I've had a bunch of cables in and out of my system, The Designers Reference is just one of them. As I stated before there are several cables that I've tried that work well in my system. I never did an A/B test using the Designers Reference and Apex. I have the Apex in my system for a few years now and like the detail and soundstage it gives. I'm now working on other parts of my system since I'm happy with the Apex but am now trying some other cables on a new CD player that I added to my system. So, I really don't have an answer for you except to experiment if you can.