The company was founded by an audiophile and engineer, Noel Lee, in 1979 by experimenting with different ways to build audio cables.

Retailers bundle high profit-margin cables with larger purchases that have smaller margins in order to improve profitability.

[1] Lee, an audiophile and engineer, was experimenting with different copper qualities, wire constructs and winding methods of audio cables in his family's garage and comparing them while listening to Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture.

After a positive reception at CES, he quit his job at Lawrence Berkeley Lab and started Monster Cable Products with $250,000 in bank financing.

[5] Initial sales were slow, because at the time electronics retailers provided low-cost lamp cords to consumers for free[1][5] or at low prices and audiophiles didn't believe audio cables made a difference in the sound.

[9] By 1998, Monster was producing 1,000 different products out of a distribution and manufacturing center in Brisbane, California, that was established that year.

Monster representatives say they are doing what most "premium" brands do to protect their marks and that their products include things like clothes, mints and music.

[17] Other trademark disputes include a 2001[19] lawsuit against The Walt Disney Company for products related to the film Monsters, Inc.,[16] and a claim against an online used clothing retailer, MonsterVintage LLC.

[16] In 2009, Monster Cable CEO Noel Lee said on Fox Business that the company has had to balance their trademark protection efforts with the public's point-of-view.

[13][24] Monster created similar partnerships with Lady Gaga for the Heartbeats brand of headphones in 2009, P. Diddy's Diddybeats in May 2010 and LeBron James later that year.

[25][26] In 2010, Monster began developing a series of products for the Chinese market that were co-branded with basketball player Yao Ming.

[27] According to analyst firm NPD Group, the Beats brand that Monster distributed exclusively grew to own 53 percent of a $1 billion headphones market.

[13][24] In October 2017, plans by Lee and Monster to enter the online gambling space were revealed in an exclusive story by Digital Trends.

[30] Citing a new sales strategy[14] for alternative retail venues such as concert stadiums and sports arenas, Lee said a casino would generate revenue while allowing the company a place to sell its electronics.

The casino deal[31] connects Monster to the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma and was signed June 20, 2017, bringing controversial figure Fred Khalilian to the company as the new COO.

[30] As of 2010, Monster manufactured 6,000 different products,[4] including headphones, speakers, surge protectors, televisions, and accessories for cars and mobile devices.

[6] Monster also makes cables for TVs, DVD players, computers, printers, gaming consoles, and cameras, and for audio equipment in cars.

[25][43][44][45][46] Monster sells speakers under the Clarity[47] and Katana[48] brands and mobile accessories like an iPod dock and a line-up of Tron-branded products.

[6][50] Tests by Stereo Review Magazine in 1983 concluded that Monster cables did not make a difference in the sound and were "indistinguishable" from 16-gauge lamp cord.

[53] Many reviewers stress that Monster HDMI cables are not needed for lower-resolution televisions[54] or over short distances[55] and that the difference in audio quality is not substantial enough.

Employees of such retailers are trained to market and bundle Monster Cable and similar products in order to increase profitability.

[59] This has led to criticisms that sales staff are motivated to sell high-end cable products to customers that don't need them and to be aggressive in order to obtain incentives.