Cable curmudgeon

I once auditioned some AQ cables in a full Mac system that I would judge as pretty damn good.

I wouldn’t use Mac gear to assess any cables. They have a house sound that boosts tonal richness and rolls off the treble, which is why they’re often paired with B&W IMHO. It’s surely an attractive sound to some, but it’s a far cry from neutral and thus not a great vehicle for assessing the finer differences between cables.

moving from the $6k pre->amp IC to the $12k, the system became UNLISTENABLE.

So, you’ve shared one experience where a more expensive PC was supposedly inferior (lots of variables at play here BTW) to a “cheaper” $6k cable. Good for you! That means nothing. A lot of people throw around the term “confirmation bias” quite a bit here, but there’s another type of bias that also crops up here frequently, which is the representative bias. It’s when someone is exposed to results from a narrow sample sample or what they saw themselves a few times and extrapolates those findings across the board. Sharing one example of anything proves and means absolutely nothing.

So $200 is the absolute upper limit on price we should pay on cables?

No, not for me. I'm more in the $300-$500 per cable, but I've bought pure sterling silver Musicable for stupid money, tried some higher-end Wire-World and Audioquest stuff, and Cardis. Small differences-- not better or worse.

Currently I'm running Morrow and I'm pretty happy with their approach, materials and careful build quality. I like quality connections, pure materials, and price really varies by length-- I prefer the shorter the better. I prefer no ferrous metals in the cable circuit, connectors, or panel connectors in the gear panels- replacing that stuff to all copper/brass/gold-plate makes a difference. Overall, I get way better bang by improving my room acoustics, vibrations, reflections, etc.

Yep like I said @wesheadley dude.

Flute dude maybe wrong or maybe right?

Depends on your system. If you have a $3000.00 integrated and $1500.00 speakers then save your cash cause the cables are really only going to make a very minute change in your system. Money better spent on room treatment's.

Just opinion who am I to say how you spend your money.  

I wouldn’t use Mac gear to assess any cables.

Interesting concept recommending cables with no regard to how they interface in a system.

So, you’ve shared one experience where a more expensive PC was supposedly inferior (lots of variables at play here BTW) to a “cheaper” $6k cable. Good for you!

Actually, first started investigating cables and connectors in the early 70's. Done literally hundreds of comparisons. I'll wager on a lot more diverse gear, in more locations and on more program, live and recorded, than most. When I left Los Angeles, I filled a 55 gallon garbage bin with old cable.

Overall, I get way better bang by improving my room acoustics, vibrations, reflections, etc.

Far too many start at the wrong end. When searching for a new home before we left LA, realtors asked the missus "Why does he go around clapping and banging and shouting?" Get the room right, most everything else is a doddle. That's how recording studios are built.

My system, being what it is, is very adequately served by inexpensive cables. A big issue for me has been bad connections between components and cables. As long as the contacts are all good I get the sound I want for cheap! My latest upgrade was changing my HDMI cables out to a couple grades above basic. I was getting frequent signal dropouts where the sound would just turn off and the picture would go black for a few seconds at a time. I assume that was also from intermittent contacts. If I just slightly wiggled and HDMI cable it could cause a dropout. The new HDMI cables seem to have solved the issue.

As for hearing differences with cables, I think some equipment combinations are particularly sensitive to cable parameters. That sort of "revealing" characteristic is a nuisance to me, basically a design defect, although a defect for one can be a feature for another. I don’t see any evidence that basic, serviceable inexpensive cables are the cause of any meaningful destruction of information in the audible range. They’re not doing anything wrong. They’re just failing to act as a remedy.