7500 for USED cables? Are they joking?

Signal interference is the key word here. You are asking the wrong question!

>>>My question stands. How is it that designer cables improve what goes into a recording via cheap generic cable? But this is just food for thought. I really don't have an answer, or for that matter a dog in this fight.><

It is true that no cable can improve what the sound engineer messed up or not, but this is not the job a cable is supposed to do in the first place.
The job of a cable is to the transmit the signal as pure as possible and do this with the least possible amount of loss or interference. So it simple words: An inferior cable will interfere and degrade the sound to a greater extend than a superior one.
Without wanting to promote HMS cables her, Mr. Strassner of HMS, who like "vanservers" is an engineer and holds a PHD in atomphysics, discovered, that i.e. the magnetic field plays an enormous role, how pure the signal is being transmitted inside a speaker cable. The more the magnetic field has a chance to escape, the more the sound will degrade on its way to the speakers.
So some of his designs have to do with containing this magnetic field inside the cables. You can imagine that a cable like this will be much more expensive just to build, than taking a few feets of Radio Shack wire. And this is only one of many factors he has dicovered, which play a vital role in cable design.
Its not so much what goes into a cable, but what comes out of it and what has happened to the signal inside the cable.
Compare it to your own body: There is a disease which will interfere with how well food inside your guts is being absorbed. Two persons eating the same food, one will stay healthy, while one will die.
And you need the necessary resolution of system to display these differences also
Let me give you another example:
Let us say you have one of the high resolution digital cameras, which will give an incredible detail richness. Now you plan to print the picture and you have a cheap printer with limited resolution and a high-res printer. The photo file is the signal and the printer is the cable. So, altough in both cases you have the same photo file (signal), the print (sound) will be much more detailed when you print it with the high-res printer (cable)
So, at one point, it really makes sense to think about buying better cables for a system. But I agree, some of the prices are outrageous, which led me to my personal cable quest and ended in having found the HMS cables, with a wonderful price-performance ratio. The HMS cables are not cheap, but they do not carry these gigantic price tags, some of the companies carry, either.
One company recently came out with a new alloy, which is used in Germany for teeth fillings (because its so cheap) and their 8 ft speaker wire will cost you $15.000,00. Now this is a stiff price tag, if on the other hand, you can get a wonderful cable with mind blowing performance for one fith of this price, as I have personally discovered. That is the only reason I even dared to become an importer of said cables. But even this is a lot of money, but alas, good quality will never come cheap, but it does not need to cost so much either, that you have to apply for a second mortgage, when planing to buy a set of high-res audiophile cables.
The only advice I can really give you is, to ask any cable manufacturer for a money back guarantee.
Try to narrow your choice down to a maximum of 3 different brands and then try them out, in your system and be your own judge.
I mean, it will be your ears listening to your new cables and not the manufacturer's ears. And if these guys are honest traders, they will give you back your money and you havn't lost anything, but gained valuable experience by auditioning different cables.
I have listened to almost 50 brands of cables during my quest and over the months I was really able, with the help of Chesky Records test cd's, to improve the ability of my audiophile hearing. And I really mean a lot. And believe it or not (btw, we have a Ripley's "Believe it or Not" museum her in the FL-Keys) there are differences in how cables sound. So there should be some examples on display there for people who still will not believe it...or not???

Tekunda: Your analogy to digital printing assumes that there is such a thing as a "high-res" cable. But there isn't. Cables can differ in their impact on frequency response, but except at the extremes that impact falls below the known thresholds of human detection. Interference can be a problem, though I wonder how common it really is. And bad connections make a big difference, although quality of connections is not what the cable "industry" emphasizes, since even zipcord is capable of a high-quality connection.

Are there hi-res cables? I think there are cables with a high resolution factor. On Chesky's sytem test disk, there is one track called the high resolution test. Shakers in the background are supposed to sound differently with every shake performed.
With my HMS cables and the Valhalla, there was no problem detecting this minute sound differences.
Then I went to another cable, which was not cheap ($850) but now it was almost impossible to detect the differences in detail.
Not only was the high-resolution gone, but also the mid- range purity had kind of suffered, the other cable sounded somewhat somber and dark, veiled if you like.
Mr. Strassner of HMS was a big doubter himself, believing that every cable with reasonable performance will deliver, but one day he was given the chance to listen to an excellent cable in an excellent system. That was the day of revelation, and according to him, he set out, with the help of his technical expertise, to see what was causing these differences.
His whole design ideas are created around the knowledge of the impact of the magnetic field and interference of EMI/RFI and some other discoveries regarding the dielectric. The impact on frequency responses is only one of many factors.
Basically one of his biggest inventions is to keep the magnetic forces, which are created in every electric conductor, inside of the cable. He does this with ferrite blocks made out of a special alloy.
Well, he has his ideas, Nordost with the Valhalla have their secrets, but in the right system, both cables make an incredible difference.

Paul, sorry to ruin your day, but i'm going to respond to your post.

First of all, this is a forum open to all members and anybody can respond. Even if you, me or someone else doesn't like the person or what they have to say.

Secondly, you're question pertaining to the "golden age of stereo" was a somewhat rhetorical question. As such, i did not think that it was all inclusive to any other / all your comments or questions that you would make in this thread.

Third, it would be somewhat logical to assume that a recording engineer / studio using "ratty old cheap cables" might also be using "ratty old cheap components and speakers". As such, i may have incorrectly assumed that you were thinking in an exponential manner or following any form of logic. I appologize for giving you that much credit.

Fourth, the tone of your comments assumed that the mass majority of studios make recordings using cables of lesser quality. Your assumed stance from that point of view was that there is nothing to be gained by fancy wires when trying to reproduce the performance in your listening area. The fact that most studios use balanced lines throughout the entire ( or nearly entire ) equipment chain should show that they have in fact taken into consideration the importance of cables, minimizing their influence on the signal while trying to minimize the potential for degradation from sources such as rfi, emi, line loss, etc... This in itself contradicts your initial assumption.

Fifth, some of the vintage recordings that you find of higher than average quality were probably recorded in a simple format in analogue mode with minimal signal tampering taking place. As such, heavy amounts of EQ, compression, digital processing can make ANY recording sound worse, even those of today using high tech modes of operation. Comparing minimalist recordings done in a relative "purist" style to highly complex recordings done in a highly manipulative style would normally result in very different products, regardless of age or vintage.

Sixth, I'll be glad to disregard your less than articulate or specific posts that sometimes border on troll bait. Sincerely, your friend Sean
>

Paul and Sean, I think your both right. A lot of the recordings today by the "factory" studios may indeed care less of the quality than the budget/ profit. The sound of these recordings is placed in history and will never be better than the least component used to create it.

To me the fact that the "Audiophile" labels exist and sound as good as they do is some sort of proof to that. If the master tape is good (often the case in older classic and jazz recordings) then the better equipment will show this quality. If the playback equipment is lesser however the final presentation will also be less.

I guess it depends on your source, if you listen to a lot of the newly recorded "music" from today's mass production studios than forget wire, just sit back and enjoy. If however you have a lot of "audiophile" labels, recorded as purely as possible, then I would recommend using the best possible equipment to take full advantage of the potential left by the studio.

This discussion of cables bores me as a topic, but draws me in with the hope that new audio lovers don't get led astray with wrongful thinking.

I too have auditioned over 40 cables, to claim there is no difference is simple naive and ill informed. This site deserved better.

J.D.