How many would be surprised?

Heavier guage cable does not cost more to make. Since copper and silver are not really expensive materials.

IMHO, tiny guage cables tend to preserve the music signal better than larger guage cables. I use Audio Note Silver Speaker cables and they are about 16 ga or thinner. I was sceptical at first about the bass but guess what???? Bass was the deepest, quick, without BOOM and clarity without harsh and shrill. Beats cables 10 times the thickness.

One other thing about thinner cables....there is more finesse in the music too compared to the thicker cables.

Sorry....my boo, boo on the 2 above posts

Hi Genesis. With the edit feature, you could have deleted your last post. I did the same thing recently.

If the same rules apply to copper and silver as it does to steel thinner wire is more expensive to make than that of a heavier gauge. Steel wire starts with a common size stock and is rolled down into smaller and smaller diameters. The smaller the wire the more it has been processed and the more involved the processes become (less margin for error with smaller diameters). Given that the better copper cables are made of cast material shouldn't change the ratios much. BTW, does anyone know whether the cast wire used in audio cables is from a mold cast or continuous cast process?

Aren't thin things more easily broken than thicker things? Sorry if this post is sorta ignorant of the way things work. I know my dealer had some speaker cable he was gonna let go cheap but some of the strands had broken at the strain point when it connected to the speaker.

Don't you risk the same thing with ultra thin IC's? I mean, you gotta manipulate these suckers around all sorts of crap; some of the wires are gonna tear, right?