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?
"Show me a judgmental person who has made up their mind wire is snake oil and it's a 95% chance they are republicans."
The observation about audio wire is one thing, though on the most grave matters affecting everyone they don't sound the least bit remorseful after sandbagging the US economy for billions in lost revenue, causing pressure to downgrade US credit rating which drives borrowing costs for up for everyone, or for eroding the confidence of our foreign trading partners/buyers to name but a few ramifications. Demagog's are destructive and self-righteous nincompoops.
Airegin... If the "self-righteous nincompoops" you're referring to are the same people that are asking the present administration to "stop spending money we don't have", I'm proud to be one of those a nincompoops.
The retail price of my system is about 15k-20k euro. My speaker cable costed me 50 euro for a single run of 10meters. I cut it into the proper length myself.
@ Aintitgr8, great story on the cables, I believe you 100%!, what I am about to say, I care less what any one thinks or believes!, cables are the most profound important part of any system period!, I have a exspensive system, guess what? the cables cost way more than my very exspensive componets, lets see here, Taralabs very best everything!, man-o-man does these cables make a difference!, I absolutly have no regrets ever!, to each their own, see ya.
Wire is usually one of the most contentious subjects for audiophiles. This thread alone is proof enough. I thought I would kick in a bit. I have been a critical listener for most of my life as a career. I started as a navy submarine sonarman. I also taught the art of critical listening to other sonarmen. After I retired I worked developing acoustic algorithms for systems. To teach a computer how to do it, you first have to understand how you do it. There are a number of issues which make this subject difficult. When teaching, I learned that everyone has a different way of getting to the answer. How they get there isn't important, just getting the right answer. We each had different things which tickled our neural net. That's why we call it an art. It is very subjective. As audiophiles there certain things we each listen for which brings us delight. Add in the different music we listen to, different volumes, different listening conditions including equipment, room environments, background noise and is it any wonder that we find different requirements for wire? Now add in medical conditions, hearing loss, tinnitus etc and its a very complex set of parameters. Everything between the recording and your ear is a filter. EVERYTHING. Wires are just another type of filter. If you are driving ESDs you probably have very different requirements for warmth. I was using a warm sounding amp, into some warm sounding speakers, in a carpeted room with a number of wall hangings. I went for a silver clad high purity copper cable. It gave the system a bit more clarity especially in the top end. I also enjoy the psycho imaging. Enhancing the sound stage is important to me. I look for equipment, including wires, which enhance that. I think phase is the least mentioned yet most important aspect to sound. It is thee phase relationships which define the music, especially the imaging, and it also is important when considering speaker placement. If you get multiple arrival paths from the speaker to the listener, some of the frequency will be in phase and some will be out of phase. When it is in phase, it is additive and will make those frequencies louder and when it is out of phase it is subtractive and we get spectral hole punching. The skin effect in wire messes with the PHASE relationships and creates multipath within the cable itself. The electricity near the surface can slow and arrive a very minutely delayed time intervals than that which is traveling deeper. Its these time intervals which tell our brain location of the sound. We use that in everyday life without even realizing it. Poorly made, rough wire can exacerbate the loss of this information. This is the reason some companies polish their wire in an attempt to get their wire nearly perfectly smooth. Oxidation also can create similar effects so they try to eliminate as much of it as they can through high purity wire, insulation, factory sealed ends and contacts of precious metals. Precious metals because they don't oxidize and preserve the music, especially the phase. All these Extras in wire manufacture costs more.
People who say wire doesn't make a difference because you can't see it on an oscilloscope really don't understand sound. Even someone who is pretty good with a scope and has a decent scope, has a hard time catching phase differences in narrow-band tones. Music is broadband noise, ie spread spectrum. Catching the phase of broadband noise is much more difficult. It can't be done without very sophisticated equipment. In short, oscilloscopes aren't ears connected to a highly trained neural net, like yours. (Chances are if you are reading this you have a highly trained, acoustically centered neural net, congrats.) You can't tell Jagger from Hendrix from YO-YO MA, much less see the rosin dripping from the horse hairs of his bow with an o-scope. Ok, that's an exaggeration. I never heard his rosin but you can hear the coarseness of the horse hair. You can't capture it on an oscilloscope. But the more accurate the system, the better you can hear the hair. I like to hear the hair.
In the recording studio, the musician can play with his setup to get the sound he wants. He can adjust things to make up for the variables of the room and yes, the cable he is plugged in with. Importantly, there is a different cable for every mic and instrument. In our home setups all the music is combined and pumped through those few cables. I think they should be pretty good, much better than studio grade.
My brothers are professional musicians. They don't really "get" the audiophile thing. They are really only interested in how the music is put together, the performance. I think most musicians look at us a raving madmen. But then we are. Nick
My current ratio is 32% ratio to retail price of all my cables in my main stereo system to 68% retail cost of my of my equipment. And the same ratios were for the actual costs. I found that interesting because my discount averaged to be 42% all equipment items. Even more strange is that I keep a VERY detailed Excel spreadsheet on all the money I spent, even upgrades sales gains and losses, for the past 10 years for all 3 of my stereo systems. LOL! ;-)
I was just contemplating this very issue last night as I was fooling around in my audio room and it just struck me that my speaker cables, PAD Proteus Provectus, list for about what my Thiel CS6's do.
I bought both on a heavy discount but it seems insane, I love the sound so I just file it away as paradoxical.
@ pops, we know cables can make a difference, just depends on the cable and everything else in the system, To me the cables are the most profound part of a given system, I have used top cables on inferrior componets to result better than high cost componets many times over!, the cables are a componet!
No doubt Audiolab - as you very well know I am in that camp! LOL - it just seems strange...thats all! 350 lbs of speaker with wire, drivers, parts, furniture and then.....a wire. Some things you just can't understand like for instance.....how does the beam me up on Star Trek work? Or the phasers - I could use one of those - set to stun only of course...
An old thread, with age old pondering and always new thinking! Surprise! Long ago and far away, my cable costs rocketed likely eclipsing the cost of the rest of my gear now. For me, it's apparent/obvious that cables are an essential component to bring out the best in a system or from a component. Definitely easier to tune in a system with cables than changing the gear, especially since most of us have spent a lot of time finding the right combo of gear. I think sinking money into power cables and interconnects is a great way to get the best out your system, for sure. Still muddling about with it somewhat, especially speaker cabling. But what a good time!
I follow A'gon member Elizabeth's tips about cable costs relative to system. I do 10-15% of what I paid for my system to get the money I wanted to spend on cabling. For an upper end of the cable budget I did 10-15% of MSRP of my entire system.
That's an interesting point. MRSP of everything as the standard including cables would change things, but give a standard benchmark. MRSP of cables, too. Hmmm, back to the chalkboard!
I like Budburma's 2-18-14 post, Bud, do not go back to the chalk board!, that old adage 10-15% for cables to system is from what I been told, from the cable companys back in the fricken 80s!, I recently read this so called rule of thumb here on audiogon over the last few months, In the 30 years I have been doing audio, that has never worked for me, I have more money in cables than I do the entire system, My amp is $14,000.00 so you can imagine the cables I have are top performers, I do not regret having at all, sounds good to me!
Thankyou Elizabeth, I have to say, I agree with your post 100%, I would never do what I have, not being sure!, makes very good sence to me, I admit, being sure with many other cable brands would be very hard to imagine, you really need to know the brand and models inside and out to make a exspensive decision, It took me years to learn all that I know about the brand I use. cheers.
You owned a good system should have a good OEM cable. You can spend lots of your life and money tweaking your system to get the tightest bass, the smoothest mids, the clearest treble, the largest and deepest soundstage but still get no MUSIC? (unless it's the SOUND you are chasing).
I've been through it all. MY Most expensive cable level was Transparent Reference w/MM2. I now use all Discovery Essence. Funny thing is I read an honest accounting on the net today of an experiment performed by a noted audiophile with one of the most elaborate rooms and systems ever assembled. They compared his Transparent Opus cables to run of the mill Monster cable in a series of blind tests. The best the owner could do was 50/50 in concluding which cables he was listening to in 7 different tests. Pretty telling I think.
I really think this is an obsolete thread. I well remember giving little or no consideration to cabling, isolation, ac filtering, racks, or how clean the records were. I also remember having about $2000 in my entire system, including my expensive ($150) London Decca cartridge. Last night I was thrilled listening to my $1790 USB dac with a $13,575 power cord and a $10,900 ics to my $31,000 line state to my $4500 amp and $40,300 speakers with everything on $450 @ platforms.
I think there now are no rules of thumb to guide buyers of audio gear. I think also that my sound today makes that in the past unlistenable.
Lars of NordOst (used) to challenge the unbelievers that his cables can improve any system -more than often slapping (too) high priced cables in a mid priced level system - and his (former) company spends 80% of the profit in marketing, begging the question if our money is well spent honoring Nordic gods. I treat cables as part of the audio system infrastructure, enabling the components. I fear the ease of swapping/upgrading cables, as compared to a component, especially a heavy one like amp or speakers, has led to a higher ratio in $cabling/$system.
Hi Metaphysics.For me cables are SO IMPORTANT, that there is no rule about percentages of a total cost of an audio system.In fact if you have any components of a wellknown Hi End audio trade mark, you could notice improvements in sound performances by upgrading, cables, plugs, wall receptacles, and of course by changing interconnects and speaker cables.As an example I have a friend who has 6000$ in equipment( Fortè amp and preamp, Ps DAC, Proceed cd, Apogee Centaur) and 10000 dollars in cabling( interconnects,digital cable, power cords and Shunyata hydra 6).and the results are amazing.I know his system for many years and it changed for better any time he put a different cable or connector or interconnect cable.So don`t be afraid about investing in cables.It `s a superb idea!Regards!Rafael
While I agree that cables can and do make a difference, I am increasingly amused by the cost of many high end cables relative to the cost of all the other stuff that goes into this crazy hobby, and relative to the cost of pretty much everything else.
I would guess that the margin of profit on wire far, far exceeds that of virtually every other aspect of high end audio for both the manufacturer and seller. I recently auditioned a pair of Maggie 1.7's at a dealer who was using speaker cables which retailed for SIXTY THOUSAND dollars. Really? Yes, really.
While I will say that these $2000 dollars speakers sounded very good, the take away for me was the audition was a waste of time and that I should have brought my own damn cable had I been warned. I also wondered if twenty thousand dollar cables would have made the Magnepans sound forty thousand dollars worse. How about speaker cables that cost a "mere" 5K? What then?
Ps, what you describe is life in capitalism. Everyday, people face this issue on every product they need at the grocery store restaurant, filling station, etc.
Every day thousands of God's children on planet earth die because they can't afford the food that Wall Street commodity speculators have driven sky high since 2008.
Tbg: I'm puzzled why you would get into economic systems within the context of this thread but since you went there, I would venture a guess that if Karl Marx, et al, had been audiophiles, astronomically (silly) priced wires would not have been in their systems.
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