Funny, after all these years, people still say things like "you wasted all that money on cables". There are still those who believe cables don't make a difference. I once did marketing for a cable line I consider to be about the best-Stealth Audio Cables. One CES, I walked the rooms with the designer/owner, Serguei Timachev. He carried a pair of his then new Indra interconnects. Going from room to room he asked the room runners to replace their source to preamp IC with the Indra. There was not one that was not completely flabbergasted and said that the Indras blew away what they were using. That was the skyrocketing of Indra and Stealth. The Indra became one of the best reviewed cables ever. Serguei now makes the Sakra-an IC that blows away the Indra! I don't understand why some still do not value cables as much as I.
Just for grins I did a quick count on the number of ICs' I'm running in my rather odd stack o' stuff....
...'bout 30 paired cables, plus a couple of 'singles'...lengths from half to two meters.....plus some XLR>RCA m&fm (both ways), 'puter lines, enough AC cables to jump start the monster sans lightning....
And I haven't even mentioned speaker cables....and won't.
30 x 6K$ would buy most of a decent house....the Lotus I'd like to own, with a Yamaha sport bike on a trailer behind it....
The bulk of the cables are from the same vendor, as is the speaker lines. All of it together didn't run 6K$....and None of it 'came with the items'...
Nor is it trash. "Reasonable quality at a justifiable price".
True, I can't hear the 1st violinist breathing heavy in the throes of his/her performance efforts....but I think I'd just find that distracting....;)
Wire can only subtract information (not that all do) from the signal it’s conducting. Since wire is not active, only passive, it cannot add anything. Who would want a cable that attenuates portions of the audio spectrum that they are trying to conduct from one component to another? That means that if you hear a difference between two interconnects it’s because the two cables in question are attenuating different parts of the audio spectrum! That means that neither are neutral, so, it really means that you pays your money, and you takes your choice of what losses or amount of loss that YOU think sounds better than a low loss solution. That’s why I don’t pay any attention (or money) to cables.
Silver clad copper PTFE x 3 and 1 pure copper multi strand. Weave and add red copper ends..Shield armor. 40.00 usd.. 5-900.00 retail. Seen a few over 2,000.00. pretty covers, though...
#16-12 for anything other than power amps #8-12 for power amps
Sorry PC can only do so much...AC clean up goes a lot further than 250-900 PC...BUT hay... just money... poorly spent but it's just money..
Power Cords too! Last night I decided to replace a $800 PC connecting my Core Power 1800 PLC to a 20 amp dedicated line with a Wire World Electra 7, a mere $240 MSRP. That one change brought more out of my Emerald Physics KCIIs than I ever could have hoped for
I’m afraid I’m going to have to recuse myself from this thread, as fun as it’s been. I don’t use cables any more, or power cords, they all introduce distortion and noise. Even the best ones, so I hopped off the AC train and went all battery power. If thy eye offend thee cut it out. No more pencils no more books, no more teacher’s dirty looks. 😡
What I find laughable is the extolling that every successive generation of more expensive cable is so much better than the last generation, when they can't even quantify, at any level, what the last generation did so well to make it "great". Knowing that every amplifier, every pre-amp, every speaker has a different input and output transfer function, it's a given that the ideal cable (if there is one), will be different all the time, and the newest, latest, greatest is unlikely to be any more optimum than the last one.
If you don't know what you actually did well in the last generation, since you can't actually quantify, or even really communicate other than hand-waving, what you are doing well now, how do you know you did better on the next generation and you didn't screw up everything else. I know the usual "we tested it with our ears" will be thrown out, but unless you're testing thousands of combinations of equipment (and some of these companies have barely a multi-meter, let alone racks and racks of components to mix and match, how do they know other than in their one or two reference systems it will help other systems, again given they don't even seem to know how they work?
Normally, I give um, first time having one, live and learn... ;-)
Keep on livin’ sure make it easier to keep on learning. LOL.
Last...Me and that dog been having a great ol time. The hat eatin’ goat though... Were gonna have to have a talk...
Really I do feel good, better than I have in a while... Modern meds are a wonderful thing... Truely, must be made of gold though....
I’m frugal.. not cheap, but man oh man...LOL. I was gonna see if the pharmacist would do a rock, paper, scissor, for a double of nothing... I don’t gamble.. LOL
Thanks though,
Upgrading the sound in a CES room is like painting a turd.
Hee Hee, Man oh man do I agree with that one... It always amazed me... They are trying to sell something, I think??? Then go out of their way to say how it would sound for you? But it sounds bad there, Huh!!! duno...
Is there a difference, sure there is. But as with most equipment, the amount of improve is incremental as price goes up. I do believe that the cable industry ( and their associated gear) is the highest profit item in audio land are they too much, yes they are. But if you have the money, like what you hear, and can afford it, why should anyone else care two squats worth. It’s like you’re a bad personality, and an idiot because you can afford it. They talk science, and prove, yet when something is proven, they move onto another point, not willing to concede the point on the proven one. And who are they to tell you that what you hear is a hallucination. Why are they so resistant to your personal happiness? It almost seems as if they are trying to justify not spending on yet another piece of equipment. I’ve seven seen some who demean cables between equipment, yet extoll the use of high end end bran wiring used inside a piece of equipment. Hypocrisy at its best. I guess since we cannot prove love through science, it dosnt not exist. How do you prove with science, how a piece of music moves someone’s emotions. It’s simple. Observation. Unless the human race Islas been prone to lying about the subjects for thousand of years, then I’d be willing to believe when someone hears a difference in cables.
Here was my total, with cables, C22, a pair of MC240s, two hand made TT, and about 1500.00 in some Strathearn / GB / Misco speakers... 6200.00 in permit, concrete, materials and I did most of the building..
6200.00 (1986) The room 16 x 20 x 8 5100.00 (1976) My gear..
Total under 12K.. What would it cost today?
6 to12K for cables alone??? Holy cow, in my little world, that kind $$$$ built the whole sha-bang...
If I did now, 35-40K and no speakers...another 5-7k if I build them. 30,000.00 for 4 hardwood, MDF rubber lined cabinets. Good cabinet guy. Not speaker guy... and 4,000.00 for all the drivers and XO stuff.
Little under 80K, still no cables... LOL
Now time to go feed the chickens... Goat ate my hat, while I was gone... That was my fave..... That was my dancin’ hat...
What specific rooms did you go into and do you have some testimonies to back up your claim? What listening tests did they use to validate? You can walk into rooms in shows and out of phase speakers, they usually sound like crap due to abysmal acoustics which no cable will ever fix. Upgrading the sound in a CES room is like painting a turd.
lalitk “I dont know why this subject is not only controversial but all around all time....”
Because there are so many pseudo claims in the name of science behind a simple copper or silver wire to transform your audio system.
>>>>>Whoa, dude! Pseudo claims in the name of science? I doubt it. Name one. Betcha can’t. You statement is what we call a pseudo argument, a logical fallacy. As if claiming the other side is unscientific or lying is sufficient to win the debate.🙄
My OP was not intended to sell anyone one on Stealth cables. Although I cannot hide my prejudice toward them. My goal was to give an example IME of the value of cables. Does it not go without saying that Serguei and I limited our trial rooms to the very high end ones with ICs that retail for close to or much more than $6k?Research and development of cables is the same as any component and, perhaps, even more so. It is not the case that a solid 24 carat gold cable transfers of signal best. Cables like top line Stealth take years to develop and have extremely sophisticated architecture. Would I pay $6k for a cable or any component, no. AG clearly changed the Audio industry. However, there is a significant slice of the market that does buy retail and will pay top dollar. Regarding “room runners”, I use this term IME doing two California Audio Shows. “Running a room” is the person primarily responsible for speaking and selling in that room.
Hi, they do, do they justify the astronomic costs required? Cables and cartridges are more difficult to do unless you have the gear to prove it, then, you pay you get, simple.
Morrow A3 interconnect for example are good and makes a difference for the price for me....
But like just say someone else here, cables rarely makes the difference their big price sometimes promise....
I dont know why this subject is not only controversial but all around all time....
Embedding rightly an audio system exceed even most of the times the impact of upgrading the speakers or the dac or the amplifier and sometimes exceed even the changes of these three E.C. ... I am an old rambler but it seems almost nobody knows that in my experience here, then they argue endlessly about cables.... :)
« A new cable make a big difference between my wife and me» -Groucho Marx
Of COURSE cables make a difference, always did - the question is HOW MUCH?!? $6000? - $12000?? Even when occupying the right income group, is seriously beyond my comprehension. Even if they'd be made of solid Au - and assembled by Aeolian virgins, in a higher earthly orbit 💫 - or some such. 🤑
Your explanation really sounds jolly much off the wall. Seriously.
MC, you mean they run the cables, from display, to display?
That would be pretty cool. It’s not that I wouldn’t spend good money on good cables. It’s more like the cables I run on the gear I use, work, pretty darn good. I’m a couple months out on PAINT, and another month until we get to removing and recovering the flooring, in one of the rooms here.
Covid 19, my new heart stents, the old body is slowing down..LOL Yup Monday had a damn heart attack behind a blood clot. That from a nasty bruise, on my inner thy. I wasn’t on thinners...Opps! That hurt... Boiling oil, comes to mind....
Cables are no less or more important, than every other component. I just choose to hold off, until the rooms (two) are a whole lot closer..
I think, the final touches should be cables, and if I’m paying attention to the gear and the sound coming from the rooms as the project progresses.. That’s when I might take a leap.. The issue for me, is there are VERY few people I can compare my gear to...4 pairs maybe in the US..of the Elixirs, and not one close to the modded up units, I have...
It’s a very different, type of speaker. A hybrid linesourse, no super fancy cable required, they never have. Solid silver, Good copper, tough to beat. Add anything newer, either boils my ears...or kills them.
I been using a tuning box on my cables..works great.. OXO, has a turret board I can tune the heck out of the cables in the runs.
I’d like to go through a few cables and really check out the newer stuff.. One thing at a time.
But 6K, the ol Doctor would have to bring some pretty urgent news, like you got 6 months to live, and dying wont cost TOO much. If I had a year, I’d be holding off, 6 months. Then bury me with them. ;-)
Not only most folks, not even most systems at CES use $6k interconnects! Let alone $12k! I would wager its way less than 10%, maybe even less than 5%. Heck it may even be less than 1%! The typical room at CES I would wager is running interconnects that retail for under $2500.
So to be using this random walking around story to show how excellent these are, its like some guy saying his DIY sounds better than the freebie patch cord that came in the box. Sorry, but its that silly.
What you ought to have said is he took his $6k interconnects into rooms with $10k Synergistic, $15k Nordost, and $20k Binford Bombast. Or whatever. Anything but some random CES rooms. With room runners. Haven’t been to CES in a while. Now they have runners. Like at Wimbledon? Good one.
It’s very simple, most folks don’t have 6K for cables. So where does that leave the the 12K pair...
If I could, would I? I’m thinking!!!! I don’t think so.
I think it’s great you enjoy it though... BUT, I’m not one of the cable envy guys, either.
Chevys, Fords, Mercedes. Remember the Porsche/TT/Reel to Reel, thread. All different, but you really can’t talk someone into another brand, when they are a real lover.... Suppose it’s the same, with cables..
I only use the Indra case as an example I have experienced. As much as Indra was precedent setting then for $6K now eclipsed by Sakra at $12K. Second rate? It still is my best IC. Maybe someday I can afford a Sakra.
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