??? Full Loom vs Mix ???

@average_joe 

If those are base gen 5 musiclinks they are about $200, where the Frey 2 are about $800 used prices, so not surprising there was a noticeable difference.

The Transparent Ultra gen 5 compared to the Frey 2 would be more apples to apples. 

I have a mix of quality cables most of which I have found used for about 50% of retail. I have bought some new but never at suggested retail prices. I have a mix of Jorma, Acoustic Zen, Shunyata, Nordost, Zavfino, Silversmith Fidelium. SOtm, DR Acoustics. No rhyme or reason as to a procedure, but if I see a good deal on a cable I try it. At times I have used something I thought was a downgrade, but most times after swapping a cable that was worth $500 for something that retailed for $1000 it sounded better. And swapping out a $1000 cable for a $2500 cable was also an improvement. Go figure. I will add my Silversmith Fidelium's replaced a speaker cable that retails for 3 times what they did, so it not always the higher priced items win. I am happy with the sound of the system but I will probably always tweak away with different cables to see how the sound gets "tweaked". Like experienced audiophiles stated above, you don't have a clue until you try it yourself. 

Don't know what a full loom sounds like. Maybe I will try a full-loom of something someday, but for an example the Tyr2 XLR I bought that I do think sounds wonderful between my DAC and pre amp, if I were to pop down to the dealer and "full loom" my system with this cable here is what it would cost me in Canadian retail prices:

Nordost Tyr2 2m speaker cable: $9965

Nordost Tyr2 1m XLR: $3959 x 3 = $11877

Nordost Tyr2 digital: $2300

Nordost Heimdall ethernet (no Tyr2): $990

Nordost Tyr2 1m Power Cord: $4421 x 5 = $22105

So I would walk into a dealer and hand him a grand total of $47237 plus taxes of $5668 = $52905? 

I can't do this. And if I could I wouldn't want to. 

But also waiting until I find all the pieces above at a used price could take years. Also I love what my Shunyata Sigma V2 power cable did in my system, so maybe I will go all Shunyata? Choices choices. 

I’ll add it does make sense to me that a manufacturer suggests to use a full loom of their product. We bought their cable, we think it sounds great, someone there or a team of people must have good ears to be able to voice this cable to sound this good, right? so we should take their advice and trust them that the other cables "match" and have "synergy" with the rest of the system, right? Seems logical. But again this is in the particular system they tested their cables with, and someone else has different speakers, amplifier, and source and may have completely different results.

What makes just as much sense is what the designer of the 300b tube amplifier I just bought said: "I recommend you use my cables because it is the same wire that is inside the amplifier".

I don’t use equipment from the same manufacturer

The wiring in your components is not all the same now 

Excellent points.