Acoustic Treatment or Cable Upgrades?

Acoustic treatment. Remember the Big Three: recording, speakers, room. Everything else matters too, but it pales by comparison.

As long as you have a smeared or fuzzy sound stage because of first reflection problems, etc, you will be hard pressed to even do a meaningful cable comparison. So, I'll vote for the acoustic treatment. Of course, I'd say to use drapes and 1" duct board, etc, so you can save most of the money for cables after you finish.

Get the best Radio Shack cables, do the room treatment and then upgrade the cables as money permits.

Two thousand dollars and smart shopping could make an unbelievable difference in acoustics. Especially if you apply do it yourself along with smart buys on used. I would put RPG's, Tube Traps and Room Tunes on the possibility list.

Two thousand dollars should get you room treatment and something better than Radio Shack cables. It's amazing what some fairly inexpensive treatment devices such as Audiocarpet panels, drapes, throw rugs etc. can do.

Actually JCAudio, I should have thought of that myself.

There are good buys used on acoustic treatments and decent audiophile wire as well. I agree that they could both fit comfortably inside the 2K mark.

If you don't mind buying used or getting your hands dirty ( DIY ), you could probably treat your room ( first things first ), buy some better cables AND go to Dairy Queen or Tastee Freeze with the change. With all of this heat, a LARGE root beer float sounds good right about now : ) Sean
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Where can I find used ASC or Echobusters...Can't ever seem to find them on Audiogon.

You will just have to search the various audio sites and wait until some are available. I recently had a guy offer ASC Tube Traps for $75.00 each. Probably due to the fact that I paid cash and he did not have to hassle with finding boxes and shipping them.

There are posts here in Audiogons archives concerning DIY room treatments, and even a few good books on the subject. Much of the mystery of these specialty products are just in the assembly of common products such as fiberglass and transparent cloths.