Money rarely has anything to do with it, Nil.
Rather it appears to have everything to do with quality of parts, workmanship, and methodology.
For example, the Paul Speltz' Anti-ics at $100 for a 1 meter XLR pair blew away my pair of $3500 (retail) XLR ics making them sound veiled and bloated.
But then again my $700 ics are distictly better than the $100 ics as well as adding a bit of magic to the final presentation.
I think the main thing to listen for in any sc or ic is time-smear. You want as little time-smear as possible because time smear causes the highs to sound grainy and harsh and fatiguing and will corrupt the definition of the lower bass frequencies.
In my limited experience, excessive time-smear is a very common negative trait to find in scs and ics.
-IMO
Rather it appears to have everything to do with quality of parts, workmanship, and methodology.
For example, the Paul Speltz' Anti-ics at $100 for a 1 meter XLR pair blew away my pair of $3500 (retail) XLR ics making them sound veiled and bloated.
But then again my $700 ics are distictly better than the $100 ics as well as adding a bit of magic to the final presentation.
I think the main thing to listen for in any sc or ic is time-smear. You want as little time-smear as possible because time smear causes the highs to sound grainy and harsh and fatiguing and will corrupt the definition of the lower bass frequencies.
In my limited experience, excessive time-smear is a very common negative trait to find in scs and ics.
-IMO