Monoprice.com Review: For All Your Cabling Needs

Monoprice.com has become well known in internet communities as a great deal on cables of all sorts. Monoprice sells the latest HDMI cables for 1/10th the price of the hated Monster cable. While there is no question whether or not the prices are good, there are other questions that arise such as the level of service, and the quality of the product.

After going through four orders with Monoprice, each of them crossing the Canada-US border, it is time to give an honest review.

The orders placed were of various sizes, some being a few small cables, and some being larger orders with spools of speaker cable.

Product Cost

The cost of the products at Monoprice is spectacular. They are at times 10% of the cost of a competing product. A few examples below:

TV Wall Mount:

Monoprice Flat Panel TV Mount: $19.94 (USD)

BestBuy Flat Panel TV Mount: $199.99 (CDN)

6′ HDMI 1.3 Cable:

Monoprice CL2 Rated 1.3 HDMI: $9.52 (USD) (Super stiff in-wall version, regular version is $4.05 USD)

Bestbuy: 2m Monster Cable: $179.99 (CDN)

For the price… Monoprice is a clear winner here.

Shipping Cost

The shipping cost varies greatly. Shipping cost has varied from $7 to $46. The jumping point for the shipping cost seemed to be adding a spool of speaker wire. Adding a TV wall mount to an order with speaker wire only added another $10. A tip: When ordering from Monoprice, group similar items together.

None of the orders were shipped via any sort of express option, resulting in all orders taking 2-4 weeks to be shipped across the continent. In my opinion, it is a reasonable timeframe. If the order exceeds $60, the shipping cost increases, but does include tracking. In short, the price and speed of the Monoprice shipping is reasonable, but not phenomenal.

Service

Nothing has been returned. Nothing has needed to be returned. The four orders placed arrived exactly as expected. The communication after placing an order is incredible, and from actual email addresses. As well 3 of the 4 orders placed shipped within 5 hours of the order being placed.

There has been no issues with service so far, nor anything to lead to the belief that there will be a problem.

Quality

Monoprice quality is not beyond reproach. Paying 10x more money does yield better quality. The question is whether you need that quality:

According to some tests (see below), HDMI cables in the 6′ length are all about the same.
According to some speaker wire tests of the same gauge is all pretty well the same. While this may or may not be true, the Monoprice stuff seems to be of decent quality.
The TV wall mount is very sturdy, although the quality of the hardware (screws) isbeing questioned, and the screws will likely be replaced with those sold at Home Depot.

There was been no real quality concerns through the 4 orders.

For a further breakdown of how Monoprice HDMI cables compare with the hated Monster cables read the following comparison from Gizmodo:

Gizmodo: The Truth About Monster Cable Part 2

As you can see at short lengths Monoprice matches very well, for a huge discount!

Conclusion

Based on the Gizmodo review you may run into trouble if you are running 25′ or longer cables from Monoprice. Is it worth the risk? Yes and no. It is worthwhile to buy a 35′ Monoprice cable; it may work for you. I would absolutely not install it in a wall without a good test. It is certainly worth a test for a fraction of the cost. If it does not work then upgrade to a higher quality (and price) cable, it would have been worth the risk.

From a personal perspective, if Monoprice cables did not do the trick, I would order from Blue Jeans Cable before Monster. Blue Jeans is still a good deal cheaper than Monster and based on the lawsuits by Monster against BJC, more than likely performs in an identical manner.