Experiences With Costly Balanced XLR Interconnects Above $3,000

I am waiting on Jeff Smith of Silversmith Cables for his new XLR cables.

They should be out in a few weeks. I have had great success with his Fidelium speaker cables. Very reasonably priced at about $1200 for an 8’ pair. They absolutely creamed my $6K former cables that are now, relatively, junk.

I mentioned my long standing debate with Ralph about the AES standard saying that if that standard is followed by manufacturers of gear used that expensive XLR cables are not needed. I have followed Ralph’s advise while using his Atma-Sphere MP-1 preamp. I use Mogamis. But am copying Jeff on this thread since he insists that good cables are, in fact, very important.

I do now lean toward buying Jeff’s new XLRs. Like his great Fideliums, his XLRs will also be reasonably priced are around $1K for a metered pair. All Jeff’s cables are fully refundable for 30 days. 

For a supposedly high tech company, Acrolink’s website is absolutely horrible and offers nothing but meandering bloviation regarding Japanese tech leadership and metal purity circa 1999…hilarious!  I read some of the cable construction pages 😳

Hot mess comes to mind …best of luck 🍀 

I agree the Acrolink website is difficult to Navigate. But if you have ever booked an air ticket direct with JAL from Japan then you will get an insight into the Japanese website complexities. I work with a $5billion high tech Japanese company that does work on the space station and it is the same thing. It is just a different mindset complex to us normal to them. 
 

Here is a brochure from Esoteric who relabel Acrolink cables which has a nice summary of the higher end Mexcel series cables.  
 

Here's where I call BS:  If a top line Amp manufacturer (Let's day $50,000 plus) isn't using the snake oil cables why should I?  I  bought the kick ass amp why do I need to upgrade BS external components? Didn't Dan or Mark or Bill include the best cables with this uber expensive demonstration of their best amp?  Of course they did!!

Hi Mark, thanks for the comprehensive response, appreciated. After reading about your experiences, the DA6300 will likely be my final cable upgrade before I call it a day. Your components and speakers are all top-notch so the system deserves the Acrolink DA6300 Mexcel. I rotate between a Chord QBD76 and Luxman DA-06 DAC on the Luxman L-590AXII integrated. Speakers are Marten Duke 2.

I share the same sentiment regarding the transparency of the company (Acrolink) and the high quality construction of the cables. I currently own the Acrolink 7N-PC9700 and 8N-8100 mains power cables and 8N-A2080III Evo XLR and all these cables are very well made. They are inherently stiff cables and the weight of the A2080 XLR is higher than the Wireworld Silver Eclipse 8 apart from looking more solid.

It’s useful to note that you are an open-minded scientist. I am an engineer and agree that measurements although important aren’t everything. The only issue with me is on my bad habit of overspending on cables.