Avalon

Vic, the answer to your first question is "yes". Cables matter. I don't have any experience with the HA or Gabriel cables. Though The Avalon Eidolons sound natural and coherent to my ears. If you wnat to continue with that theme, I can recommend either Jorma Unity and Jorma Origo cables depending on your budget. Origo is better than Unity and is more neutral in tonal balance. Unity is a bit warmer. Here is a link fyi. You can check retail pricing on thecableco's website. Cheers.

Hi Vicweast,

First, fantastic speakers - I owned the Avalon Eidolons for close to 10 years, and to me they represent the point of diminishing returns in speakers - you can spend a lot more, but not get all that much better. I powered them mostly with Cat JL-1s, but also with BAT VK-60 monos, an Ayre V-3, even some VTL TT-25s.

The Eidolons are revealing of upstream changes, and I think an upgrade in speaker cables would result in a notable positive change for your system. With that said, what is your budget for the cables? Depending on how much you are willing to spend, I think you might be better off upgrading the Rogue Cronos first. For example, since it seems you like the Ayon sound (given the CD-07s), the Ayon Spirit III might make a nice upgrade, and the new version with the KT-150s should be able to drive the Eidolons a little better. Assuming your are interested in tube integrateds, the VAC Avatar might be a great choice as well, depending on the size of your room and how loud you like to play music.

If you are focused on upgrading the speaker cables in particular, the best choice with the Eidolon in my experience, hands and feet down, was the Siltech Emperor (I am still kicking myself for selling those). I also had success with, for example, the Purist Aqueous Anniversary. Thus, guessing your budget to be in the $1500 range new (based on the reference to Homegrown Silver), I might recommend you try the Purist Aqueous Luminist or the Siltech Classic 330L. Both should be available for demo via thecableco.com so you can try them in your own system. If your budget extends up to $3k new, there are a number of other cables I could recommend.

Best of luck.

I have Eidolons and tried the anticables, but preferred the Audience SE speaker cables. Unfortunately the only way to really evaluate is to try many cables which can be costly. After numerous cable trials I was blown away with the Dspeaker 2.0 EQ "tone controls" which allowed tuning the system to my liking, somewhat regardless of cables used.