Best speaker cable in the $2,500 range

Audiokinesis is exactly right. But that's also a no-brainer and hopefully goes without saying because system synergy is involved in every other aspect of audio as well i.e. room acoustics, ics, pre-amps, amps, cdps, tts, speakers, line-conditioners, etc..

But there still needs to be a starting point in which to begin one's quest in the attempt to obtain a product of a certain quality. If for no other reason than to hopefully save much time and money while also aquiring the best possible sonics.

-IMO

Here's part of a post Robert Schult wrote in Audiocirle. I find it very appropriate for this thread:

Based on my experience with a myriad of gear and systems and considering all that, I'm not convinced that cabling, or any other single component is "system dependant". I'm coming to the conclusion that that's realistically a "wrong" way to view putting a system together and only facilitates buying different gear every other day searching for the "Holy Grail" while blaming the equipment for not meeting our undefined system goals. With competent engineering and a keen ear to discern between "Hi-Fi" and the convincing allusion of "Real", a good amp is a good amp, a good cartridge is a good cartridge, a good loud speaker is a good loud speaker and a good cable is a...dare I say, a good cable. There's a whole line of valid thinking behind this but I'll save that for another post or, maybe you have some thoughts of your own along this line.

Right now my toast is burning...later!

I don't believe in "system synergy" either...
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Kind Regards,
Robert

Without a doubt, a good component is a good component no matter what other equipment is surrounding it. Although inferior equipment surrounding it might easily mask the positive attributes of a good component, it still remains a good component.

Up to that point, I might agree with this Robert Schult in theory (but never with the Psychicanimal).

However, when such theoretical statements as this are made, one must also look at their potential as well as their actual.

I suppose in practice, according to the Psychic and Mr. Schult, it would be perfectly acceptable and welcomed to mate a 12 wpc SET amp with the rather large and power hungry Rockport Hyperion loudspeakers. Assuming, of course, both are designed with competent engineering and a keen ear.

-IMO

C'mon, Shultz is trying to justify $$$ cables. The answer is BOTH are correct. Good components are good components, yet must be combined to form a "recipe" that works. Food is a good analogy. You want fine ingredients balanced and cooked well to provide a most pleasing dining experience. Same for audio. And performance doesn't necessarily correlate with price, as we all know...think of food again.
(This diet's killing me!).

There was another post from Robert Schult I read somewhere, where if I remember correctly he said it was impossible for components to be completely neutral , where as his cable design is completely neutral. So if components cannot be neutral , I would have to agree that system synergy is important. However that being said , a series of "properly" designed components in a chain from different manufactures taking in account power requirements should come close to a perfect synergy. Problem is in pratice IMO that is not necessairily the case.
On his cables, which I own, I do have the opposite opinion . Again its just my opinion, but I do believe his cables would work well with 99.9 percent of any high end system. To my ears I cant put any audiophile words to them like bright , dark, lean, forward etc. that I could with the 1/2 dozen similiarly priced cables I had tried previously. In my system and IMO they sound like no cables at all. Im sure it has something to do with that they are silver based {although Im sure there is more to it than that} but every other cable Ive tried has been copper or gold alloy based. With The Ridge Street's my cable search has ended, thats the highest praise I can give a cable.
Just my Opinion. Peace !