I am thinking of adding a Monster HTPS 7000 and AVS 2000 to my HT system and have been trying to do some research on these products. I currently have a 60" Elite plasma and an Elite SC-05, PS3, and HD-DVR. I am looking to 1) protect my system in general and 2) get the best performance out of my system. I understand that the 7000/2000 are expensive, so please no posts just to beat this point to death, but I would like to know if anyone has any experience with these products, especially used in tandem. Do they actually make a difference? How much power do they consume? Anything else that is good/relevant to know?

One thing I have noticed is the absolute hatred from so many people for anything made by Monster. 'Overpriced', 'overrated, 'boycott Monster', etc., etc. Can someone please articulate what exactly the problem is with this brand other than just a one sentence jab at the company? I am really interested to hear what it is about this brand that brings so many haters out of the woodwork. Maybe I will boycott them too, but aside from the overpriced thing, I am not sure I have heard any well-supported arguments or testimonials to the other issues (not that they don't exist). I mean to be fair, all products (no matter what the purpose) have their 'value' products and their 'premium' products that many can argue are overpriced, but this alone is not exactly grounds for a boycott of premium brands IMO. I mean, should we boycott the new 4-door Porsche because you can get a Honda Accord sedan for 1/5 the price (and the Honda gets better gas mileage). What am I missing? Are Monster's products poorly constructed or inferior to other brands? Do they not honor their warranty if needed? Do they have a history of documented misleading or false advertising?

I would also appreciate responses from people who are basing their opinions on experience and not just speculation or hated/jeolousy for the most popular kid in school (it seems like some of the posts I have seen are people just salivating for the next opportunity to bash this brand). I respect the knowledge that a lot of you with experience with various HT products have.

Thank you.

I can give you some info completely independent of brand. I have not used mosnter before, and I know they cop alot of heated opinions most probably because they are a bigger company.

A voltage stabalizer (ACS 2000) will regulate the flow of electrisity to your equipment. In any application, HT, computing, etc a voltage stabalizer will make your hardware last longer because it essentially removes voltage irregularities from mains power sorurces.

The HTPS 7000 Power supply will filter out noise from the power source.

Both of these products do their job, there is a review on the ACS 2000 here
http://www.stereophile.com/powerlineaccessories/864/

Their tests show it regulates voltages to within 1% which is pretty good IMO.

It's important to know, the regulation of voltage, and the filtration of source noise will of course be effective in varying degrees. If your house's power is noisy/voltage is irregular, you will find more benefit from these products.

As stated, I have no firsthand experience with Monster, but I run several voltage regulation devices to great success. I also run noise filters, albeit not in the HT arena.

The big thing people have against monster i think, is that especially with their cables, they overprice and overhype them. Not sure if this tendencey spills over to their hardware division though.

With regards to the hatred of monster products, I think I may be able to provide a little bit of insight,

There is a large portion of the community that detests Monster Products due to their overzealous tacticts in the marketplace and what some would consider frivolous lawsuits. There are documented cases (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/11/08/BUG1J9N3C61.DTL&type=business)of Monster Products sueing various people for the "Monster" name such as IIRC a minigolf franchise on the east cost with the name Monster Golf.

Also, a good example of this can be seen in the article posted here on audioholics:
http://www.audioholics.com/news/industry-news/monster-sues-blue-jeans-cable
At the bottom of this article is a link to another article in which Blue Jeans Cables responds to the cease and desist letter from Monster. It may be worth your time to read both articles.

And lastly I think that some of the frustration is due to the abundance of knowledge available on the internet, yet the unavailability of quality alternatives to Monster products in the general population and brick and mortar stores. It is quite frequent that a person will post online that they bought X Monster Product at a certain brick and mortar store and if you ask people on the internet, in most cases they would gladly give you several alternatives of just as good quality for roughly 1/4 the price.

Yes there are those people that Hate monster products becuase its the popular thing to do right now, but if you take some time, I think you would find that other products are avialable that meet your needs and desires for less money. I recognize your desire for a premium product, and I am certain that there are other premium alternatives avialable that would perform the functions you desire for less money. Why waste money in this economy?

My personal feeling is that as long as monster continues to take a stand of overzealous copyright and trademark protection, that I will not do business with them and support those techniques.

-Rick

Well, I own 4 Monster Powercenters, they line condition and surge protect. I know that one of them is a 5100, the other three are along the same line. I have two rack mounted in my whole house AV setup and one in my living room and one in my basement on the HT.

Do they work? As far as I know they do, I have yet to lose any gear through some nasty Michigan storms over the years. As far as noise filtering? We have all new electrical throughout the house, new panels, whole house surge and a whole house generator and all heavily grounded. No line noise in my house that I know of, so I cannot comment on the Monster's ability to filter that.

Am I happy with them? Yes, they work as intended as far as I am concerned. Do I hate Monster? No, they did not come into my house and twist my arm to buy their products. And in my defense, when I bought all of this Monster gear I was unaware of all of the hard feelings regarding this company. Would I buy their gear again? Yes, if the price was right, as I did not pay top dollar and shopped around for clearance pricing, saving hundreds of dollars per unit. And at the time, Monster, in my opinion, had the best looking gear out there.

Mike

And, I will not buy their cables, unless I can get a hell of a deal, like 90% off retail.

Thanks for the info guys. I do agree that Monster's cables are VERY expensive. Not sure how I feel about their aggressive defense of the brand name. Part of me thinks it may be going overboard going after a small business that most would not confuse with Monster anyway, but another part of me doesn't blame them as I know how much money is spent in building/maintaining brands. I'm sure more brands than any of us know engage in these aggressive defenses of their brands. It's just that some are publicized more than others. Do you think Pepsi would allow some small bakery to sell 'Pepsi cakes' and not issue a cease and desist just as a matter of policy? (The Monsters, Inc. issue is pretty overboard though.)

On the subject of cables, what other brands do you guys like that are known and respected cables of comparable (or better) quality than Monster's higher end cables? I am going to be purchasing some new cables soon to connect some pretty decent components (2 shorter HDMI cables, <6 ft; 1 longer HDMI, 15 - 20 ft for the TV) and am very open to any high quality cables that are cheaper than Monster's. I see Monoprice touted everywhere on here, but I am not sure how comfortable I am in buying a $10 cable that someone swears is as good as any other cable. I know that sometimes you pay extra for a name, but with this small exception, I am still a firm believer in the concept of you get what you pay for. I have a hard time believing that a $10 cable is as good as as a $150 brand name cable, although they may be satisfactory performance for the money. it just doesn't make sense that Monster could maintain this kind of excess margin if there really was no difference. The quality of cheap cables may be close, and the differences may be negligible at shorter lengths, but if there was really no difference, market forces would drive down the $150 cable to $50 (only 5x the non-branded cable that is "just as good or better"). Maybe not, maybe that is why they defend their brand name so aggressively, as it drives and supports the excess margin.

Anyway, I would appreciate your recommendations. Thanks again.

If you are looking at Power Centers you might want to look at Furman / Panamax stuff as well, I think you get a better value and better made product there, the Panamax Voltage regulator goes for a $700 retail and it also does all the power filtering as well. As far as cables go, Blue Jeans, Mono Price, etc. all seem to offer pretty good quality cables at a pretty decent price.

I have met many in the industry that have said that Monster simply buys whatever the cheapest quality cable that they can get and then slap their casing on it and a label and there ya go you have a monster cable, At some point copper is just copper, worry about the gauge and length of run and the proper jacket, ie is it CL rated to go in the wall, so on and so forth.

I have heard Panamax thrown around and it sounds like people are pretty happy with their products. Has anyone done any side by side comparisons or reviews or anything like that of Panamax to Monster?

I have a very hard time believing that Monster uses low quality materials in their cables, at least in their higher end products. I would concede that they may be way overpriced, but now they are low quality too?

Monster Cable cables are good quality, but way overpriced. You can get the same quality cable that works exactly the same for under $5 from MonoPrice. Monster Cable is a huge waste of $$$, IMHO...especially for HDMI cables.

Funny thing. I just ordered $300 worth of cables/hdmi and other goodies from Monoprice. By all mean, that's not cheap. I'm not going if it's the same quality or not; which is better than which. But it sure beats paying about double for Monster. :)

I mean, should we boycott the new 4-door Porsche because you can get a Honda Accord sedan for 1/5 the price (and the Honda gets better gas mileage). What am I missing?

A 4-door Porsche can be proven to out perform a Honda Accord (speed, braking, steering, etc). Monster has yet to PROVE that its cables outperform any other cables. IF all you want to do is get from A to B, then an Accord is perfect for you. IF all you want to do is get electrons from A to B, then the "other" cables are perfect for you.

Having said that (anybody watching Curb Your Enthusiasm?), there are cheap cables and there are cheaply MADE cables. I can say that the cables I've purchased from Monoprice are cheap (and perform) and are NOT cheaply made.

Funny thing. I just ordered $300 worth of cables/hdmi and other goodies from Monoprice. By all mean, that's not cheap. I'm not going if it's the same quality or not; which is better than which. But it sure beats paying about double for Monster. :)

Wow...what exactly did you order from MonoPrice? $300 will buy a lot of stuff from there! :cool:

monster is like the sony of old. overpriced but "good".

Although I would sometimes say Sony had technology that was "better" than the competition, I don't believe this is true for monster.

Better can be had for the same price, and the same can be had for less.

I have a hard time believing that a $10 cable is as good as as a $150 brand name cable, although they may be satisfactory performance for the money. it just doesn't make sense that Monster could maintain this kind of excess margin if there really was no difference.

That's why the market price has not come down, because you refuse to either believe what these people are telling you (note how many posts many of these people have on the "AVScience" board, they know their stuff) or you refuse to simply buy one of each and see for yourself.

By the way, Best Buy will also sell you a 120hz Monster HDMI cable rated to work with that new 120hz LCD tv you bought, but if you notice, your player never claimed to do 120hz only the TV... so why do you need that cable?

I'm not sure what field you are in, job wise or hobby wise, but I'm sure you know a truth or two that the regular public simply refuses to grab on to.

I can personally attest to Panamax and BJC. I have used both exclusively and have never had any problems with either.

I think that Monster is much like Bose or McDonalds for that matter. In that with those name you have brand recognition. Just about everybody has heard of those three companies. That is impressive, but doesn't mean you are getting the "best" when you purchase items from any of the three. I have a couple of Monster cables in my setup and they are my "best looking" cables and they work flawlessly. The rest of my cables are from BJC and Monoprice and while they aren't as "pretty" as the Monster cables they work flawlessly too. Now I would not have purchased the Monster cables if I had to pay full retail prices on them. I got a great deal on them off of ebay and paid exactly what I think they were worth.

I think it is the pressure from Monster to pressure the purchaser at the bigbox store and the misrepresentation of the superwound, uberconductive, electronteflon coated nostickum super dielectric premium copper cables that has all of us "in the know" so wound up. Electrons don't care what brand of cable they flow across, they (and I) just want one that works. Just don't convince yourself that just because you buy Monster you are getting "the best", their product may fit your needed exactly. Just make sure you make an INFORMED purchase and if your happy and the product works for you that is all that really matters.

Oh, I wanted to add I vouch for Blue Jeans Cable and Monoprice. I was a skeptic too, until I came here and did some lurking on my own. Monoprice's $10.00 HDMI cable works just as well as Monsters $100.00 cable. I promise you. I'm also here to tell you that I bet hands down Monoprices customer support (if you should need it) would blow Monsters customer service away. I'm here to tell you don't buy into the logic that if I pay extra it must be better, that adage just doesn't hold in this arena. Save your money and use Monoprice and then you can help educate the next person that shows up here asking the same question.


Regards,

RTROSE

P.S. Sorry for the ramble, I'm battling insomnia at the moment....I hope when I read this in the morning it makes sense.

For what it's worth, I have both in my setup and the Monoprice cables work fine. Deceptive marketing aside, what makes the Monoprice cables better is that they are more flexible. You really have to fight with the Monster cables to get them to line up with your equipment. Their HDMI cables are not worth the premium; their component cables and line conditioners typically are.

Unless you are getting snow/sparkles or handshake problems, your cable - whatever the brand - is working fine. Only your wallet will know what's behind the TV once it's all hooked up.

Ill be honest I am a home theater installer and monster products honestly are the bomb and I mean by bomb bad ass equipment. People talk about quality there stuff is quality. Now I will be honest with you a digital cable that reads ones and zeros is the same weather it is monster or a sig cable for example. But the monster cable honestly has better conductors and materials used in the build of there cable and the craftsmanship is alot better than a sig cable or a monoprice cable. I have used hdmi cables of all brands carried at big box retail companies and as far as craftsmanship and durability goes in a cable monster is honestly the best. Again im not saying it will give a better picture or sound honestly but it is for sure a better cable if quality is what you are looking for in workmanship. They dont use cheap tips and ends like alot of companies do on there cables. I support them one hundred percent you pay for what you get in quality and craftsmanship.

Back on topic a bit...

+1 on the Furman. It sounds good, doesn't seem to limit dynamics, works very well at protection, and doesn't break the bank.

Just my 2 cents.

Bryan

I have owned Monster cables and yes, they are well constructed and do the job. However, they also offered no quality imprvement over the cheap component cable that Comcast gave me for free when they hooked up our DVR.

I built my current theater using only monoprice cables, including a 25' HDMI and a 35' DVI->HDMI cable. These cables have worked flawlessly and it's the longer runs that you really have to make sure you get a good cable.

I saved hundreds of dollars by shopping at monoprice and have never had a quality issue what so ever. All of my monster cables are sitting unused in my 'extra wires' pile now.

Having owned both, I did not find Monster cables worth the additional cost.