are all amps equal

I just have problems paying $500 for 6ft. piece of wire.

Get over it, or you'll *never* hear the potential in your Ushers.

Stop thinking of them as "wire." They are passive components, and like anything else, are subject to the same rules of design, quality control, quality of materials, copper purity, signal transfer efficiency, engineering, and ultimately, point of diminishing returns.

I never understood the mentality of buying top quality gear and then thinking that the cables that perform the signal transfer from one component to another are exempt from those basic laws of quality vs. economics.

The very least you should have for your system is Kimber Hero interconnects and 8TC or 12TC speaker cable, or an equivalent from AudioQuest, Cardas, or Analysis Plus. Of course there are many many other cable makers out there, but this would be a good start.

Also, think about adding a high quality outboard DAC to your digital front end. The Onkyo is a highly regarded CD player for the money (and I have their companion A-9555 integrated amp, which is great for the money). Still, if you spent your $2-3K on $250-300/pr interconnects, a $500-600 pair of biwire speaker cables, and a Benchmark DAC-1, Lavry A10, or PS Audio Digital Link III or their new PerfectWave DAC, you'd hear the music as you'd never heard it before. Not more boom and sizzle, but rather loads more of everything in between, where most of the music lives.

I'm a little late joining this thread. At any rate regarding comment on sacrificing clarity for a little more bass, perhaps getting speakers that have their own powered sub would help. Enough people would probably say why don't I crank up the sub and enjoy the thumping action. Yet too much lower frequencies, to me, can cloud clarity. However those really low frequencies, at their proper amount, do come in handy for a limited number of pop music songs (Enya's particularly), and definitely in classical music.

For what it's worth, people who strictly listen to standard rock music might not find it's worth the extra money to pay for top end speakers and amplifiers that can deliver that last ounce of lower frequencies. Say about 80% of the cases with rock music, I barely notice the difference when the sub for each speaker is on vs. when it's off.

03-30-09: Tvad
Most of us start where Keslerd is presently, i.e. not wanting to spend $500/6 ft of wire.

I know I did.

Well, you're right, of course. For all the bluster in my previous post, I'm a bottom-feeder when it comes to cables. I firmly believe in the benefit of up-quality cables, but I also have trouble paying full pop. Depends on the cable and the availability. But then that's true of all my audio gear.

On the one hand I got the $1500 PS Audio XStream Bi-wire speaker cables on closeout from Audio Advisor for $350. On the other hand I paid full price ($160/pr at the time) for three pairs of Kimber Heroes and was glad to do it because they deliver great value for the asking price.

I may scour for bargains, but I use mostly multi-gauge (such as Kimber Varistrand--to minimize skin effect) single-crystal high purity copper in both the surround HT rig and the LP-driven 2-channel system. Once you've heard what monocrystal copper does to preserve the signal it's hard going back.

Just to bring everyone up to date. I have placed an order for a McIntosh MC2250 from Audio Classics. After reading your response to "just wire" I have a shopping cart at Blue Jean for all my cables useing their "favorite" CABLES.

Still not clear on the speaker wire, their site said the bigger the better. I currently use 12 gauge with banannas, so I'm not clear on which direction to go on the speaker connections.
Thanks for all the help...