*Better, deeper, tighter bass *Better detail across the spectrum *More air between instruments and improved soundstage *A big upgrade with a relatively small price

Looks like people don't like what it does to their video signal. I couldn't find any weakness with the audio though.

This review is only for the audio capabilities of the unit, not the video. I had yet to get good soundstaging out of my system, and had notions that the clarity of the sound coming out could be better. I first tried upgrading to SACD a year ago. A very nice improvement for classical music, but it did not fix my problems. After having learned in a class about some recording studios using AC signal reconstructors, and having seen a spectrum of what comes out of the wall (looks more like a square wave than a sine wave), I thought I would audition a power conditioner. This particular model does a few things that (I assume) are all useful: Filtering of input from the wall, providing a charge reservoir, and filtering between the various components plugged into it. I did plug all my other gear into the various outlets on the unit. I used Dave Matthew's solo album, some Living Stereo SACD releases, some electronic music, and some other favorites for test material. I was surprised by the large difference it made in my system. Across the spectrum was more detail. The bass is tighter and cleaner, deeper, and more powerful. The system has more slam, and I'm starting to approach an acceptable soundstage (I'm hoping a cable interconnect upgrade will finish fixing this problem). I can also hear more space between instruments. I couldn't believe how many things it helped. For potential difficiencies, I can think of too. There might be a tiny bit too much bass now, but a quick repositioning of the speakers will fix that. The 2nd is I don't think the mid-range is as sweet as it used to be. I have a theory why this might be: My amp (Arcam A65+) is known for having a sweet sound. A sweetness in sound is because of a nonlinearity in the amp. I'm willing to bet that having a dirty AC signal helped the amp sound "sweeter." So, your mileage will probably vary. I would now recommend a power conditioner to any listener. If you put any kind of care into your sound system, audition a power conditioner. I think you will be happy that you did.

All digital frequencies are passed through with no signal strength or S/N loss. There is improvement in the video image from cable, DVD, and S-VHS over the HTS2000 as well as a cleaner, clearer audio sound.I received excellent support from the techs. and service people at Monster Products.

None.

This review is for the HTS2500-II.This unit replaces a HTS2000 which had problems passing certain frequencies from my Scientific Atlanta Explorer2200 digital cable box. All signals are available, now. This problem is not unique to Monster Products, but effects many types of power conditioners/ surge protectors due to the wide band digital signals of todays cable systems.

Similar Products Used:

HTS1000, HTS2000.

Dose'nt seem to add anything to the music.It just cleans it up.

None

Before I bought this unit at times my stereo would sound absolutey great, but at other times it did'nt sound all that good.After reading review here and an article about dirty ac i decided to give this 2500 a try.Well know my gear souds like what expected. to me that means it's doing it's job quite well. I am completly satisfied.

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AR and cheap ac strips.

improved bass and overall sound for music and movies.

could improve on picture quality.

I've only had this product for two days now, but what a diffrence it has made in in my system. From the moment I hooked it up I notice right away that my subwoofer bass came to life more defined and deep.The second thing I notice was that the tweeters on my b&w 602s2 sounded more clear and smooth, the sound stage, image, and bass all improved.My music is cleaner and my movies sound better than ever. My only knock on this product is that I think it degrades the picture on my tv though I did get a clearer picture it had less color and sharpness.but overall I still think its a great product because it improved my sound about 10 to 15 percent and plus protect my equipments, nice addition for only 120.00 dollars.

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none

Greatly improved treble and tightened bass. Sound stage has been improved to a point that is trully impressive. Ease of hook up and convienient color coding of plugs.

Degraded cable reception.

After spending a lot of frustrating time listening to my my HT system and knowing that something was missing from the overall sound quality of the components that I had purchased, I decided that I had to either upgrade my reciever or do some research as to what the problem may be. I went to my my local Denon dealer and explained my problem. I told him that it seemed that the treble was somehow lopped off and that the bass was loose. I wasn't getting the clarity and sound stage that I should have considering the setup that I have. He asked me if I knew anything about dirty power.I told him that I had heard of it but really hadn't considered it's impact on audio systems. I told him that I was living in a house that is 90 years old with a wiring upgrade that was done about 40 years ago. (I'm living in an area that has apartment buildings all around it and God knows how many electrical sources of muck that may flow through the power lines.) After his presentation I was totally convinced that he had hit the nail on the head. I have a good and trusting relationship with this guy and He suggested that I take home the HTS2500 and try it out. If it made the desired results that I was looking for we could talk price and seal the deal. If it wasn't meeting my expectations, I could bring it back and try something else. I accepted his offer and took it home and hooked it up. I plugged everything into it, following the manual and it's directions. I put on the Matrix DVD and then sat back to hear what this thing would do. Well I was trully impressed with the profound change in the sound stage, the clarity, and the bass. This little baby made my HT system sound like it never did before. I was hearing things that I never heard before. It brought my sound stage right up to where it should be. The treble was clearer than I had ever heard it, cystal clear in fact. My bass was tightened right up to a sharpness that I hadn't expected or experienced. Impressed? You better believe it. It did exactly what I wanted and hoped that it would. My CD's and tapes sound better than ever. I used to listen to five channel sound before because it sounded better, but now two channel stereo is awesome. I can hear eveything that was intended to be heard. I then hooked up my cable through it and lo and behold, it did absolutley squat. If anything it reduced the quality of the picture on my television. I was very disappointed that happened but the improved sound strongly convinced me that this Monster product is worth it's weight in Canadian dollars. My girlfriend even commented on how much better that the sound was. If you can get this out of a woman you know that you are on to something good. Well this HTS2500 is now in my component rack with all of it's pretty lights on all of the time. The lights were a distraction at first but now I don't even notice them anymore. I'm happy with the HTS2500. It's done so much to improve the quality of my system and saved me from the possible expence of upgrading my reciever and potential arguements that would surely have ensued with my woman about stepping up up to a better reciever. For some reason women seem to have a problem with guys spending thousands of dollars on these things. Or maybe it's my situation alone? (She doesn't know it yet but I am going to jump up to a better reciever at some point in time. It will probably cost me a couple thousand dollars in dinners and flowers to swing this move by her, but in the end it will happen. I always seem to get my way, in time.) Overall, this addition to my system has been the best that I could or have been suggested to do. Dirty power is a fact of life and it seriously effects the quality of of home theater and audio systems. If any of you out there are reading this and find yourself in the same situation that I was in, try out power line conditioners. It's worth it.

Similar Products Used:

None

Build quality.

Limited filtration.

Dear Reader The Monstercable HTS 2500 is a well built product, and improved my current set-up in the following areas: Top: More energy and extension. Mid: A more liquid and open sound in this all important area. Low: More energy and extension. I have used the Monstercable HTS 1000 for the last year, and the HTS 2500 is much better all around product. Listed below is my current Audio set-up: Classe CDP.3 Monstercable M1000 (XLR) Classe CAP-151 Monstercable M2.2s Vienna Mozart The Monstercable HTS 2500 is a fine offering in this space, and should be considered by anyone looking a medium priced audio line filter. However, if you are using a pre/amp combination, please look at the 3000 series because of its improved filtration properties. Sincerely Russ

Similar Products Used:

Monstercable HTS 1000

see previous

see previous

i wrote so much that when i post my review, some got chopped off :) so here is the ending... "...it's no wonder i can't hook everything to the Monster :) by-the-way, i've also have another cheaper Monster Cable unit to help with some of the components hook-ups. i'm currently looking to upgrade to maybe the 3500 or 3600 (current model). i'm also considering the Panamax just to try something different, but probably ended up with another Monster. why mess with a good thing right? :) oh by-the-way, i'm giving all around 4's because at $299 retail price, i think it's a little steep. maybe there is something out there that does as good a job for less. i'm going to rate it all 5's this time b/c giving it another 4's will bring down the rating and i really wanted to give it 4 1/2 ratings anyhow :)

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see previous

did its job beautifully!! nice fit and finish...classy appearance.

if anything, it's the 1800w handling capacity. my system went beyond this limit :)

i'm one of those people that from time to time purchase items based on what i hear from people. i purchased this partly also due to the brand name "Monster Cable". anyhow, i've used it for over a yr now and until recently, i've been blindly trusting that this unit is doing its job without doing any "auditioning" (testing units plugging into the unit vs. the wall socket). let me cut to the point, i've recently purchased (as experiment) 2 Audio Source Mono amps. because all my equipment were already hooked up to the Monster, i didn't want to mess with unhooking my parasound amp from it to make room for these Audio Source. so, naturally, i hooked it directly into the wall sockets. there were so much hum and noise that i thought i'm going to have to return both these amps. i mean, the louder the volume, the louder the hum and the noise. it got to the point that it was untolerable. i'm not just talking about up-close range but 15-20 feet away and probably more if my apartment living room was any bigger. anyhow, as last resort, i decided to go through with the hooking it up to the Monster and like someone just said "poof", all the noise went away for both amps. sound was clear, bass was deep!! wow, what a difference!! you might make argument to the fact that the Audio Source might need service because nothing should ever make that much noise and hum even plugging into the wall sockets but my point is, i'm keeping the amps due solely to the Monster 2500!! as far as other reviewer giving this unit low rating for sound and picture i can't comment on that because like i said, i never really "audition" my system without the Monster. i use it for the surge/spike protection in addition to the line conditioning factor. and i think that some of the reviewer seemed to leave this out altogether in their reviews. here are my gears...sounded fine to me: h/k arv 7000 klipsch rp5 (has 12 in. powered sub in each side) front " klf c7 center " ksb 1.1 rear parasound hca something??? (5 channel) marants dvd ??? h/k cdr??? sima ??? (modern-day juke box, stores mp3, cds, etc...) nht sa-2 powered sub sampo multimedia player (for lower quality medias: recorded cds, copied dvds, karaokes, etc...) audio 2000 karaoke machine w/wireless mics mits. vcr sony tv it's no wonder i can't hook everything to the Monster :) by-the-way, i've also have another cheaper Monster

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spikemaster ??? (you can tell i don't keep up with all the model numbers on my equipments)

If you have overly bright forward speakers this will mellow them out.

Really dulls out the sound of a good amp and great speakers.

Until a few weeks ago I liked this unit. It seemed to improve the sound quality. I recently upgraded my speakers from Klipsch RF 3, which are very bright to a very smooth speaker with ribbon tweeters. Just experimenting I plugged my power amp directly into the wall and the new speakers came to life. From now on the power amp stays plugged in the wall. I will leave all other components plugged into the HTS 2500. If you save the $250 on this unit you can put it towards some better equipment that will not require this component

Similar Products Used:

None

Noticably decreases the noise floor. Price - compared to every other companies power conditioners

High treble became somewhat quieter and lacked some detail. Mid-bass boost. Soundstage was narrowed.

I auditioned this for a month in my audio only system. I can understand why some people love it and some hate it. It could be very system dependent. Wonderful to tone down a bright system, or for one with somewhat weak bass. But it may be too much for a laidback or dull system. Here is what I heard. Immediately noticable was a decrease in the background noise. Unaccompanied vocals and instruments came out of nowhere and the intonations were much easier to hear. That was pretty cool. However, on more complex music, I noticed a midbass boost in my system, which made the details in the music more difficult to extract. I played with room treatment stuff and was able to decrease the midbass boost, but I could always tell it was present. On a couple of well known disks, I also noticed a slight decrease in the top end - not what I would call a high end roll off, but the the entire very high end was less apparent. Cymbals were there and still very noticable, but sometimes the cymbal or a brush run around the snare drum did not have the same detail that is usually there. This could be very welcome in a bright or tizzy system. It actually made one of the brighter CDs I have more fun than I have ever heard it. But better balanced CDs sometimes ounded lifeless despite the decreased noise floor. I also noticed that the soudstage now barely extended past the outside of the speakers. When I would remove the HTS 2500, the mid bass returned to normal, the soundstage widened again, and there was more high end presence again - but, the noise floor was noticably increased as well. It became a trade off. I actually agree with those who both love this and hate this. It does incrrease bass. It does drop the noise floor. It down tone down really bright systems. It does narrow the soundstage. Whether or not these are good things depends on your system. Find a place to audtion it for 30 days before you buy, unless your system needs all of these things. My system: Krell 300i Theta Chroma DAC Pioneer Elite transport Dynaudio 1.8mkII and 1.3mkII Velodyne 1500R Music Hall/Acurus phon