Cable upgrades

I don’t think the generality is intended to be anywhere that specific, it’s more a question of are you fishing in the right hole. That said, yes, that makes sense. Then there is the big question of do these have the right tonal balance / synergy with your system.

The way I use it is a starting point for what I am going to plan on spending… so if my component is say $12K I’ll start looking in the $1.2K range… used. I will do everything I can to get the very best (I do lots of research on the qualities of the wires and hopefully try them).

My most recent upgrades have been from a knowledge base of forty years.. so, I knew what different brands sounded like and also the improvement in my preferred brand (Transparent) and so I bought all new. The most recent series upgrade was very significant.

@ghdprentice oh of course. Agreed.
Tonal balance and synergy wins. Price point is just a general coordinate.

Trying out Nordost Heimdall 2 on my Aurender N200 now. Lower than the 10% point of reference. Not an endgame by any means as well but a very pleasant surprise and a sneak peak into what Nordost power cords can do on a streamer. 

@ghdprentice thanks for the rule of thumb info. A very helpful guideline.

So, for example, looking for PC and USB for my Lumin U2 ($7,500 Cdn) I’d target cables in the $600-800 used range? And would that spend be for each cable, or both together? And would this apply for most components, given that they would need both AC and interconnects of some kind?

@audphile1 What PC were you using before the Heimdall? I’m researching an upgrade from my AQ Coffee USB…and also considering upgrades from stock PCs…

Thanks,

JAMES

Transparent Gen 6 Plus level will give you the lions share of what their cables can do for a system.  Do a trial direct through them…if music is your passion!

James…I used Furutech FPS-032n power cable on the Aurender N200. I also tried AQ Tornado. For USB I’m using AQ Diamond and for the Ethernet, Purist Audio. Nordost Heimdall 2 is completely different than the AQ Tornado. Nordost and Audioquest in general sound completely different. I ended up liking the Tornado on Bricasti M3 DAC, Heimdall 2 on N200 and Nordost Frey 2 power cable on Pass XP-22 preamp. Best top to bottom balance so far with low noise floor. My interconnects are Nordost Tyr 2 XLRs so there’s a bit of synergy going on there.
As with everything, there are compromises but in the case of Nordost it’s not anything significant - there are more positive attributes than things I don’t like. 
To answer your question about the spend, my approach is for each cable. But you have to obviously try and see what works.