moneyman - Nice to see you're enjoying your music / system.
I remember when I found CH Acoustic because my response very similar.
Let me disclose that I'm a CH Acoustic dealer - I'm glad to offer my experience and I'm not trying to push a sale. I'm an engineer by schooling and profession and detest "a used car salesman" in any form. I became a dealer because I like and believe in the product and people in the company.
Our system is a moderately high end system, with our stereo integrated with our home theater - set up with a priority on stereo. We did this to allow our family to further enjoy our investment.
Our system includes a Meridian 800 transport with 861v8 and HD621 processors, Wilson Sasha I mains, Watch II center, Watt/Puppy 5.1's sides and Watch II rears, Snell Sub-1800, Pass XA-200.5's for mains with 3 X-250.5's for center/sub, sides and rears, and a Sound Application power conditioner.
Cables were MIT Oracle MA-X SHD speaker cables, MA-X2 balanced interconnects, MA-X digital rca, Elrod Gold II power cables for our stereo with lesser MIT and legacy Audioquest cables used in our theater.
After trying the X-20 power cables, we were very impressed and switched our power cords and interconnects with our speaker cables to follow.
Let me qualify a system's performance.
My wife and I invested in our stereo system with a goal to recreate the illusion of a live performance. That's not everyone's goal and even if it was, there's quite a bit of interpretation of what is "right" when defining a live performance. We try to attend live performances as often as we can and find very well recorded music to enjoy in our home.
Room's acoustics is another consideration - even with a terrific system and very well recorded music, does the (playback) room's acoustics allow the performance to occur naturally? We used different methods to tune our room, with performers playing their instruments and then playing back well recorded music as the final evaluation method.
If you're looking for the highest fidelity possible, CH Acoustic cables are what we've found, use and why we became dealers.
There are times when a product's better performance is easily distinguished, but too often people try different products and declare this is better because - "it has a bigger sound stage / images better / is more natural / tames the high frequencies / can be listened to longer without fatigue / compliments this piece of equipment best / makes poor recordings sound better" - and so on. I find this disappointing because these variables will always exist and this journey will never stop. Further, upgrading a component in this type of system presents challenges because of these variables.
We look for components with the highest fidelity to recreate the performance as it occured. If one component is "too hot" and creates fatigue, the answer (in our opinion) is not to find another component to compliment it. Introducing multiple variables in an effort to counteract each other ultimately compromises performance.
In a neutral system with the highest fidelity - playing very well recorded music provides an unmatched experience. And this is why we selected CH Acoustic cables - and ultimately became dealers.
The X-20 series cables is a dramatic step up from the legacy X-10 cables you're experiencing, with another dramatic step up existing to the X-30 cables.
Is the investment worth it? That's a question for each individual. It was for my wife and I, because we strive for a neutral system of the highest fidelity. Another significant consideration for us was when we do upgrade a component - our cable investment will continue to support our system.
Hope this provided some positive insight and reflection on the enjoyment of your music.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year :-)
