Cables that cost more than the speakers?


I was reading TAS tonight and noticed that several of their recommended systems utilized speaker cable that retails more than the speakers or amp to which they were connected. One was using the Purist Dominous and another the Kimber KS3038. These are both GREAT cables, but it seems strange to me to hook up a $13k cable to $9.5k speakers.

I guess there will be those that say "Whatever sounds best.", but it is still strange. Does anybody here have a similar SC to speaker ratio? FYI: I'm using Kimber KS-3033s ($2200) with my Talon Khorus($14k).
metaphysics
Not that this little story means much, but a few years back when Wes Phillips was writing for Stereophile he ran into a similar situation. He was doing a review for a relatively inexpensive B & W stand mounted moniter. At that time the only speaker cable he had in the house (he claimed) was the top of the line Kimber. I don't remember the model name of the cable, but like the TAS article it cost several magnitudes of order more than the speakers. As WP told the story, John Atkinson stopped by during the review period and commented about the disparity between the cost of cable and the cost of the speaker. WP then played some music and JA was apparently awed. I probably don't have the story exact, but the idea is right and the whole idea is amusing to say the least.

I think that these guys get this stuff in their homes and often times their is a disparity in what they are reviewing. To me, it of takes the theory of a reviewers "reference system" and throws it out the window. I try to evaluate one thing at a time. These guys seem to be able to evaluate two or three things at the same time. Cheers, Doug
I just remembered a demo show by a B&W sales rep at my local B&W dealer back home around the time the original DM602 came out. The show was really to discuss and show off the Silver Signature, Matrix and CDM speakers, but at the end of the evening the Rep hooked up the 602 to the same high end system they were using for the other speakers to show off what $550 would buy. I remember everyone was impressed.
I'll admit that I have some power cords that retail for more than many of my components. The total retail cost of my cables (power, interconnect, and speaker) probably equals the retail value of all my amps. I only paid a fraction of those prices, however, thanks to the used market and such.

Doug is right, these reviewers who have 5 pieces of new eqipment that they review all at once are morons. Even worse is people who listen to their reviews, and don't think that these guys have a whole bunch of new components, yet are talking about the capabilities of just one of those five pieces.
In my experience, which is limited, I have noticed a couple of anomalies: 1) great electronics can make a crappy speaker sound better than you would think. 2) sometimes inserting a superior component in your system, even if it is a mismatch dollar-wise, may have a greater impact in a marginal system . This "revelation" came to me as I have been without several key components at various times due to upgrading or repairing something. While doing without my normal components I would have to substitute with inferior quality pieces. Even though the sound was not as good it was still enjoyable because of the other superior components remaining in the system. Does this make sense?
Yes. The notion of a chain being only as strong as its weakest link does not really apply to audio systems, in my experience. Because it seems that you can always improve the sound of the system by strengthening ANY of the key links, even the strongest one. ----dan