Do you really need ultra expensive cables?

Listening to my system I notice that Cables have effects like Decay of Cymbals lasting longer with certain cables than others.Vocals can sound veiled at low listening levels with certain IC's.Snap and Pop of drums are not right with others.

Things like this showup when the synergy in cables to system parts is not correct.

I wish I had the $$ to try some of the more expensive Cables,but looking for the least expensive choices I decided to try 47Labs OTA Cable and do my whole system with it.I recently had my speakers internally wired with it.

The only place I was unable to use it was as a digital cable and decided to use cryo treated Beldan between Transport and DAC.

Results have been good.The speakers are a pain to breakin though as they are Metal Drivers and the OTA takes around 200 hrs to breakin.At the 100Hr. level at present.

The best Cable I have had a chance to hear was Transparent which went for $2800 for the Speaker Cable & IC's.To much for my pocket.

It seems to me, not like I was at HE, the 3% cables was partially motivated by marketing. And I like what Brianmgrarcom posted. Anyone can use cheap cables and make it nice and musical (la-di-da), but why would anyone care to have their cables be the bottleneck of the system? I also think that 30-40% is usually much too much, but 3% or 40%, suit yourself.

The Valhalla as being the "reference standard" is fading, IMO. Many lower cost brands are besting it. Even Nordost is realizing this, see Nordost News:

"Nordost is pleased to announce the release of the newest member to the micro mono-filament cable family! The Valkyrja has a lavender mono-filament wrapped around each individual conductor yielding the nearly the same performance as its predecessor, the Valhalla at a fraction of the cost. Through extensive redesigning techniques, Nordost has been able at long last to create a series of cables quite comparable to the Valhalla, while keeping the costs at a minimum."

I feel sorry for anyone whose cost of cables is 30% to 40% of their total system. They could have had so much more music for their money had they spent it more wisely.

No. None of us really NEED any of this stuff. It's a hobby and it's supposed to be fun. If spending the big bucks on cables makes you freak, then don't so it. If you think that's where the payoff is, then why not? Opinions differ as do the ears that hold them.