Who thinks $5K speaker cable really better than generic 14AWG cable?

maplegrove: No,...what are we missing?

Remove the "u"

"Well, this has become quite the thread! After reading all of the posts and participating in this topic, it seems it all comes down to what YOU hear. ".

Hifiman: Definitely,...that’s all that relevant I suppose. It has nothing to do with what had to be spent (or saved if you are luckier than some of us...). BTW,....just visited your system page again (first time since Nov 2016). That is one well thought out and assembled system and I’m sure it sounds wonderful. Did you find the 30A circuit gave positive benefit of a well done 20A?

Thanks dill...was looking too deeply trying to figure out what user/vendor with an agenda was masquerading as this user. Was not looking for something as simple as satan!

HOLLY MACKEREL This thread is still rolling along!!???? WTF????

@zephyr24069   Thanks!  I must say, the Treo CTs and the Modwright CD player have  been game changers.  The Vandies take quite a while to sound their best, the reward is that their best is incredibly good, perhaps astonishing at the price.  The interesting thing about the Modwright is that at first it sounds "tubey".  Once broken in it is very extended and clean at the frequency extremes.  The "tubey" warmth is replaced by a harmonic rightness to instruments.  More meat on the bone as it were.  

As far as the 30 A circuit goes, I had my listening room built with the house and specified a 30 A circuit from the get go.  Therefore I've never heard my system on anything but.

Hifiman...thanks for the response.  Technically my dedicated circuits in my old and my current house and room were 30A capable as I wired with good quality 10-gauge but I've always kept to 20A breakers.  I may have to do a limited test to see if putting in a 30A breaker yields any benefit but I've never heard any suffering in my system from lack of dynamics or headroom so I've not felt it necessary to push this envelope up to the present day....Happy Listening!

I myself am using a one foot pair of MG Audio Design's top of the line speaker wires, which retail for $900  which are attached to my pair of Martin/Logan peakers.  Between the MG Audio Design speaker wires and my amplifier I connect Jenna Lab's 18 gage hook up wires.  Presently I am using three of the Jenna Lab's 18 gage wires per channel.  Thus 12 of them total.  The cost of the Jenna Lab hook up wires is $6 per foot per wire.  Due to system set up I require 17 foot length of the Jenna Lab hook up wires for my left speaker and 10 foot lengths for the right.  It averages out to a 14.5 total length per speaker.  Lessthan $1900 total cost.  The result-basically the sound as if I was using mG Audio Design wires by themself.  Both Arnie Nudell and Paul McGowan use Them.  Jenna Lab's is another small high end wire manufacture.  John Curl will speak up for them as he himself has a long relationship with them.  All I can say is that my present speaker wire combination is truly state of the art, but at a real world price.

How do you do 3 wires per channel? One on positive, two on negative?

No, three wires to each-three wire to left positive, three wires to left negative, and the same for the right side.  Three Jenna Labs wires per side, per channel-twelvein all.  The three Jenna Lbs wires between the single MG Audio Design wire-themself attached to the speakers themself.  And the other ends of the Jenna Labs hook up wires =3 each per channel-twelve in all-to the amplifier speaker wire terminals.  I originally used just one Jenna Labs hook up wires per channel-four in all.  Next I tried two per channel-eight total.  Finally Iused three per channel-twelve n all.  It sounder better each time I added another Jenna Labs hook up wires.  The result is fabulous audio reproduction.

Alan, where do you buy the Jenna Labs hookup wire? 

Jena Labs

http://www.jenalabs.com/

Thanks.

Still amused immensely by this topic, here,s my 3 cents of old fart musings!
Hail from England originally and grew up as a cash strapped music afficondo making do on a shoe string budget to begin.
Back in the 70,s, affordable meant Jap amps and cassette decks, JVC, Trio, Akai, Aiwa etc, all made fair offerings for the price, hard to beat  garrard turntable for the price and with a half decent cart sounded good enough. Speakers were ALWAYS English, Mission for the masses, Tannoy or Mordaunt Short for those with a bit more cash.
Anyways knew a lot of similar minded folk and we would trade gear, tell tall stories etc but not once EVER did anybody even think about cables of any sort!
You used what came with your gear, yes those throwaway rca cables, whatever power cord came with it and hopefully you could persuade the dealer to throw in some speaker cable if you bought a new pair, remember getting some QED 14g cable with some new Missions...which I still have...lol.
I think if anybody had suggested you go blow the price of your tape deck or amp on interconnects or power cord or fuse they would have been laughed out of the country!
Now maybe we were all ignorant or just did not know any better, who knows, all I know is I am still constantly amazed at the price of some cables and the people who buy them.

Anyone who know ANYthing about cables, knows that once you move them, it takes a while for them to ’settle’ again. A ’blind test’ done by switching cables out, one after the other, is the height of futility and absurdity.
It’s not the cable, it’s one’s level of sophistication and knowledge. Now that there are a zillion cable around, whereas there used to be only 3 or 4 top brands that dealers carried, people walk in and want to hear "X" or "Y" compared to each other, one right after the other. This is dumb, but not necessarily the consumer’s fault. The dealer fails to educate his client base and with the short attention spans people betray, it’s no wonder someone feels like this.

Clearly few people remember the Stereophile Carver Challenge, when Bob Carver tried to duplicate his amp to make it sound exactly like certain tube amps. As pointed out, it was absurd to expect people to be able to discern differences in a matter of seconds or minutes.
When I move my Shunyata cable around and listen - and voice is ALWAYS better, because most singers stand right at the mike. Wiat, let me qualify that: OLDER recordings with well-recorded singers (Ella, Nat King Cole, Sarah, Eileen O’Farrell, Callas, Leontyne Price), will do the trick. Using those recordings, I can move my cable and hear the loss of hard consonants (words ending in "d" or starting with "p" because, especially with a word starting in "P" the sound creates a sort of "aspirant." Just say the word "push" out loud: there is no way to say it without, literally, pushing air out of your mouth, whereas the word "thought" does not "push" air out. So, move the cable, play Ella Sings Cole Porter, or even music up to say, 1970, and you can easily hear the aspirant disappear. Leave it for an hour and try again. You will now hear the aspirant.

Cable are not rip-offs: people merely have incompetent dealers, more interested in selling than in educating their customers, and simply saying, "lets let this sit for 20 minutes or so" because the customer may simply leave.
Flowers don’t grow because you throw water on them: they take time. Nobody rushes a flower to bloom, or a foal to walk. They do it in their own time.
Cables also need TIME to settle. You don’t have to buy new ones to test this knowledge out: do it on your own system. Same with power cords (especially Shunyata because, I think, of the way the cable is woven. But I can hear it on my Nordost as well). And I buy from places where I can return the item if I don’t hear a sufficient increase in sonics. And many is the time I haven’t hard enough to warrant the purchase. But blaming the genre as a rip-off? You need better ears, and a knowledge of how live music sounds (or at least something that has not been multi-mixed at a console).
So, instead of "fake news," try acquiring something that you can put in your own system and do it the correct way. Insert. WAIT. Then listen.
Whereas, the listening experience used to be a relaxing one, when brick and mortar  establishments were the standard of the day - and dealers had actual knowledge - you could, assuming you knew anything - trust your ears. Now? The dealers are mediocre,  and their setups are poor. A nearby dealer has top of the heap electronics, and the worst setups, and yet he sells tons of ARC, Nordost, and others. Yet, he has no ears. I have a suck out around the lower treble, yet I can easily tell when something is wrong. In his setup,  it's ALL wrong. 
Bad setup will cancel out hearing what the equipment (including the cable) can do. Do you know the equipment well enough to assess the cable? One wonders.

You have to listen to something in order to ascertain something. It cannot be done on the fly. It takes time. Swapping out cables in a blind A/B test is nothing more than a parlor trick meant to beguile.

"Cables need to SETTLE."  Really...now they need to settle?  Is that after they are burned in?  Before they are "elevated?  Holy Moly!  I am still chuckling at the comparison with flowers growing.

gbmcleod-

nice point of view and I concur that most dealers/retailers have poor sounding rooms.  Happy Listening!

Yes, Dynaquest, "cables need to settle." 
And your comparison with flowers is quite apt, since my mother was an expert flower grower. And anyone who with any gardening experience past a 3- year olds (apologies to the expert younger gardeners) would have told you, the soil around the flower needs to be left alone. Surely you know that when you plant even a lawn, you are not supposed to walk on it until well after the grass has grown a bit. Soil should not be tamped down. All you have to do is read the bag to learn that. It's not a mystery.
So, in essence, you've answered your own question, although I suspect  you didn't intend to. And it sounds like you have not experienced the higher priced spreads and their quirks. They have quirks. Shunyata, on their website, even shows diagrams of how the cable should not slump, but should be perfectly level at all points. 
At some point, novices need to listen to more experienced users before registering  disbelief. And, my training was: do the experiment yourself to see the results (did you skip high school chemistry?) You also skipped the experiment, as recommended above, didn't you? Naughty boy. You get an "F".

Oh, and  speakers need to be PERFECTLY level, too. Not 1/8" off. PERFECTLY. Small inflections, inner detail will disappear. So dealer's showrooms are not the last word in authority. I'm sure that will cause  you chuckles, too. All for the good.  After all, laughter is the best medicine, non? 

"Cables need to settle!" Actually I thought this was presented as a joke. Now I see it is just another snake oil input into the overall high-priced cable joke. Do not be offended. My beef isn’t with those who who are unknowingly victims...but with the manufacturers, distributors and dealers who perpetuate the scam. My $10.00 12ga Monoprice cables do a fine job. Or...I could spend $137,000.00 on Nordhost Odin cables. Yep, I’m still chuckling.

dynaquest: Truly happy that you enjoy your system and the cables you are using.  In some ways I wish I'd never tried better cables than what I was using that were essentially straight 28awg, 22awg, 14awg, 12awg, etc...way back;  the problem is that what I've come to use as my reference cables have brought so much to the table in my system to my ears and people who have come over to listen, not being told anything of price, config changes,etc..., that I simply have to have them in the system. Every time I've tried to subtract them and go to stock cords (which I've done several times over the years and often had to live with that for several months for various personal reasons), sound stage, imaging, musicality of instruments, voices, etc....becomes literally a shadow of how the system performed the days before.   This is according to what I've heard and those with good ears that I've allowed to share in my system in my home.

You'll notice that I don't go for the reviewers' current flavor of the month in my system at all or cables....there's a reason for that. What I have kicks ass and while they cost well more than I EVER thought reasonable as I used to think like you do many years ago, I cannot deny how the system sounds (and measures mind you) when I have 'the good stuff' installed.

You are going to laugh at this response I'm sure and think me another of the fools who have drunk the kool-aid, the snake-oil, whatever. Quite the opposite actually as I was a huge skeptic for a long time up until a few years ago. Regrettably, my hearing and an open mind now having me using those cables that you would claim don't make any difference; penalties to me I guess both figuratively and financially.  With I could get away with 14awg or whatever :-) !

I also side with gbmcleod on cables needing to settle after shipment or transit, not because some dealer or cable maker told me to, or because some fan-boy on some forum said it was so, but because I have found many times, with certain topology cables, particularly those with woven/intertwined helix geometry for multi-stranding conductors or particularly for any cables with heavy ribbon compliment, that they frankly have to reach steady state and their capacitive properties need to stabilize before they start to sound their best.  This is usually the first 24-36 hours and sometimes has been as few as 12 depending upon the cable, the metallurgy and the topology.  My father was a metallurgist, a musician and an audio hound who NEVER invested in anything but bargain cables from Radio Shack or the local stereo shops beginner's rack; he would tell me that any metals that have been through extremes in altitude, temperature or radical movement have their physical properties changed a bit and they have to acclimate to a certain degree to their current environment.  Enough said on that....

dynaquest: I'm sure you are enjoying this response as further proof of your position.  Anytime you want to spring for a plane ticket and drop by with your cables, you are welcome here. I'd love for you to do some A/B here with those I'm running and bargain cables and let me know what you hear! BTW...I'm not joking!

Zephyr, looks like dynaquest is not interested in an actual test as he believes that his cables are good enough. He thinks we are all "unknowing victims", scammed by the cable industry, afflicted by the dreaded "audio placebo effect." No "snake oil" for him, nothing can sound better than the $10.00 Monoprice cables, Emotive amps & B&W speakers or Rolex watches either.

Many of us have participated in various similar threads to this one.  The cable conundrum is an ongoing source of subject matter.

If you have listened through your system with a variety of cables and not heard a difference, then unless you have an irrational compulsion to spend your expendable income on audio affectations, be happy with what you have and enjoy your music.  For those of us who have investigated various cables of diverse metals and topologies with a variety of dielectrics and connectors and have heard differences meaningful to us...yippee for us, or in the case of preferring a high priced spread, woe for our bank accounts.

At any rate, in the same way that I may look at a "great" painting and see splotches of color and you, a cable skeptic, might see true meaning in those splotches, good for you for perceiving what my individual sensibilities did not enable me to appreciate.

Lastly, if you are reading this and think that there are these absolute truths in audio or watercolors you might do well to open your walls of perception and come to appreciate the unique differences that one will cherish and another not even experience.  Viva la difference!  oh, the humanity.

dill: I see your point,...ironic in part that Rolex watches are preferred don't you think?  If someone were to be of the mindset that marketing and snake oil arguments held for cables, touting the value of a watch manufacturer with the largest PR machine within a large group of hi-end competitors that appeals chiefly to ego and always has in that particular market should not be on the list! To be consistent, we should be hearing that there is no difference worth spending all that ego money on Rolex, Tag, and many other $$$ brands, etc., etc...and instead should be satisfied with garden variety Timex, Citizen, Bulova, Fossil, etc.....easily obtainable for 100 USD or less these days!

Hifiman: Well said!!!

zephyr24069  - While I agree with almost nothing you stated regarding expensive "high quality" cables, I found your response refreshing, polite and well written.  

Regarding the Rolex analogy; audio systems play music, watches tell time. You can dramatically improve audio quality with better, more expensive equipment (to a point).  It is almost impossible to buy a watch that tells the time more efficiently, effectively or accurately...regardless of how much you spend. The Rolex level watch is not purchased because it is a watch...it is purchased because it is jewelry.  Or, in some cases, an outlandish personal financial statement.

dynaquest: great response and thank you for the kind words on my post. have a great day!

@zephyr24069 
I guess I am still the skeptic you once were and tbh if I need to spend the equivalent of a small 3rd world countries national debt to hear that hard sought difference then I will surely remain a skeptic...lol.
Would you care to name the cables you allude to in your post at all?
I am not a skeptic by choice, just as of yet I have not been convinced on aural changes by ANY cable change I have ever made anywhere.
Whereas items like tubes, tube dampers etc I can honestly say that yes I did hear changes.

One way is to insert a cable made from a different metal. If you are using copper speaker or interconnect, try a silver plated copper or solid silver cable (they don't have to be expensive). Use the same lengths and only change one pair at a time, speaker cables or interconnects. Use familiar music, match the appox. volume and be in a quiet environment.

I was a mega sceptic, but also old enough to know I should investigate for myself before I make a snap judgement. Being a cheapskate as well as a sceptic, I decided I’d make my own cables. I started with power cables and distributors, then did speaker cables and interconnects.

They all made a difference.

I’ve now tried various materials and construction techniques and have settled on the things that have sounded the best.

Before you decide, try with an open mind. I had my mind made up too. I loved the article on the bluejeans site, decrying expensive cables..

I still think some prices are straight up ridiculous, but I still pay attention to what I use to connect things..

dill: Great suggestion,...definitely a worthwhile test!

toddverrone: If I had your skills and was able to build cables, I would definitely have gone down that path. 

uberwaltz: I'm happy to discuss this and talk through the multiple vendors I've used with good results over the years and those I've owned or tried that did not get it done (for me alone, they are reputable and good brands, just did not wind up liking them in the long run).  As for my current prefs spanning the last 3-4 years and moving forward, check out my systems page With exception of changing clocking and AES cables as a possibility, the analog IC, speaker and power cables listed there are a brand that is a cornerstone of how my system sounds its best today.   Please drop me a message via mail here on the forum. I don't want to have this thread turn into "my list of past cables owned" as opposed to the OP's topic and have any appearance that I'm bashing vendors that I don't happen to own cables from any longer as that would not be the case at all.  

Have a great day all!

Just passing through here today (since I have one of those "expensive" cables for sale), and all I can say is: I’m not interested in converting anyone. Don't need to.
If Dynaquest cannot hear the difference, good for him. I can’t imagine who his dealer is, or how the difference can’t be heard: I can hear it even with my hearing loss.
But it’s certainly CHEAPER to NOT hear a difference, and believe me, I wish my hearing was  even poorer, too. I’d be quite a bit richer. Money-wise, but not music-wise.

Actually, and I’ve said this before, and with science on my side, it is not that I cannot hear the difference, I do not believe there is a positive difference to be heard once basic, minimum cable requirements are met (gage/length). And even if there were a "difference" who determines whether is is "better" or "worse?" Just hearing a difference is moot. I can put my hands behind my ears and hear a difference. I can close the drapes and hear a difference. I can toe in my speakers and hear a difference. I can change the EQ and hear a difference. Some people WANT an "improvement" so badly they will do really, really (to me) dumb things. On another thread here a fellow paid $225,000 each for a couple speakers and then proceeded to change out the internal wiring . What? He researched what he thought were the best speakers on the planet and decided that the manufacturer was not smart enough to include appropriate crossover wiring? And, of course, he said the difference was stunning! Same audio placebo effect and expectation bias....that is the only science involved in expensive cables/interconnects/power cords.....and crossover wiring.

It is too bad, dynaquest, that your music listening enjoyment is based on rudimentary measurements that were developed scores ago. Hearing a difference is not moot, it is the whole point and YOU as the listener decides what sounds best. You say "audio placebo effect and expectation bias". I am smarter than that, realized years ago that could be a possibility, however with experience and long term listening of many different products I have learned to expect different sound from different metals and designs. Those of us that can hear a difference are rewarded with an enhanced listening environment and might even wind up spending less than you on cables. It is what it is. 

dill: You are saying the same thing "to me" that you have said before. I only restated my position on this subject because I was called out "by name" in gmcleod’s post as he was "passing through."

Also, I did not say: "Hearing a difference is moot," I said "Just hearing a difference is moot" and that within the context of the rest of my post.

Not sure you recent post accomplished anything other than taking another personal shot at me.

@dynaquest   Would you not agree that two listeners could do a cable listening test and agree to disagree as to which sets of cables in the same system helped to yield the best sound?  We all hear differently due if in no other way, to anatomical differences.  Add to that our personal preference for what sounds "right" and two or more listeners will differ in their sonic perceptions.

One more thing that occurs to me is the sensitivity of different people's senses.  Example...my son and I have a poorly developed sense of smell, due mostly I suspect as a matter of anatomical differences over my wife and daughter who are, relative to us, hyper smell-sensitive.  This example is, besides the profit motive, the only way to explain the panoply of speaker designs extant today.  Different designers perceive music differently and that accounts, in large part, for the incredible diversity of approches to music reproduction.  Vive la difference!

I'd agree if it was a dbl blind test with adequate sample size to be statistically significant.

I've never seen any for interconnects, and bet I never will.

Speaker cables can change the sound of speakers with odd impedances.

@randy-11

I wasn't referring to a "scientific" or "mathematically significant" test result.  Music isn't math.  Music isn't science.  Music is an art and the appreciation for sonic differences are inextricably tied to the emotional reaction to music in the same way a piece of art will move one viewer and leave someone experiencing the same exact work cold and uninvolved.  A system wired with one set of interconnects could evoke an aesthetic reaction within one listener different from another listener.  My guess is that most of us have been there with this experience in our time as audiophiles.  An example for me personally is hearing the exactitude of notes reproduced by top level electrostatic transducers but being unmoved by the overall gestalt of the music in total.  I "hear" the accuracy, but the music fails to engage me emotionally. It's an intellectually informed experience rather than one of the heart and soul.  I'm always going for the latter. 

If you need the math to substantiate what your ears transmit to your heart then have at it.  Just doesn't work for me.

Double blind tests have a place in medicine, at least that's what they say. They certainly have no place in audio. At least inasmuch as they actually prove anything about a device under test. 

dynaquest said: " Not sure you recent post accomplished anything other than taking another personal shot at me."

The AudiogoN community has many people of many beliefs, most I believe are in the "cables make a difference" category. You and others are not and that is fine. Above, you are accusing me of taking " another personal shot at me." I added a few quotes below from this thread that you made at different times. I am offended by many of your posts because of your tone and condescending attitude. You say that we are being "duped", " fleeced ", "suffering from expectation bias & placebo effect ", " preys on those with some sort of an audio quality addiction that causes them to ignore science and get sucked in by slick marketing, bright and shiny cables and other butterflies and rainbows."

I have been in this hobby for 46 years, have had hundreds of pieces of gear, owned scores of all types of cables. I experiment wilh my gear, my friend’s gear too. I have done more serious listening to music than you have and from my EXPERIENCE, amps, preamps, speakers, the parts inside and cables sound different, sometimes good, sometimes bad. Those results are obtained from actual, long term listening, noting the results and sharing them with others.

Other than rudimentary measurements that were developed scores ago and quotes from a few articles, what has been YOUR experience, regarding the sound of cables in your system?

dlcockrum’s question is spot on dynaquest; "Do you think that your trite and worn out contentions, repeated ad-nauseam, are helpful to anyone, dynaquest?"

Below are some quotes from dynaquest in this marathon thread:

1/4/17 - Think I’ve made my opinions known so I will leave this forum now. If anyone needs the final word, fire away.

... if that was only true

1/4/17 That these exist is almost laughable. That someone would have so little respect for the value of money to buy them is incomprehensible to me. That otherwise intelligent "audiophiles" would fall for the "science" that goes into these WIRES is just funny.

1/2/17 - Crazy-expensive cabeling is proof positive that, on some products, if you overcharge you will sell more to the duped masses.

3/20/16 - From recent posts, it seems like many of the responders are "in the business" of selling audio equipment; that would include relatively expensive cables/wire/interconnects. I can’t help but believe there HAS to be bias in their expressed opinions.

1/18/16 - On the other hand.... who praises the significant, if not impressive, improvements in sound quality that can be achieved by buying very expensive "high end” cables? Two groups. Those that manufacture, distribute and sell these products at a serious profit and those who were talked into drinking the Kool Aid and would NEVER fess up to being fleeced. Actually there is a third group. This group gulped the Kool Aid and are victims of the incedious audio placebo effect that causes you to hear the advertised, albeit impossible, sound quality enhancement.

1/13/17 - Well...perhaps you need to read more than the past ten posts. This thread is NOT about the audio industry nor the audio "hobby" nor audio systems; it is about the audio cabling industry that preys on those with some sort of an audio quality addiction that causes them to ignore science and get sucked in by slick marketing, bright and shiny cables and other butterflies and rainbows.

1/10/17 - Now....if you have nothing of significance to contribute to the subject ($5K expensive cables), why just just sit in the crowd and refrain from useless, personal comments.

And....I really don’t think I am being "snarky;" but feel free to take it that way if it helps you sleep.

2/7/17 - My opinion continues that if you have decent cables to begin with, any improvement in sound quality, if any (and I don’t think there will be any) is going to be so subtle that the only way you will be able to discern a difference is with an instantaneous A/B switch. Hardly any consumer has the capability to do this so improvements are more likely to be the result of expectation bias.

1/24/17 - 5. Expectation bias (placebo effect): It is absolutely amazing what the brain can imagine. Once an “improvement” (new equipment/accessories) is added to a music system, one listens – this is a physical and, of course, mental process. You cannot isolate the brain from the experience for a number of reasons, and the more that is spent, the greater the expectation for improvement. The placebo effect will always be there because the listener/big-spender knows that there has been a change. Since virtually no consumer does, or has the capability to perform, an instantaneous AB test (the only kind that are really valid) on the old/new equipment, his expectation will allow him the pleasure of experiencing superior performance – even when there is none. In almost every case, once very basic requirements are met, more expensive cables, ICs and speaker wire do nothing to improve sound quality. It is science. Wowwow, voodoo magic wire is a scam.

1/23/17 - @ dlcockrum: I may have missed your point but I doubt seriously I missed the point. That point is that before people spend hundreds or (even) thousands of dollars on pretty cables with shiney connects, that come in felt bags and wooden boxes, that they are aware of the insideous power of the subconscious that will lead their ears to justify the money they spent on accessories that are incapable of improving audio signals. That psyco-effect is real. To deny it is sophomoric.

dill.....Really?! What are you trying to accomplish here? Can’t imagine how long it took you to search, cut and paste all those snippets. I think... "Thou dost protest too much."

We would all be better served if you would stick to the subject and not to me.

A trolling we will go, a trolling we will go, hi ho the derry-oh, a trolling we will go.

I agree on the Vandersteen speakers as anyone who has read my posts knows. I also love the AQ cables as to me, they do everything well.  They are the most neutral for my ear and pass what the electronics are passing, without adding or subtracting.  JMHO

Well, never tried 5K Speaker Cable and unlikely to. What I can say is I bought some 14AWG Generic OFC Cable around 3 months ago to hook up a little set of Speakers that were sitting idle.

On seeing this thread I decided to put the Generic Cable into one of my better set-ups to do a comparo. I allowed each cable around 3-4 listening days with approx. 2-4 hours listening each day used.

My findings were: My AU$80 cables allowed a better performance from Speakers than the generic. My US$115 cables provided a much better performance than the generic. My AU$130 cables a much better performance than the generic. My approx. US$200 cables a much better performance than the generic. My approx. US$600 cables a significantly better performance than the generic.

infirthemusic: As long as you knew which cables you were listening to, your ability to actually faithfully "judge" comparative performance is compromised.  But whichever ones you think sound better are the ones you should use.

Nice try dynaquest 14, but it is impossible for me to compromise. Just have way too much experience with music to allow that to happen.  I judge everything on it's merits. In fact I have many cheaper components I rate higher than more expensive components. Would be great if the generic cable sounded better, sadly it didn't. Bang for buck is what it's all about for me. I recommend you try the US$115 cables and highly recommend them as great bang for buck. I looked at your system, you would really need better source and much, much better speakers to do the cables justice though.

For folks who care about the science of cables, there are tests that I've seen that show various cables as well as 'minimum' wires trying to pass a square wave.  Cables and cartridges have the highest mark up in the audio world (maybe some accessories are up there too), but there are audible as well as measurable differences.  I'm not an engineer as possibly some of you are, but there are plenty of reasons for cables to pass things along differently.  Some utilize plated cables, AQ uses a DBS system that reduces loading of the dielectric if I recall correctly.  All of these things can be measured and are measured.  

I personally have limits to what I will spend depending on my system.  Most of the time, it's not difficult to chose wires/cables in a system.  For those who believe in using basic wire, that's awesome and it works for you.  No reason for any of us to talk you out of it.  

I also agree with those who feel that some of the cables change the sound, but not always for the best.  I actually don't like many lines of cables and I'm against 'tuning' your system using different cables.  To me, I just get the system I love up front. I spend my money on components.  Once I like what I'm hearing, then I will chose the cables that are the most neutral and will give me the dynamics, staging and anything else I loved to begin with.  For me, the AQ and Cardas lines have been the best.  I only am using the AQ line now and like anything else, there are diminishing returns. I will say that going from the less expensive cables in the line to the ones that use DBS, I hear positive differences. That's where the point of diminishing returns comes in. When I had the Vandy Treo's, I heard positive changes all the way up the line into the mega thousands range, but for me, it was silly to spend that much when I was using an 8k speaker and a 13k integrated.  

Now I have a pair of Quatro's that cost over 15k or so I believe.  NOW, the smaller positive differences are more pronounced and I'm thinking about spending a bit more as the system is worthy of it.  Again, this is just me and my hearing.  

I have been using a basic USB cable from my server to my Ayre QX5/20 DAC.  I had a friend over and had him behind the system constantly changing the USB cable while I listened to the same passaged over and over again.  I then asked him to leave on of them in to listen to some full songs.  The cable that won out was the AQ Diamond USB cable.  It works for me as it's not too expensive in my mind.

Told me everything in original question except what you were connecting to! 5k speaker cable you put on 14000.00 dollar Mark Levinson amps! Sound of things, keep the generic!

Sorta like putting $15,000 tires on a $40,000 BMW...and then saying how it rides now like a Ferrari....just to justify the purchase?