I almost always agree with the comments submitted by Trelja, and we are again in complete agreement. Unless you guys that are spending thousands of dollars on wire have entirely different hearing than me and my wife(I've been an audiophile for 40 years, and she has the most acute hearing of anyone I have ever known), or your listening environment is subject to lots of RF and other interference, you need to rethink your spending patterns. If you want to make a significant difference in the listening quality of your system, I suggest you focus on the room. Improvements to the acoustics of the listening area are often THE most signficant. You might think about acquiring a digital room conditioning preamp, such as the TacT, or have architectural changes made to the listening room. Just my two cents worth.
Cable Costs Relative to System
Since making a spread sheet with my audio system prices, I have been thinking(shocked) about my total investment in cables. My total system retails at $67,000 (Digital and analog front ends included). I purchased all of it here on Audiogon so my investment is about 50%. Of that I have about 10% invested in interconnects and cables and another 10% in Power Cables (Shunyata Hydra included). That's $13,000 worth of wire. I'm starting to question whether it might be more effective to put some of this budget into acitve components. It would take forever to listen to all possible combinations, but would like to hear others experiences with relatively high end systems and cable selection. It would seem to me that the point of diminishing returns would be reached sooner with cables than with speakers and amps. Do most of you follow the 10% "rule" for cabling? How do PCs fit into this rule? Are there any super bargain cables capable of keeping up with highly resolving electronics?