2. cables
  3. 124957-818

Are audiophiles still out of their minds?

I've been in this hobby for 30 years and owned many gears throughout the years, but never that many cables.  I know cables can make a difference in sound quality of your system, but never dramatic like changing speakers, amplifiers, or even more importantly room treatment. Yes, I've evaluated many vaunted cables at dealers and at home over the years, but never heard dramatic effect that I would plunk $5000 for a cable. The most I've ever spent was $2700 for pair of speaker cables, and I kinda regret it to this day.  So when I see cable manufacturers charging 5 figures for their latest and "greatest" speaker cables, PC, and ICs, I have to ask myself who buys this stuff. Why would you buy a $10k+ cable, when there are so many great speakers, amplifiers, DACs for that kind of money, or room treatment that would have greater effect on your systems sound?  May be I'm getting ornery with age, like the water boy says in Adam Sandler's movie.
dracule1
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
14,147 posts
 
 
danvignau
70 posts
07-02-2016 10:22am
There is a very small difference in the handling on my sports car with the absolute best tires I can get, and no the girls don't care. But why do we need to impress the boys with our toys?

You need to get an Alfa, dude. Then you will see how much difference tires make. 




o_holter
541 posts
 
Cables are about electricity. Thinking about my own experience over the years, the main jump forward was making a separate high grade audiophile circuit, ca ten years ago. I contracted an electrician and we did the job together. At first he protested, was this big cable really needed, we had to drag it halfway around the house. I assured him it was. The cable runs into a breaker box with three local circuits, two 15 ampere and one 10 ampere (230 volts). The system sounded much better on this circuit than the 10 ampere "lamp circuit" already in the room, so I have never looked back.
taiye
11 posts
 
Julian Hirsch RIP. if you are old enough to know who he was and read his articles. Enough said
o_holter
541 posts
 
tayie - thank you for the link, I will investigate, but please respect, many here at audiogon are not engineers, myself included. So if you can say a bit more, fine. What are the main points of Hirsch concerning the current debate, in your view?

wattsperchannel
142 posts
 
o_holter

Vince Galbo at MSB put together the following piece that explains the merits of avoiding line modulation. I use 10 gauge all the way to my isolation transformer.

http://www.msbtech.com/support/wiring.php?Page=supportHome

This wiring concept, a proper star grounding system and equipment isolation are the first steps in a holistic electrical design that will facilitate experiments showing the differences in cables.
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