$20 XLR cables that sound good

I think that Ralph's statement about cables is also contingent on balanced equipment being fully differential and following a 600 ohm standard. Not all balanced designs are created equal in this respect. I believe there is a white paper on the Atma-sphere site that discusses this.

Also, if you own an Atma-sphere amp and preamp then Ralph does recommend the Mogami between the components. However, he told me recently that from source to preamp one could benefit from a better cable. Again it all depends on the source equipments design.

Personally I've used a 25' run of Mogami Gold between my Rowland preamp and VAC amps and found it to be more than adwquate sound wise.

I've had my share of cables in my system in all different price ranges. I do subscribe to the theory that there are differences in cables. However, I have come to the conclusion that while there are some excellent sounding high end (and high priced) cables, the cost/benefit ratio was out of whack. Spending 5 times the price to achieve a 10% improvement got old with me. So I scaled back on my cables and spent more on my components, One of the best things I did with the extra money was upgrade my speakers.

To top it off, it's not like the cables I'm using today are slouches. They are all very good IMO (and yes they all sound a bit different in my system) and I can live very happily with them:

Magnan Type Vi
Grover Huffman SC
Chimera Labs
Mogami Gold
Oyaide PA-02