Are these the Best Budget Audio Cables? Monoprice Onix
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- Опубліковано 27 лип 2024
- Are these the Best Budget Audio Cables? When looking for the best budget audio cables, you have to know what you are looking for. They should be oxygen free copper, have tight ends, but not too tight an should be reliable. Is it possible to get lifetime warranty audio cables on a budget? Find out why I am loving these Monoprice Onix and why I think they are the best budget audio cables.
Best Budget Audio Cables - Monoprice Onix
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Spot on observations. I bought a bunch of these for my car audio install. Great cables (aside from lack of +/- markings) but the ends were too long for my car audio application. Work fantastically in the bench or home audio environment. A real bargain!
I have built cables like that. The end I used were in pairs of red and blue. I also used 75ohm coax to make them. They sound really good. $25 is a good deal for pre-made cables.
Good video, the real test is what's inside the actual cable, how about cutting one of the ends of and have a close look at how the cable is made.
I’m running the Amazon basics brand and have been super impressed with the feel and quality and they work the same as any cable. And you can’t beat the price.
I might just have to try and check those out. Thank you for the suggestion.
@@Toid
Agreed, most of my cable collection is from MIT, AudioQuest, Kimber, and Cardas. I helped a buddy put his home setup together and he ended up buying a huge lot of the Amazon Basics cables. He had maybe a dozen cables left over and gave them to me and I have to say that they are definitely not “Basic”. Build quality is quite good.
After auditioning several AVRs I was still aware the background signal noise was still present. It was only when I finally purchased non false economy cables did my noise floor finally become low. Here you go here's a short 3-minute video of what it entailed...
ua-cam.com/video/wwU0d3NfRQw/v-deo.htmlsi=sOYKTtHh0bMOE6q2
Got to remember unshielded cables act as antennas for attracting RF and the longer the cable the better the antenna. Probably explains why when I used to disconnect my heights & surrounds the sound of the noise floor considerably come down.
Insane 😜 Great video. Thank you.
I'm using the midrange monoprice cables. Work great.
The fact that a cable connector gets tight or not is not the only parameter when it comes to choosing cables. As far as I know, for RCA, any coax or microphonic cable (which have good shielding) should be ok. I made a pair of interconnects myself using microphonic cable (22 AWG) OFHC to connect my DAC to the amp. The sound is fantastic!
The monster cables are designed to to twist as you install/ uninstall. That’s the reason for the “turbine” design
Very much on the late freight here but lately I've been using the Worlds Best Cables, found on Amazon. Their High Definition Audiophile cables use what looks to be the same locking RCA cable connects, as shown in the Monoprice cable here. The WBC use Mogami 2497 wire. Great very well constructed cable. Actually seemed to be an improvement in sound over my basic cables. Reasonable in price.
Sweet. I'll have to look them up. Maybe I'll get some in and take a look at them on the channel.
Lack of delineation between left and right iis a big no go for me on these cable even though they do look really nice. Here’s hoping mono price will make a version two with red White indicators! However, I might purchase some for our church PA system that is mono and doesn’t really matter whether you’re connecting left or right into an adapter.
HOSA brand cable. No gimmicks, fair price, works great. Also, their 3.5mm connector has a stepped down connector to easily fit phones that have thick cases.
The good info let's you slide with that hat I guess . Lol can't wait till we can get you in a proper NY hat .
I like the cables both red, maybe a small R or L mark would be nice
Hi, great review. Are you planning to review Monoprice top of the line cables, the Monoliths? They cover every application: interconnects, subwoofer, USB and speaker cables. Thanks
I probably will consider it. I actually wanted to see if I can get some of their monolith speakers in for review. I'd be really interested to see how they measure. By all sounds they appear to be a good value.
I'm all about getting my room as quiet as possible! Maybe I'm just a little sensitive to the background signal noise (noise floor) but for me, even though I'm running an arcam avr20 with a couple of matching high-performance 4 channel power amps (front stage/Atmos) which are driving my Sonus Faber speakers in a 5.2.4 configuration, which also includes a stereo pair of Rel subwoofers for my 4 × 3.5m (13 × 11.5ft) livingroom. I have to say it was only when I purchased quality shielded speaker & RCA cables did my room finally become exceptionally quiet!
My room is now so quiet there are occasions (without me opening my eyes) I'm actually unable to differentiate whether the system is switched off or if it's switched on. The room is really that quiet.
If one is looking to get rid of that so-called ambient sound of the room. IMO shielded cables are the only way to go. And bear in mind this is coming from someone who's changed his setup and cables multiple times.
Silence is Golden 🥳
Do you have any knowledge of silver flute woofers? They look good and priced affordable but I can't find much info on them other than what madisound has on its site. On the graph they look really good... Btw I love the new pod cast, your vast knowledge of custom home audio mixed with car audio is a refreshing combo.
I went from monster inter to world best cables inter a huge difference in sound CDs that I know became more of every thing cheap and fine.
Use white - out on one side of the monoprice to use as left .
The color issue is a definite oversight, but other than that these look fantastic! The heads are a bit too big for car audio use unfortunately... I could certainly use them on the test bench tho
Just put a dot of correction fluid problem solved but you would have thought they could have used white don't like gold connections anyway not good
The Monster Cables are easier to plug in or remove if you twist/spin them as you do.
They should have been constructed as directional cables: one wire hot, one wire return, with the shield connected only at the source end. Better hum rejection and better sonics.
they're coaxial, they have a solid center conductor with braided shield. i know what you mean though, faraday cage method is common for dual conductor+shield cables.
I stopped using monster cable for the same reason pulled out too many connectors. started using cables from stinger and skyhigh audio
I'm looking to switch out my rca cable on my Thorens turntable. Would these cables do the job?
I’ve had these for a few years now. The reason they don’t do colors is these are really meant for sub duty not really rca but will be fine for that. They are rg6 copper. The other ones you have from mono are the rg-59 cables.
They don’t want to re-label these for rca colors is what I’m assuming because the majority of people buy them for sub or interconnects.
That makes sense. Although it's really rough especially with the 3.5 mini to RCA cable.
@@Toid yea in that case they should of just used different color threaded inserts in the barrel piece. Guess they don’t want to add more work to these end pieces.
Do you hear any difference between the mensioned cables?
XLR is my way to go. ❤️
These connections are made as they should to set and forget.
I have a little experiment for you. Do a left and right speaker test with that 3.5mm to RCA. The results will surprise you. You'll see, unless you already figured it out.
Try Oyaide interconnects they are reasonably priced as well and they are made in Japan
I’ll look into them, thanks. I am glad you focused on the mechanical construction and design and stayed away from audio quality
There's an easy solution to the "fins stretching" problem. Pad some needle nose with duct tape or equivalent, (to protect the gold plating) and gently crimp them back to the correct diameter.
I generally like Monoprice products however this is the first cable from them that I cannot recommend. I was impressed w/the features on this cable for the price. I bought two versions just a few months ago, one as a Y-splitter and the other with RCA to mini-jack. Both were poor quality internally. The solder was open on one of the Y-splitter connectors. I opened another connector to find that the solder joint was strained under tension. The pin on the mini-jack cable arrived bent and broke when I gently attempted to straighten it.
really? That is crazy!
@@Toid have you checked the solder joints on your cables?
@@jackykimes no, I didn't open them up.
I agree, Monster RCA's are crap. They used to be good but the quality control has gone to crap. Thanks for the video!
I agree with a couple of other posts that Blue Jeans cable is probably the best bang for the buck. If you want to go a step up and not break the bank, try Cullen cables. Patrick Cullen is great to work with and will custom build anything you need. He did a 40-foot pair of XLR cables for me. Excellent quality in both craftsmanship and components.
The real question is how you live with not knowing left from right? Is it possible you could mark them somehow? I bought a bunch of these only to find out they're both red and have been trying to figure out a solution to mark one white or black.
Rather than buy a pair of flimsy cables, to listen to my music; from Amazon; i very recently bought my own RCA connectors; and choose my own kind of wire. I’m now using solid copper electrical wire connected to these plugs. And Considering that i have a good musical ear… there is some considerable amount of sound difference; as opposed to using stranded wire cables. ( obviously)
Why fork out 2 or 3 hundred dollars or pounds for a pair of cables ( unless you want them to look really fab with your hifi.. when you can make your own?
Sunday am 23rd October 2022. U.K. Southampton
Read the Amazon reviews before purchasing this cable!
I recommend Blue Jeans Cable
how can you tell which is the white and which is the red cable?
There is something to say about a good quality shielded cable but spending hundreds or thousands on cables is silly. I love the hobby and I'm always changing my components. Some of the more expensive ones I have are very difficult to unplug. The ones I spent about 10 bucks on seem to work the best. I'm staying with those. Lots of snake oil in the fancy cables.
A few thoughts:
These are the wrong ohmage for digital, and digital is often better done with coaxial.
Those clamps will compress the mating end in very short order, and no other RCA will be able to grip them again. Spring pressure is the best because it is constant pressure at all temps. If your connectors are getting loose with time, then they have poorly made RCA's.
Monster Cable is not a high end product, they are the Bose of the cable industry.
My son had some of these connecting his Schiit Audio DAC and head phone amp. I lent him a pair of Bluejeans Cables, and the quality difference was obvious and immediate. IMO, Bluejeans Cables are the best entry level audiophile cables.
👍
4:36 how could you waste such a perfect opportunity for a your sister/mom joke
Where are the links? Toid.
Hi. At the risk of sounding like a troll - this review does not cover the cables audio performance and only mentions the build quality which is helpful but not the primary issue for buyers.
I searched their site. Didn't find any speaker cables.
Too tight, spray with Deoxit d-5. Too loose, crimp with proper pliers. Best of both, crimp and spray.
Oh boy
I have found monster to be bad in sound. I would recommend dnm
I spent $100 on some Monster brand speaker cable many decades ago; I kept them around as a "don't let this happen to you." Truly awful sounding cables that were easily bested by virtually any other conductive substance known to man, including, but not limited to 24 gauge Radio Shack speaker wire for $2/spool.
Nice
Those appear to perhaps be sourced from Douglas.
Reminds me of my old Vampire Wires w/locking collets. They were fine but damn, a real bitch at times with inadequate space to maneuver your fingers.
That's a good point. I should have probably brought that up in the review. Thanks for bringing it up
Did not get great reviews on Amazon lower resistance .
You are right. And honestly I started having issues with mine as well. I ended up having to replace them. I loved most of the features on them and the design, but the longevity of these really do seem to lack. I no longer recommend these
Blue Jeans cables
You need to go for 50 ohms or 30 ohms not 75 ohms only 75 ohms for digital connection not analogue
Blue jeans or Belden cable, best cables is audio note especially speaker cable and mains cable half a metre don't go more than half a metre for mains
You should coat all your connectors mains plans into connect speaker terminal speaker wires with conductive polymer give us a better connection
Thank John. I've been meaning to get some blue jean cables in. This might just give me a reason to do it.
I purchased a pair of these for sub duty and they sucked. Sub is a HSU VTF3-Mk3. Bass got sloppy and rolled off.
I also tried replacing my $40 Blue Jeans RCA LC-1 cables between my pre-amp and power amp and they sounded irritating. I attempted to leave them there for a while but, after about 30 minutes, switched back to the LC-1. Keep in mind this is a high end pre and power amp so your mileage may vary. I also prefer the LC-1 to some much more expensive Tara Labs cables, so there's that.
I've been wanting to check out the lc-1 cables. I'll have to try some out sometime.
Hey Toid, I am making the move over to Minds for most of the content I will follow. This “Cleansing” has me concerned with which platform I will support. Would you mind posting your content over on that platform as well? Also my handle over there is TimeAlchemist if you’d like to follow back. I would sure appreciate it. I’m beginning to plan a deep dive into content creation. I could sure use some tips.
Nice. I'll have to look into it.
That’s why they make labels, issue solved!
The best budget cables are the ones I make myself....
Great call!
What's your recipe? Mind sharing?
@@Bruceanddenise Off the shelf Neutrik connectors, with thick copper cables in between, you can choose your cable but I recommend one with shielding and high copper purity. No, they don't have adjustable clamp pressure, and yes they clamp AF and may take the RCA connector out of your device if you're not careful. But they work wonderfully, and for home audio, you probably won't be messing around a lot with your cables. I found the ones I make like this, are more durable than complete off the shelf cables even high quality ones, especially guitar cables, they tend to stop working if you drop them or something, the ones I make myself never did that. Not sure if it's the soldering or the plastic washers included in Neutrik terminations but yeah, that's my experience. Plus you end up with really cheap cables.
S K W cables
How can a good cable be 97% ofc? Isn't that worse than average? You can get super cheap $10 cables with 99+% ofc
Metallurgist here.
'97% pure oxygen-free copper conductor' is a linguistic, technical, and marketing mess. 97% pure means 3% impure, one hell of a dirty metal. 'Oxygen-free copper' is a lie, unless you are willing to spend thousands more to obtain 99.999999% purity (100% is practically impossible). There are only relative levels of purity, and since it makes a difference I want to know what that level is before I spend my hard-earned coppers. Whatever is the case, you have misstated the information in the video @3m24s.
Monoprice does not help in their marketing by not stating the actual grade as defined by the Copper Development Association. I know, everybody on Amazon practices the same deception, so I am not picking on Monoprice.
Kindly clarify what kind of copper they are using.
You're recommending them but haven't mentioned how they sound?! Audiophile cable choice is not driven by how they look, but by how they sound! That's why I like some Kimber, Audioquest models and do not like others. When fitted, they stay there as long as I like the sound or until I get a new one and fit it where it makes the biggest difference. They are only removed for my yearly spring clean (remove, clean contacts, re-fit) or if the equipment changes. I like the screw-tighten action. Some of my cables with WBT-brand RCA's also do this. All the best, Rob
It's my opinion that RCA cables shouldn't be heard. If they are, then they're a bad cable. Either broken, bad design or have insufficient shielding and thus become noisy.
@@Toid You are absolutely right. But, you will never convince many audiophiles of that because they absolutely do hear major differences between cables. Why should they believe you rather than their own ears. The answer comes from understanding how humans hear and the impact of confirmation/expectation bias on our senses. In blind testing, cables that are not broke, poorly shielded, or poorly designed sound the same.
Sure, if there is a fault with the cable it will be very audible. I'm talking about subtle differences that you can hear if you have a highly detailed, high-resolution system and if you are trained (or trained yourself) to listen. The average guy won't hear much (if any) difference on a run of the mill store-bought system with lousy interconnects and cheap-o loudspeaker cable. And if you don't believe that different signal cables and speaker cables can sound different, you certainly won't believe that different power cables can sound different. But that's OK. I didn't believe it either (I'm a physicist) until I heard it. And my wife (who plays piano well) can hear some of the same things I can hear - without my prompting. But you need first to have a well set-up highly detailed, high-resolution system to hear these things. And most people don't have that chance. All the best, Rob
@@ggroch That is not the case and is easily proven. Cables can sound vastly different in different systems. I purchased a set of MIT interconnects that were truly awful sounding in my system and the Monoprice cables referred to in the video were not great, but not as bad as the MITs.
If you test different cables in a system that's not resolving enough, you probably won't hear a difference. The cables have to be the weak link (no pun intended). I've tried swapping cables with unsuspecting victims and, without them knowing what I was doing, every single person could hear a dramatic difference.
@@twistedmister1 Hi Cary. You are mistaken in your belief that well designed cables impact sound with your proof being that you and your friends can hear a difference. There has never been a blind test in which cable differences were statistically proven audible. I am not doubting that you and your friends hear a difference, but it is not because of the cable. The test you describe with an unsuspecting friend is not blind. If you seriously want to know why and how this seeming disconnect happens there are 2 videos I can point you to that explain it. The first by Ethan Winer describes a Null Test that proves using EARS not graphs or measurements that cables do not sound different. The Null test video: ua-cam.com/video/ZyWt3kANA3Q/v-deo.html The second by J. J. Johnston from Dolby explains why we do hear differences in audio components that are not actually there. If you watch 6 minutes of it you will get the gist. His description of a tube/transistor preference test is hilarious: ua-cam.com/video/BYTlN6wjcvQ/v-deo.html I will not hijack Toids cable topic to comment further on this, but the overview is that how cables work is extremely simple, how humans hear is not simple, but both are established science, not belief or opinion.
You buy rca cables at used car dealerships??? Where they do that at?🤡
🤦♂️
Hey, serious question: would you recommend to use the black cable for black music or only at night?👀🙉🦻🥃🥃🥃🔌🛁🪓🙇🪚🍲🚾
Try Grimm TPR, also good for your money
Oh boy