7500 for USED cables? Are they joking?


I've been out of high-end audio for about 8 years, and the thing I am most struck by on my return is the apparent acceptance of power cables, interconnects and speaker cables that cost as much or more than heavy-duty high-end components.

As a now-outsider of sorts, this really looks like the Emperor's New Clothes big-time. Especially power cords, considering the Romex that delivers the A/C to the outlet isn't exactly audiophile quality.

Are people really paying $500 and up for wire? Is this foolishness of the highest order, or is this what people now believe it takes to extract the last percent or two of definition from their components?

What happened? Even buyers of what are now considered "modestly priced" cables would be laughed out of the professional audio world, so why do audiophiles think they need something better than was used to make the original recording? MOST professional recording engineers scoff at the difference between microphone cables that cost $19.95 vs. those that cost $49.95 -- most anything higher is rarely considered at all (the most expensive microphone cable might be $125 for a 20 foot run, and it's laughed at by most of the pros).

I'm not criticizing -- I'm too stunned to draw any conclusions -- I just wondered if anyone has given this much thought.

(At least I understand the home theater revolution -- thank heavens something came along to save the high end manufacturers, although it makes me chuckle to think of someone spending $30,000 to watch the Terminator. It's OK with me.)

Thank you for your consideration,

Mark Hubbard
Eureka, CA
Ag insider logo xs@2xmark_hubbard
Well I don't know about CFB, but I would like to hear a detailed answer to each and every one of Lmb's questions, plus about 20 others. A seriously good technical discussion on cables, along with what is speculative but possible, would do a great deal to clear the air on this board and on pro audio boards as well, since the topic generates flames everywhere.
Lmb: So many questions, so little time. But I'll take a flier at a few:

I don't know about recording and mastering engineers, but my sense is that the folks whose business it is to actually study the propagation of signals do indeed think they have a pretty complete handle on how signals pass through cable. For example, silver is only about 6% less resistant than copper. If you plot their relative effects on frequency response, the differences will probably fall well below the known thresholds for human detection. No law that says you gotta accept that (or believe me, for that matter).

My favorite question of yours is: Why some manufacturers, use shielding, twisting, and passive filters on their wire? Would this not imply that different cables sound different simply by design?

My answer: No, it implies that they need a gimmick to distinguish their product from the other guy's, when they both sound the same. (A bit unfair: Shielding can be important in some cases, and I don't want to speculate on passive filters. Why you'd want such filters if they do affect sound I'm not clear on.)
Bomarc, you've just set the stage for the basis of marketing high end cables! All this twisting, filtering and pseudoscientific explanations is what marketers cling to! Power cords epitomize this. Use a little filtering, a 'unique' twisting and then power cords start sounding 'different'...

I've previously posted that power cords should not have any filtering incorporated in them--there's gear specifically for that.

Jon Risch's website sheds a lot of light on this subject. Just pure and simple copper with proper dielectrics and off you go! No need for the Voodoo...

I'd rather make my own cables and spend my saved money on a cable burner.
In its simplest terms, it is used to "break-in" a cable by running a range of frequencies, which may extend several orders of magintude beyond the audio band, through the cable for 24 to 72 hours. I think one of the assumptions is that the free electrons available for conducting electric signals tend to be polarized in a “broken-in” cable. The idea is if a cable sits idle too long, is new, or just doesn't sound like it use to, this device will rapidly condition the cable for use. Conditioning is supposed to make the cable less harsh in the upper octaves and more defined in the lower octaves. This conditioning process is applies to ICs, speaker, etc, depending on the connections on the unit.

This question should cause uproar like the original post. I do not have an opinion here as I have not participated in the process. I would like to do it double-blind.