Cables more hype than value?

$5000 for 6 feet of power cable?! My entire rig cost that! Just dump the wall outlets and run the NM10 to a home made distribution box using hospital grade outlets and hook your gear into that. Or hard wire everything doing away with sockets and cables!

Open question: what sounds better? All other things being equal, NM10/3 copper coming directly from the breaker box and terminated at the amp/source in an IEC plug OR NM10/3 terminating at a good quality recepticle with a $10,000+ power cord?

Indeed we do live in an age of excess. And irrationality. And psycho-OCD. I remember seeing a Peter Belt demo of the little foil triangles. I heard an improvement! The thing is, there is no way putting tiny foil triangles on the windows could have changed the sound so utterly. Something else was at play. Ever read a few pages in a book and then re-read them a minute later - whole different world, isn't it?

Bo1972, you said: "Always choose for the more expensive cable with less expensive amp or source. Thta is an honnest way. This is how I sell cables."

QED.

I'd rather spend money where it matters, better tubes, caps, amps, equipment than blow it on cables. It's not so much that I'm skeptical, it's more that it is a ludicrous expense and I couldn't justify it.