A Perennial Debate For Which I Seek Help

I thought I had made it clear that I was not saying that wire was unimportant. I certainly agree that some designs sound better than others, and I did indeed audition some different cables and interconnects, both at my dealer's and again at home. My personal feeling (based both on my own listening primarily, and secondarily on research and opinions of others) is that one should buy wire from the lower end of a respected company's line. Generally speaking, it will sound almost as good, or in many cases as good as the high end of the line, many differences being very negligible compared to the cost difference. Wire is undeniably where many dealers make a very large part of their profit margin, and there are far too many dealers out there who push ridiculously expensive wire for that reason. I would agree with the often quoted general rule that one should spend no more than 5% of the total system budget on the wire.

The other part of my post I want to repeat (and again, this is based on both my own experience and the opinions of respected dealers and audiophiles) is that too many people switch out cables and interconnects far too often. If you haven't cleaned your connections in a year, almost any new wire you put in is going to sound better at first, simply because there is a cleaner electrical connection. I was advised to clean the connections at least every six months, and to unplug them every so often in between as well. I have found this to be very good advice.

I would also add that in my opinion (which I know to be shared by many others) wire will never make a system sound better. Any element in the audio change degrades the signal, so one should not look at wire as a savior of a mediocre system, or try to make a system sound "better" using wire. I would also disagree that it is necessarily more important in a more expensive system. It is more a matter of choosing wire that does as little harm as possible (perhaps what some call "neutral", though I dislike that term). I have been told that Paul Klipsch used lamp cords for speaker cable, though I certainly would not advocate that myself. All I'm saying really is not that wire is unimportant, but that it is greatly overrated in importance by many, especially those in the industry who are interested only in profits.

Learsfool, It seems you are essentially saying that cables are unimportant past a certain price point. You lay out your logic for remaining only with economical cables from a variety of manufacturers. Though I disagree, I respect your thinking. I am inclined to agree with you more in reference to economical rigs, but not agree as the quality of the system rises. At the level of $50-75K systems and above I almost completely disagree.

A question and an Observation:

1. What are you using to clean the connections?

2. If you unplug the cables for a while, some suggest that it "resets" the cable and dielectric charges are lost, thus inhibiting the performance temporarily. It matters not to me, but I was not sure if you knew of this theory in regards to cable performance. I am sincerely curious; do you unplug the cables to let them "breathe"? Do you feel they improve with a "rest"? I'm not being sarcastic, but I've not discussed this with anyone prior. Please describe this facet of using cables.

What fascinates me is that your "let the cables rest" idea is dielectrically opposed (WOA! Fun pun!!) to the "keep it plugged in at all costs" crowd. I want to find out more about your perspective on it.

To me, the "dielectric theory" has not passed my Law of Efficacy. i.e. It has not been significant enough, even on "steeper end" rigs, to be important. :)

Ncwine1, which speaker are you referring to?

Douglas_schroeder - what I mean is that there are good and bad cables at all price points, and that I do not believe that wire will make any more difference in a $2000 system than it does in a $100,000 system, or vice versa. You seem to be saying that the higher the system's price point, the more important wire becomes proportionally in it, and this is what I disagree with. I use the lower price point as an example since the vast majority of us cannot afford $100,000 systems. I don't think anyone should put say $1500 worth of wire in a system if their system budget totals $6000, for example. The money can be spent much more wisely by buying better source components or speakers. The same would be true at a much higher price point. I also believe that if your source components or speakers or amps are poor (again, regardless of price point), wire is not going to somehow make them better. There are those who would argue that it does, and my opinion is that you should run away from a dealer trying to "fix" your system by selling you much more expensive wire, an all too common trick. Again, I never said wire was unimportant, just that it is overrated by some.

As for the "breathing" theory, no I am not specifically aware of that. I am merely repeating advice given to me from several different sources, which is that if one cleans the cable connections every so often, you will maintain a better electrical connection, and that unplugging them and plugging them in again every so often helps to do this. I do not pretend to have a knowledge of the science behind these recommendations, but I did hear a difference when I tried it. I am a professional orchestral musician, and my knowledge of the science of music includes a working musician's knowledge of acoustics and some basic practical recording knowledge (things like mike placements, basic knowledge of different types of equipment, etc.). I use my ears to judge equipment, not specs or price points. I wish alot more recording engineers and audio equipment makers and dealers and audiophiles would do the same. :)

Learsfool, we're not so far apart; there's many things we see similarly. Most different is the amount we would each contribute to the cables in a system and their "importance" overall. Everyone has to decide that for himself.

At first it sounded like you were indicating leaving the cables unplugged for a short period of time, hence my choice of the term "breathing". It seems you're rephrasing the action of unplugging and plugging them in again. If there is indeed an audible effect I would never experience the degradation of sound from leaving cables connected too long, as I break down and rebuild systems on a regular basis.