The Physics of Electricity

The percentage of money to spend on cables in relation to the cost of the components is ANOTHER whole can of worms suddenly opened!!

I am really in the camp of spending only about 10% of the total budget on all cables. (A little more or less is not going to hurt)
Once you are spending crazy money (more than 25% of your total expenditure on wire, THAT is when it is crazy out of wack. IMO.
My stuff has wire costs nearly exactly 10% of total electronics/speaker cost. With the power conditioning adding an additional 5%.
Again I have to say the best use for the money is basic electronics.
Another point is buy cables which will last. I have cables I use that I have had 25 years! (hand made Mark Levinson wires.. recently refinished with Vampire 'Tiffany' style RCAs) and some at least ten year old Kimber KCAG which I bought used back before they became really expensive.
My latest wire purchases have been Kimber Hero.
And buying flavor of the month cables? Ahh I am a solid buy stuff that has been approved of for a long time as a best bet, Like Kimber 8TC Hero, Cardas.. (I hate AQ, and Monster for my own reasons, so not those, But also Nordost is good.
Though my cheapskate heart was moved by Pangea power cables when they came out. A good deal, gradually getting more expensive as they cut the discount..

06-24-11: Almarg
As I know you realize, bandwidth and risetime have an inverse relationship. Therefore a frequency rolloff that begins too close to the audible frequency range will result in risetimes that are visibly slow when viewed on a time scale that is meaningful with respect to the bandwidth and risetime of our hearing mechanisms.

The risetimes are visibly slower even when the component bandwidth stretches out to 100 Khz. Each component with such a bandwidth slows down the incoming signal by that much more.

I have four cables and three components between my turntable and my speakers, for 7 in all. Each component slows down the signal a little bit. By having > 1GHz bandwidth on the cables, I minimize the slowing of the rise times as the signal is passed from the source to the speakers. You may decide that 1 GHz is overkill, but it shouldn't hurt, and the cables (KImber Hero and Zu Wylde) are pretty affordable. The Kimber Heroes are rated out to 8 GHz and I got them at a pawn shop for $50/pair.

06-24-11: Johnnyb53
You may decide that 1 GHz is overkill, but it shouldn't hurt, and the cables (Kimber Hero and Zu Wylde) are pretty affordable. The Kimber Heroes are rated out to 8 GHz and I got them at a pawn shop for $50/pair.

Actually, that would be 8 MHz for the Kimber Hero, not 8 GHz, 8 MHz being a much more reasonable number.

In any event, I have no issues with the approach you've taken. The reason I took exception to some of the statements in your initial post is that IMO mis-identification of the technical reasons for sonic differences between cables, whether by consumers or manufacturers or writers of marketing literature, can result in needless overkill of certain parameters, or focus on the wrong parameters, which in turn may dramatically increase cost without providing any sonic benefit. Although of course it may sometimes provide a marketability benefit, and a profitability benefit. :-)

I consider that some cable effects are simply unexplainable, and that having no explanation is much better than having one that is speculative (at least without it being qualified as such) or misleading or incorrect.

Regards,
-- Al

I actually did a careful experiment. I was a non-believer. and Sean, formerly on Audiogon, loaned me a set of cables to test.

I was using AWG12 zip cord. I forget exact;y what the test cables were, but they were a well regarded "exotic" brand.

I set up two identical Dynaudio speakers, close together,one with my zip cord and the other with the exotic cable. I connected the same (mono) signal to each channel. Now, by using the balance control on the preamp I could listen to one wire, and then the other in quick succession.

After quite a bit of listening I concluded that the exotic wire sounded very slightly better than the "junk" zip cord. I am not sure I would pay much for the difference. Nevertheless, when I reconfigured my power amps to monoblocks adjacent to the speakers I did spring for exotic wire. I have no idea if it was necessary, but the wire length was so short that the cost was not great.

"After quite a bit of listening I concluded that the exotic wire sounded very slightly better than the "junk" zip cord."

"we've secretly replaced the fine coffee they usually serve with Folgers Crystals"

Thank you very much. I will still go for fine coffee.