Cheapness pisses off the audiophiles.

Hard to find these days.

My new system arrived today, 2 days early, and I was nowhere near finishing braiding the many many pairs of the venhaus cat5 recipe.

Went off to RS to see what they had, surprise! 42-2670,
the 20' version still in stock. Picked up 4 of them @ $14.99, not a bad deal. Wish they'd still had the shorter version...suppose I can always cut it and jam some connectors on.

The sound is much better than I expected, a little hard to tell given the weird shape of my new apt.

The cat5 braid is supposed to be one of the best cables around, will give it a comparo once I'm done making it.

Similar Products Used:

MIT TermII bi-wires; lots of pennies taped together.

I, too, found these cables on sale for 9.99 almost by accident. I stocked up and went to work in my home. It is a pain in the ass removing the old RS-Golds. Anyway, oh my! These cables are wonderful. I popped in a couple of cd's that sounded somewhat dead. The soundstage opened up. It was incredible! I heard things I had not either noticed or just could not hear, before. Then I fired up my theater. Holy smokes! My satellite reciever and monitor were producing the cleanest images they had ever produced. Nevermind all the other components. I am not kidding. I am amazed at what a steal I got. They are the worlds best kept secret. Get out of your seat and go purchase these babies if you are in need of some good cables. RS has done it again. I don't know how any reviewer can say these are not good cables. This is high end, man.

These are a great cable at a great price. They appear to be the same cable as the new Acoustic Research HT-131 Pro Audio Series cable at $39.95 retail. (Not surprising since Radio Shack out sources most of it's products) The parent company of AR is Recoton and they are manufactured in China. They are directional balanced line OFC cables with 100% shielding and machined gold plated brass connectors. The construction is of Monster 400 series quality.Quite a bargain at $20 a pair! A fine balanced sounding cable for mid range systems.

This cable does the job beautifully in my system. It is well constructed and is balanced. It really does not need any excuses such as “fine balanced sounding cable for mid range systems”. Whether it is made by RS or any other manufacturer is irrelevant. The truth is, it is balanced, well constructed, good sounding and cheap. If your system is well set, this cable should not bring any coloration to the music; just follow the instruction and hook it up so that the arrow follows the signal flow (important). In my book, it is a good value that one can take without any fear of disappointment or shame.

Price and Construction

Aggravates the so-called "Audiophiles"

These are fine cables. Even if you had hearing like Lassie, I doubt if you could hear the difference between these and the high-dollar cables. It's a shame when people get scammed...makes them feel totally stupid. Money can buy an education, but it can't buy brains.

Truly a great value! A very sturdy and well constructed cable.

I think the Radio Shack brand name hurts it. The connectors could be a little better.

I've used and bought many types of interconnects for my Home Theater. Like most Enthusiasts, I refrain from using the "bundle" RCA cables that come with my equipment because they are, in general, not of very high quality. I decided to try the Radio Shack cables upon hearing and reading very high praises indeed for these cables.

I was very impressed with their build quality especially at the price point they are offered. Their performance, too, was surprising and seemed better than many of the entry-mid level monster interconnects that I have used in the past.

When compared with more expensive cables, they still performed well but not AS well. The differences may be minute to some listeners while staggering to others. There is definitely a diminishing return when you spend more on cables. Hey, if you want to spend more and can afford it; more power to you. If you can't (or don't want to) these cables are a great alternative to some of the Monster cables out there.

Eventually, I kept these cables and used them as audio cables for my Dreamcast and Playstation. Not the BEST cable but maybe the BEST value!

My System:
Sunfire Theater Grand preamp/processor
Paradigm Active 20s
Paradigm Active CC-450
Paradigm Ref ADP-450
Paradigm Servo-15
Toshiba SD5109 DVD Player
Sony X88ES 200 CD Changer
Princeton Graphics AF3.0HD monitor
Yamaha Stereo AMP
Other: Sony VCR, Playstation, DSS Receiver,& Sega Dreamcast

Similar Products Used:

Monster Interlink 400
Monster M1000cv
MIT Terminator 2
MIT S-Video
XLO Cables
Kimber Hero
Harmonic Tech Truthlinks

Yesterday I needed to seperate my pre-amp from my amp. The distance was about 12 feet. Since that would require 5 cables, going with Monster, Kimber, JPS, or other options was going to be expensive, so I stopped by my local radio shack and picked up their gold cables.
After listening and switching between radio-shack, Monster 550i, Kimber heros, and JPS Labs interconnects I was actually hearing a slight difference between all of the cables and thought that the Monster was the best.

Then the FUNNY part...I suddenly noticed that my preamp was receiving everything through the digital cable. It was hilarious to me...I actually thought I was hearing differences in the EXACT same cable on every test...

So, I had my wife switch the cables for me and I did a blind test. The verdict is that I could not consistently pick out any of the cables. Once I was unable to see the sables, I could not hear the differences anymore.

My final conclusion...these cables are EXCELLENT...and I am now a believer that for the most part, the differences one hears in cables are mostly in one's head. I spent HUNDREDS of dollars less than I needed to and I couldn't tell the difference.

Conducts 99.99 % of audio signal from point A to point at minimal cost.

They had to be unwrapped...

Hey, it works. And given what I hear from my Denon and NHT components, why pay more than the $4.97/pr it took to purchase these? Save your $$$ for a Monster HTS-1000 Line Conditioner, which WILL make a difference worth repeating!!!

Similar Products Used:

Monster, AR, common 18-gauge zip cord