Cables are not an extra accesory you add later when you can afford them. If you don't buy some when you buy your equipment, you'll either be hooking your system up with unshielded "antennas" or, with the better brands who don't give you any, not hooking it up at all. People who make cable purchases out to be something cost concious people should opt out of are missing the point.
That the "better components" found in one poster's system "need less tweaking" is a blatently erroneous statement. The cables are for THE SOUND, not the component. It may be crazy to put a $5000 CD Player with a $300 amp, but at least the amp will be showing what it can do and not being held back.
As far as "active vs. passive" what exactly is the big difference? Any component can only make things worse. If a $75,000 system "deserves" $7500 to $15,000, but you get the cables that seem to get everything right for less, or more, that's fine. As far as the ratio, it was probably only invented to prepare customers at the beginning of a sale for the extra expense involved that they never count on.
To put it another way, how stressed out would you be getting about putting 55% of your money into the front end, or 35% on speakers if that was the Magic Ratio? It should really be more random than that I think, although an awful lot of people had 10% to 20%.
BTW, I realize this thread is dead, but people will still come across it, and I wanted to make My Humble Opinion heard.
...or not so humble...
That the "better components" found in one poster's system "need less tweaking" is a blatently erroneous statement. The cables are for THE SOUND, not the component. It may be crazy to put a $5000 CD Player with a $300 amp, but at least the amp will be showing what it can do and not being held back.
As far as "active vs. passive" what exactly is the big difference? Any component can only make things worse. If a $75,000 system "deserves" $7500 to $15,000, but you get the cables that seem to get everything right for less, or more, that's fine. As far as the ratio, it was probably only invented to prepare customers at the beginning of a sale for the extra expense involved that they never count on.
To put it another way, how stressed out would you be getting about putting 55% of your money into the front end, or 35% on speakers if that was the Magic Ratio? It should really be more random than that I think, although an awful lot of people had 10% to 20%.
BTW, I realize this thread is dead, but people will still come across it, and I wanted to make My Humble Opinion heard.
...or not so humble...