# Monoprice XLR cable review



## diablo (Sep 18, 2007)

I just received 7 3ft. Premier series XLR male to XLR female cables from Monoprice. They cost only $5.50 each in that quantity. At that price I was curious to see what they looked and sounded like. The connectors are very well made, and are an attractive grey color with a molded plastic strain relief boot. The wire itself is 16AWG which is somewhat thicker than the 22AWG you commonly see. Although the wires are thicker, they are very flexible, making installation very easy. I used these to connect my AVM20 to both my Rotel RMB 1095, and RB 1080 amps replacing a set of Straightwire Sonata RCA's. These XLR's are a much more secure connection, and they look good too. So what do they sound like? They sounded great. The thing I immediately noticed was how the bass tightened up. The upper end sounded the same as the Straightwires. Bottom line, they sounded better than cables that cost many times more.:T


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## mechman (Feb 8, 2007)

Thanks for the review Dennis! :T


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## eugovector (Sep 4, 2006)

Ditto to this. I bought several 10-50' lengths to use for live performance. Most cheap XLR cables I've used have quit on me fairly quickly (though quickly revived with a little soldering). The monoprices seem to be holding up so far.

I'd strongly recommend these for home or live.


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## Eskimo (Oct 17, 2008)

I'll agree that they look great and are quite flexible - my sound didn't change at all though, but I'm in that "other camp" who doesn't buy it. :laugh:


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## ISLAND1000 (May 2, 2007)

diablo said:


> The thing I immediately noticed was how the bass tightened up. The upper end sounded the same as the Straightwires. Bottom line, they sounded better than cables that cost many times more.:T


Whaddya think was happening with the Sonatas? Were they possibly squeezing the bass or blocking some part of the bass?


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## diablo (Sep 18, 2007)

I really don't know, but awhile back I tried a silver interconnect and in my system, to my ears they sounded brittle on the high end, and also constricted the bass.


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## Wayne A. Pflughaupt (Apr 13, 2006)

If this is the cable, I've had bad luck using mic cables with this type of female XLR, as I noted in this post. Shouldn't be an issue in a home installment where cables don't see much handling, but if you ever start having problems in that signal chain, the cable will be the first thing to take a look at.

Regards,
Wayne


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## E-A-G-L-E-S (Sep 15, 2007)

Eskimo said:


> I'll agree that they look great and are quite flexible - my sound didn't change at all though, but I'm in that "other camp" who doesn't buy it. :laugh:


I'm not sure sound should change...that's not their purpose.
In my opinion they are for use when you have a ground loop hum.
User NeoDan on avs builds custom ones that are similar but beefier, for cheap as well....might want to take a look at his if these give any issues or don't eliminate the hum.


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