Cable vs. Electronics: biggest bang for the buck

Nrchy, what do you think?

Personally, just looked at your sysytem and I wouldn't put Dominus on a Krell Pre & Aragon 8008, and like Muralman says, in your system I believe that spending such money, even used prices on Dominus ($3200?) would be better spent elsewhere. Say, a Supratek pre ($2500), Muralman's Pass amp and some very good IC's like NBS pro series 1's ($500)? I used to help out more on systems than now (I'm a drop out from the audio industry world too), and one time a guy asked what were good wires and I told him that the NBS Pro's were good, which were current at then time. He then told me he had Vandy 2Ci's and I told him definitely NOT to get the NBS (he wanted to keep the Vandys and liked them) so suggested Discovery Signature (pre Sakura, Harmonix, Virtual Dynamics, etc. days) with money for an AirTight EL34 based amp and with maybe an Audible Illusions pre with NOS tubes. The next week he called me after dropping 5K to Fields at NBS retail and said, no surprise, that his world didn't shift on its axis. He sold them the next week at a big loss even though I told him to be patient and he'd get a better price. Another time sold my same 805 amps to a guy and sent him a five page letter and three phone calls on what he needed to do to hear them. A year later I missed the amps and called him. He said he never heard that they made any difference, then he said, when I asked, that he'd decided to put Radio Shack wire on them for spkr wire. I bought them back for the same price. Last year, a good friend with top all Pass analog system and large Planar speakers listened to a 1M pair of NBS Pro that I had and dropped by with. He didn't want to put it in because he said his Discovery Sig did everything, so I left it for three months. When I picked it up he said it was better, but no big deal. He put his back in and his face fell about three meters.

Hmmm....

Asa, Carl Gustav a tube type..definitely. By the way, he very rarely went to concerts or listened to music. He said it overwhelmed him, stirred him up so much, that he had trouble concentrating on work and patients, that the music struck right at his core. Interesting, no?

Detlof, didn't know that about C-G. BTW, weren't we told to meet the devil head-on? Knowing he should NOT listen to music and acting upon it, Jung obviously brought his awareness to "passage a l'acte" level.
Funny thing, Asa, I trained as a lawyer (eons ago). Lost my way to Damascus & never practised! Oh well...
BTW, it's sometimes comical when one's officially supposed to be "in the know". The subjective (i.e. personal listening experience) becomes objective (i.e., whatever the guru says is objectively correct-- but let me check out this guru...). So, if following the "audio-guru's" suggestion yields a good experience, things are "staggering". If the perceived sonic value of following the suggestion is not perceptible to the subject, we completely reject the "guru".
Of course, one & all may stress the points "listen first, buy later", "in my opinion", "to my tastes", ad nauseam but to no avail...

Now, wires connecting pieces of equipment. I believe pricing is one thing, sonics another and I try to distinguish between the two: a) price, b) sonic qualities. If (b) agrees with my system and keeps my ears happy, I address (a): can I afford this? No. Good.

Likewise, comparing cables vs. electronics, bang to buck, is a nebulous matter -- akin to explaining the price of our equipment to the non-audiophiles.
As we've more or less accepted the prices for electronics, why don't we swallow the pricing for cables?? Probably a matter of visual conditioning or, "what do I SEE I am I getting for my money:
A full set of Purist Dominus (2xIC) costs about as much as one of my amps -- for which money you get a sizeable box containing ~150pds of circuitry producing a hefty current in class A. Ok, I've swallowed the asking price of those ~150 pds. But the same price for a few pds of wire??? I mean, I can't design & produce the ~150pds of class A alone, so be it, I'll buy. But wire??? Surely there's a way around the $7kx2 for THAT wire!!! (Remember, I LIKED that wire!) So, I compromise, and purchase (or make) another wire.

The question is: do I get closer to my sonic nirvana with the $7k x 2 wire and, say, a lesser chunk of electronics circuitry -- or the other way round? If it's the first case, cables offer equal if not more bang for the buck...

Admittedly, I've never tried it that way round (but many dealers I know, do)!

Greg: I agree with everything you've said. I got into this thread because some people who think wire is over-priced (yes, wire is over-priced, based upon your same reasoning regarding complexity of manufacture)but then, to perfect their argument, try to use their knowledge of science to say that, ergo, wire doesn't matter, or is not a "component"; a reductionism that the rules of science themselves don't allow. I don't like smart people picking on someone else with a body of knowledge (like lawyers do with their acquired vocabulary...)that is then used in such a way that is contrary to that very knowledge. Its obfuscation for the purpose of dominating someone else. The fact that they then call you "bullying" is somewhat ironic.

On the "Guru": yes, if you see the Buddha in the road, or the guru, kill him. Its strange: reality is suseptible to mathematical imposition, revealing truths about matter and energy and their forces, but to know "beauty" you yourself must make that journey, and the guru, ultimately, can not "tell" you, only point in the direction (hence, finally, to "see" you must "kill" your attachment to him seeing for you). We are all pointing for each other here, except when some try to use their scientific intellect to intimidate others who want to see more "beauty". But, different knowledge is state-specific, meaning that when you are attached to some type of knowledge that very attachment keeps you from seeing further possibilities, both in yourself and the world. This is where "science" is: claiming that there is no truth discernible outside scientific truth (materially/externally focused), effectively negating all future possibilities or capacities for truth, notwithstanding its own evolutionary evidence that says all knowledge evolves beyond its own parameters, always its core truths being integrated into the next, and even in the face of its own reductionist method turned back upon itself to reveal it own limitations (Popper, Kuhn etc; the seed for every next level contained in the power of the last). People who claim that only science (read: measurement/quantification externally applied) can tell us if wire has "truth" vis-a-vis a system of "components" are the same people, unknowingly, attached to the above scientism. And that is why scientism is just another ideology coersively attempting not to change towards seeing more - not coincidentally, just like medieval mythological theism attemted to do with the emergence of scientific method and its truth. The guru only points; people must have the courage to step beyond the illusory comfort of their self-limiting ideologies in order to see farther.

Yes, if the Dominus makes the system sing - you see more beauty than with a more "complex" component, thereby rendering it more "functional" experientially - then what do you do? A Van Gogh painting is only a mix of paint swirls - its molecular construction is less complex - but does that make it less able to translate "beauty"? Is "complexity" in matter, although a consideration, nonetheless secondary to the "functional" result in listening of that construction? Even in science, isn't the result of the experiment, observed by the comparing mind, determinitive of the technolgy used to achieve that result? If you contend the opposite, aren't you being, in fact, un-scientific? And if you are claiming to be the bearer of scientific sobriety, while at once violating the very rules you hoist upon others, aren't you being irrational, that irratioinality fueled by you desire to be secure in your set of ideas, however misplaced? And, doesn't the need for security, the desire to be safe from other ways of thinking beyond your own, manifest, behaviorily, in a subsequent attack on all those who might point towards something more?

Wire, amp, price, pragmatism, a balancing that sees what is true in the moment of experience of listening and does not deny that truth, or its possibility, in default to fear of that possibilty - the Middle Path.

Nrchy: "So, in your opinion what is the better value, assuming the relative value of your components being about equal. Is it cheaper to buy great cables or great electronics? Then, which would provide the biggest improvement?

To restate: I was confronted with an impending test of Nrchy's question. It was by no means a controlled scientific test. However, it does help illuminate the dilemma. Two of us were to listen to our two systems, both of which were comprised of, in the owner's eyes, components of comparable value. They are both similar in dollars value. I will label the two systems A and B.

A is a Wadia/Coda/Spendor/Nordost system. The owner, listening to an "art = science" guru chose to spend serious money replacing twenty feet of romex with 8awg silver cored teflon shielded cable. Obviously, he hoped for a bigger improvement in his system than he might get replacing a piece of electronics.

Fair enough?

B is my Jolida/Pass/Apogee/Kimber system. I differ with system A's contention. My thinking leads me to believe I could best improve system B with another amp arrangement, say biamping, since I perceive it's only weakness being lack of power feeding the bass panel. I would choose this rather than upgrading wire.

Wrong?

Remember, Nrchy never postulated a base level of overall system value that would perhaps magnify the relative value of super wire.

It is my belief that system A could have been vastly improved if the money put into wire had been instead put into a speaker upgrade. Furthermore, the money put into the Nordost was a waste too, given the state of his electronics.

Choices is what this thread is all about, not science versus art, component semantics, Jung, or Buddha. By evolving my speaker/amp/front end to ever increasing levels of excellence rather than gilding the wires, I know I have made the right choices. Owner of system B now joins the score of audiophiles that agree with me whole heartedly after listening to my system.

Nrchy, the answers to your questions are system specific. Shoot for the stars systems like yours may well indeed benefit from wire rolling. I am not in the position to disagree. For us groundlings with sub twenty grand systems speaker/front end/amps choices are far more reaching. IMOH of course!