How much money do you want to waste?

Craig:
I've sold cables on the amount of $$$ and downgraded to a simple van den hul wires that is being used on highly priced cables.
The result was increadible + I upgraded my cartridge for the difference to Lyra Helikon from Benz M.09

Yea, admittedly we subjectivists have our own little buttons. FYI: CK sent me a gratious message. Now, THAT's the self-esteem that makes dialogue possible and FUN (!). Boy, is it refreshing. Dialogue, while pointed and confident in its given position, should always maintain some sense of play, I think. Maybe I'm wrong. As I told him, he was just a foil here, albeit a necessary one, IMHO now and then (for the reasons I stated above).

I will admit one of my favorite brand cables is home made (not my home). If anyone remembers MAS (Music and Sound) which was once pushed by Wadia, sold by The Cable Company and recommended by Soundstage. The designer Stu Wein now makes them out of his home in Florida and sells them direct for the same price he use to charge dealers which is about 1/3 retail. His various interconnects, speaker cable and power cables are a great value at that price. He sells them on eBay also. Stu can be contacted at Audioparts@aol.com

Yup, Craig and others, I sold my cables and replaced them with tulip bulbs. I find the sound more colorful with better bloom, but, in the winter, much more recessed.

Thanks for playing the straight man... ;-)

Todd

Sugarbrie, I drive a sports car for fun. It's almost 30 years old and I havent bothered to restore it, so I'm sure I don't look "cool" in it. But, people do choose their cars for reasons other than transport functionality; comfort, handling, convenience, easy of parking, gas mileage, storage capacity, or the pleasure of shifting through a close ratio gearbox. And people buy clothes for the way they feel and look. That's the purpose of clothing, otherwise we would just go around in burlap.

But what purpose does an audio cable have other than the function of carrying a signal?

So, Asa, I think CK (nice guy) was saying "mega-priced" cables are irrationally overpriced based on their functionality. And you say the price is based on market demand. I wonder if there is a market for a $10,000 interconnect? If they build it, who will come?

Since I cant afford the Valhalla, my world view is happiest if I believe that the Valhalla is no better than a $10 Radio Shack cable. (I would be ecstatic if I believed that I could get the same sound quality out of a $1,000 budget system as someone else's $100,000 system.) In fact, since you and I are both "subjectivists" (in that we make decisions based on our own hearing rather than a set of measurements, I guess), you can't prove to me that the Valhalla is better than The RS Gold. I imagine it probably is, since I think my interconnects are better than the RS Gold, but I'll never know for sure. Irrationally overpriced? I guess it depends on how much money you have.

Paul