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Cable vs. Electronics: biggest bang for the buck

I recently chronicled in a review here, my experience with a very expensive interconnect. The cables cost nearly $7000 and are well beyond my reach. The issue is, the Pursit Dominus sound fantastic. Nothing in my stereo has ever sounded so good. I have been wondering during and since the review how much I would have to spend to get the same level of improvement. I'm sure I could double the value of my amp or switch to monoblocks of my own amps and not obtain this level of improvement.
So, in your opinion what is the better value, assuming the relative value of your componants being about equal? Is it cheaper to buy, great cables or great electronics? Then, which would provide the biggest improvement?
128x128nrchy
gumbydammit
186 posts
 

Biggest bang for the buck...
Kimber and 6500.00 worth of vinyl!
bomarc
501 posts
 
Nah, Gumby. Home Depot and $7495 worth of XRCDs.
nrchy's avatar
nrchy OP
2,111 posts
 
I guess there's a lot of places to spend your money if you don't care about how good your system sounds. I'm not sure if some of these people are kidding or if they really think zipcord will sound as good a better cable. I guess, to each his own.
rcrump
427 posts
 
Sean, the quote is all wire is crap, but some are less crappy than others....I don't try for state of the art, but a very good reference with all my wires. I am happy with their performance and that is all that matters.....Regarding state of the art SS electronics I know a bit about this as that is what we strive for at CTC.....CTC is a specialty manufacturer as you are aware and we started the company for glory and nothing more as we haven't made a dime :-) Curl, Thompson & Crump just completed the design work on a huge set of mono amps for Parasound and I'll be curious of the reaction of the audiophile community as these are shipping now.....Always better to spend the money on better speakers or electronics than expensive wires keeping in mind 10% of system cost will allow darned good wires in a 25K system.......
nrchy's avatar
nrchy OP
2,111 posts
 
There have been many comments made about how the cables are functioning as filters, as well as having other negative effects on the signal. Is there any reason this wouldn't be true of every piece of equipment in the chain? Amps and pre-amps are not passive. Everything has a sonic signature! When there are large amounts of capacitors and resistors and powere supplies the signal is going to be altered even more. It stands to reason that electronics detrimentally effect the signal more than cables will.
Maybe all componants are crap, but some are less crap than others.
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