cable upgrades , real or rip off

if you can, establish a relationship with a dealer who will agree to loan you cables for a weekend. put on those CDs/LPs you've listened to a million times and see if anything jumps out at you: are you hearing details you never heard before? is the bass better? is the overall tonal balance improved or just altered (some cables allegedly have a 'mid-bass bloat')? etc.

by the way, in the interest of full disclosure, I do think that going up from 'zip cord' cables can improve the sound.

If the manufacturer put a $300 power cord in the box and increase the list price by $300, as a customer, would you like to pay for it without a choice? There are so many power cords in this world, and all have their own character. So, which one do they force you to buy? By the way, $300 is only a low to mid-grade cable!!!

Many people say they are not that good with their ears and don't believe they can hear the different.

Let me tell you. If you are on the phone with your buddy and you can hear whether he/she is happy, sad, tired, angry, sick .... then your ears will be able to pick up the different when you try different "good" cables on a "good" system.

If you talk to you other half for 20 seconds on the phone and still ask who I am talking to, then forget about it.

If you ask if a cable worth that much, then it will be a totally different question. So, for the original question, cable upgrades are real, rip off.... may be.

Go for a test hear yourself.

In my system, Powercords make dramatic impact from unlistenable to heavenly joy. If you can not hear a different or only hear subtle diferent between powercords than something is wrong with your system. Any high resolution system will greatly benefit from good powercords (not subtle). I went from stocks, $200s, $500s, and $1000s, and WOW!

Jrw40,
If you try them just watch out! You may remove the cable from its packaging, install it, and think "Damn, that's a good looking cable! It looks so cool in my system!" Subconsciously you will want to hear a difference for the better so you can just keep the cool looking cable in your system, or you may think that because it looks like it is of so much higher quality than the stock one that it must also make your stereo sound better... And you listen and you think it does.
I'm not anti-cables but I bet this scenario happens so much more than any of us would want to admit.

There are real improvements with thicker and different cable designs. Whether these improvements are significant enough depends on your hearing ability.

The trick I have often used is to raise my existing speaker cables in the middle with a high back chair (you need at least 3 feet for this test). This forces the electrons to go uphill and over a big bump in order to reach the speaker.

If you can hear the difference caused by this effect then it is probably worth upgrading your cables. Myself, I have such poor hearing that it is not worth the extra money.

;-)