Low price, quality cables for avalon ,CAT, shindo

You have an outstanding setup here......don't compromise on the cables. One key area that so many ICs destroy in the preamp-to-amp link are the decays, ambiance, harmonic overtones, etc. You have this capability in spades ..... don't throw it away with mainstream cables.

I have found two ICs that work incredibly well between the Aesthetix Callisto Sig and CAT JL-3 amps: Stealth Indra and Jade Audio Hybrid. The Stealth has a little more extension on the top; the Jade Hybrid portrays the 3D and decays more beautifully. These are both in the $2k range but to go for something with much less performance just does not make sense here.

For speaker cables (I have SoundLab A1 speakers), surprisingly I find the Purist Opis to work very well ..... no obvious tonal peaks or valleys and quite good in dynamic contrasts.....the latter is the key strength of the CAT amps. The other speaker cable I have heard that stands out is the new Jade audio but it runs twice the price of the Opis. This fleshes out the 3D in the music much like the Hybrid IC.

Give the Jade cables a listen. You can try them out for a month no obligation and you will likely be mightily impressed.

Once you find cables that work, I can give you some tips on small-signal tubes for the CAT amp that will take it far beyond the stock Sovtek and Ei tubes.

John

Jade Audio are not low price (in my price paradigm), which is a criteria of the original post.

This is true, but one does not buy a Frank Lloyd Wright home and furnish it with products from Ikea. The same applies to Samuel33's system and cabling.

Are you sure (comparison A/B) that cables are so important ?

Absolutely! I was able to do this back and forth between the Stealth Indra and the Jade Hybrid and the differences were immediately clear. The same qualitative differences would not have been so evident had I not had both at the same time.

Samuel33 - Do not look at this as "listening" to cables but rather discovering the true potential of the system you have assembled. Having the ability to adjust to the sound with one cable and then instantly switch to another will make this very evident.

I not fond of FLW's furniture as well, and it would be 86'd if I too bought one of his homes. But I would not run down to Ikea to furnish the home any more than I would run down to Home Depot and buy wire or extension cords, use furutech or WBT connectors and run this with my audio system.

There's a context for everything as part of a system and generic cables are not relevant to the system under evaluation here. The issue is not what we believe but what we observe when we open our minds.

but seriously when you see the website it is quite scary.

I disagree. One man has taken the time to add a little warmth and fun to his site rather than the same ol' web design of images of grand pianos, 400 year-old violins, conductors, treble clefs, etc. And then we often read the claims that products chase the absolute sound, their implementation of aerospace engineering techniques, etc., etc., etc. The same marketing hype gets old quickly. But here we have something different and you immediately dismiss it. Come on, lighten up a bit - enjoy this rather than taking it all so seriously.

Rather than be intimidated by attacking teddy bears, why not read the text on the site of materials used, the many iterations of various wire gauges auditioned, the willingness to customize cables for each customer, etc., and take advantage of the opportunity to try these free for a month. It makes a lot more sense than buying a product based on a review and then being stuck with it when it does not outperform what you already have for less cost.

My experiences mirror much of Chrisla's. It was not 7-8 years ago that power cables made no difference in my system and this was with highly respected top ARC electronics, Magnepan speakers and Linn TT. But then a power conditioner came along, and some Kubala-Sosna and Purist cables, and suddenly power cables and then speaker cables started to make a huge difference. Ironically, the IC from preamp to amp has ALWAYS made a huge difference when a tube preamp was in the chain.

What have made me doubtfull is that I have compared 2000$ cables to 30 000$ Transparent and heard difference BUT no improvment, you see what I mean ?

No........your conclusion is only relevant for those 2 cables in the system they were used. Don't make the blanket conclusion that because you heard no improvement here that the point of diminishing returns for all cables is much lower. I don't see this as dumb or incompetent but rather jumping to conclusions without first doing some home-trials of many cables.