To those saying spend more than five or ten dollars on a USB cable ... when you bought that aftermarket mains cable, did you R&R the wall socket? What about the wire in the wall? Or in the breaker box or from the house to the pole? Why not? And that $500 run of speaker cable - did you replace the cable within the speaker box? It’s standard cable off a spool, not $50 a foot. More like .50 a foot. So why didn’t you replace it? Doesn’t the relatively inexpensive wire used inside your amp/pre obviate the use of inanely expensive outboard wire? This can only mean that you are willing to believe that high dollar wire not only sounds better, but it removes any and all bad audio stuff from the ’substandard’ cables earlier in any of the chains. Like it or not, that’s magical thinking.
Edit: And in the case of speaker wire, later in the chain, as well. The waves leave the amp through standard wires and connectors, travel through $50 a foot boutique wire, then inside the box to wire you could buy at Home Depot. But the $50 a foot wire improves what comes before and after it. No wonder it's so expensive!
Edit: And in the case of speaker wire, later in the chain, as well. The waves leave the amp through standard wires and connectors, travel through $50 a foot boutique wire, then inside the box to wire you could buy at Home Depot. But the $50 a foot wire improves what comes before and after it. No wonder it's so expensive!