Future Shop


Monster Cable

Monster Cables, everyone has seen them at the local big box store and everyone has had some aggressive sales tactics trying to push them every time you buy any gear at one of those warehouses. Monster has drawn negative attention by aiming frivolous lawsuits of trademark infringement against companies using "monster'' in their names. Monster's campaign to secure their brand on the word "Monster" includes notable victims; Discovery Channel's "Monster Garage", Disney's "Monster's Inc", Monster Slots, Monster.com, Monster Energy drink and even the Chicago Bears for using the nickname "Monsters of the Midway".
Monster Cables had long been a somewhat respectable brand of cables, the company was quietly making decent quality cables at affordable prices. In fact, they're still decent quality cables even if they are overprices and their business practices have lately become decided shady. Consider the dishonesty perpetrated against Home Theater consumer's in Canada by Monster and Future Shop. Equivalent aggressive sales tactics for giant markups exist in the US at Best Buy.

Future Shop

Wandering the aisles of Future Shop looking at TVs you'll see displays like the one below:

Future Shop Monster Cables Display
Future Shop display showing the Monster difference

Ostensibly it is to demonstrate the advantage of Monster Cables over "regular" video cables when connecting your DVD player to your new HDTV. However it's particularly deceiving because in fact there is very little difference in visible performance between Monster Cables and any other brand of cables that you can find for much less elsewhere. Dishonest sales pitches claiming enhanced performance from a product is nothing new, it's a lie but one of those "white lies" so popular in business today because it can be glossed over as simple bravado, company "esprit des corps".

Examining the back of the TV used in the display exposed some blatantly dishonest showmanship, hucksterism that would make PT Barnum himself proud. The alleged comparison between cables is not simply between Monster and another brand of cable attempting to perform the same job, but between cabling formats.

Monster cable component
Monster component vs stock composite

The blurry picture above was taken with a digital camera of the back of one of Future Shop's displays. The small circle is a yellow plug, a cheap composite video connector for the "poor" image and the three cables behind (larger circle) show "Monster" brand cables providing a component video connection. Component is always superior to composite, they're completely different formats. Composite cabling is not designed for digital video images and can only show an interlaced display, they're not even in the same league. Any brand of component cables will show a clearly superior image to the one provided by the cheesy composite video connector that came stocked with a DVD player.

Another Future Shop, another Monster display and even more dishonesty. This "display" was no more than a blatant sham.

Monster cable image
Yellow plug is a single composite connector

This "Monster Cable Difference" display was actually a presentation on a single DVD player, the display didn't even use a Monster Cable at all. Both poor and superior images shown in the side by side test patterns were displayed through this DVD player and a single stock composite video connector. The problems Monster claims are associated with a stock composite video connector are apparently a complete lie as they don't occur on the opposite side of the same screen (using the same cable format). The display is an abhorrent example of contempt Future Shop and Monster hold for the average consumer.

For the record, any component connection will give you better resolution than composite, and component is required for any HDTV resolutions including 480P from your DVD player. Even a cheap composite video connector is unlikely to display all the blemishes Monster claims in its display, in fact the picture above seems to show a stock composite video connector is just as good as Monster Cables.