Monoprice Monolith Multi-Strand Conductors Speaker Wire - 10 Feet - Pair, PE Insulated, 14AWG, Oxygen Free Copper With Gold Plated Banana Plug Connectors

Got these to replace some other speaker cables I got from Monoprice, they were two separate cables for each speaker and kept getting tangled. These are more like serious cables, larger gauge and in one cable with a forked end. Look great and the cable has a great tactile fell, under the Monoprice brand and better quality. Reccomended.

I'm giving my old hifi setup to my mother but I've got a set of custom cardas speaker cables that I obviously wasn't going to part with. I've been impressed with other monolith items in the past so I figured I'd order her a set of these cables as they'd likely be adequate. I added two to my cart and when I took delivery this week I was surprised that they were in fact pairs, I guess I missed that small note in the title. Oops. They were sitting at my house so this morning I decided to try them out. I connected my right channel with the monolith and left my left channel on the cardas. Jumping between speakers, I noticed the highs were crisper on the unburnt in monoliths, the other shock was that mud in the mid bass was cleared right up and bass was faster and more controlled than the cardas speaker. I pulled the pin and changed the left channel to the monolith. Separation was noticeably improved, mid bass tamed BUT low frequency bass was also noticeably weaker. Airiness was also slightly decreased. I tend to prefer a more articulate sound so it wasn't really a better/worse situation, rather two slightly different but amazing representations of the music (both analog vinyl and digital through a bimonaural akm dac into a pure analog integrated and kef ls50's). Needless to say I'm torn between my $$$ cardas' and the ridiculously affordable monoliths. This is why they get five stars. This shouldn't be a problem when one cable is 20x more expensive. The more expensive cable also has thousands of hours through it and the monolith has two... If you believe in burn in or not (I personally do, especially with any component with capacitors). Seeing as I conveniently, and mistakenly, ordered two sets of these, I'm in no rush to make a judgement call. The monoliths are staying in the system for a few hundred more hours and I'll shoot them out again. I will note that build quality is phenomenal. The banana plugs are robust and quality, the cable itself is smooth like silk, it rolled perfectly straight after removing the ties.. unlike the commercial style kinky cable of the Cardas' that have never been straight and likely never will. Another fine job Monoprice. You continue to impress and provide value in this crazy space.