. I'm not saying Monster cables is superior or a rip off, this test is just bogus and doesn't even belong on an engadget blog. I've seen CircuitCity setup that is better than BestBuy, should I say the cables one use is better than the other? NO, not enough info on the complete setup!
I think I can actually go one better than this one... The Fry's here in Austin has a set up RIGHT INSIDE THE FRONT DOOR ON THE MAIN AISLE where they have a new 40" Samsung LCD connected to one of their new compact OTA antennas. So far, so good, right? So I saw this and wondered why the picture looked like crap when it was so obviously pulling a clean HD signal off our local stations.
On the SAME display, they were also selling one of the new analog converter boxes and they had it hooked up between the OTA antenna and the Samsung LCD. How freaking wrong is THAT??? I started to go mention it to one of the sales people on the sales floor but then I thought better of it. They probably wouldn't understand what the problem was or even that the HAD a problem... Go figure.