Biggest Baddest Audio Cables

How much do you want to spend? It doesn't do any good to suggest all these cables if you only want to spend a hundred bucks. The Kharma and Purist are in the thousands of dollar ranges.

I didn't see the Kimber Select line mentioned but it has exactly what your original post mentioned and its a good cable. Kimber has 3 levels in the line. I owned the second which is $1500 for 8ft pair. I bought them (used) for the same reason you mention above. Large, look like a snake, impressive hardware on the ends, especially the large aluminum knobs at each end. I got more comments from these than any other cable except the Magnan Signature....Magnan takes a different approach because it uses a very wide very flat ribbon. Each side has two runs, one per terminal (dah) and each are about 5 inches wide (literally). They are all black. The terminations are not impressive but the cable is impossible to ignore visually and will impress everyone. Kimber is more refined and manufactured looking where the Magnan looks more like it was made to order. I don’t mean this in a bad way it is just more customized looking. The Magnan is only $1000 for a 8ft pair and to me they represent one of the real bargains in high end. I have heard them compared with Kimber Select (top of the line), Nordost SPM, Nordost Vahalla, Kharma, and XLO. I like them better than the Kimber and XLO, for most applications, and they are just a hair away from the SPM, Vah, and Kharma (but remember these cables are 4x-8x more expensive).

Just a note: the Kharma are big but no where near 5 inches in diameter. I don’t even think they would get to 4 inches in circumference….don’t get me wrong, they are big but just not that big. Maybe 2 to 2 ½ inches in diameter, a little more than the Kimber but not much.

But based on your comments, unless you want to spend 3k-4k used, the Kimber is exactly what you want.

Happy hunting,
cd

I forgot to mention power cords. There are a lot of these fat boys around but I know you can get the Whale Elite usually for a good price and a fair amount of agoners like them. There is one on action right now and it has a link to a thread that discussed them at one time. I have a friend who has one and it is bigger than the Select or Kharm speaker cables talked about above.

By the way, I was thinking speaker cable in my last post. The biggest, by far, fat interconnect that I have seen or heard of is the Magnan Signature. The don't use the flat cable like with the speaker cable but instead use the biggest fattest interconnect you have ever seen. They are not real effecient though and will take almost 3db out of your system but if you have a power full set up you won't notice and this cable is one of the best sounding made. It isn't cheap though...I don't remember the price but I think I remember $1600 for a meter.

cd

The PS audio Lab II cables are very big and ver shielded.

Mothra Research Unlimited has some cables that make anything else look like pipe cleaners.....go to www.mothraresearch.com and feast your eyes on these babies!

The buzz is liquid ceramic cables are coming. There is a Ballistic Physicist who is applying active ceramic ballistic armor technology to cables. The cable is suspended in active ceramic FOAM. The foam is attracted to magnetic and electrostatic impulses and "moves" to dissipate them. It is reactive and yields a virtual 100% shielding pattern. The big advantage, though, is that it provides PHYSICAL damping as well as electrical damping. The wire encased in the foam is suspended from vibration as well. I have been promised samples...