Highest component/cable ratio?

John, I tried, believe me. I went through Virtual Dynamics, Audience, Shunyata, Audioquest and others over many years. I have had systems costing almost twice as much. Eqipment by Pass Labs, Manley, Totem, Resolution Audio. I have tried quick A/B changes to try to pick up a difference. I have gone long term with months before swapping out for A/B comparisons. Today, I'm getting the best sound of my life with what I have now, go figure. My comments are not meant to denounce the worth of cables or those who hear differences, rather, just to state my experience. I will try other cables in the future, but right now, I don't want to mess with what works for me.

Mijknarf, consider yourself a very lucky man, I envy you. Hearing differences can have very expensive side effects. :)

Cheers,
John

After years of ultimate DIY speakerdesigning I`ve come upon a few discoverys, cables included. It`s years since I concidered replacing anything in my system now, even if I know the digital-trafo could be uppgraded by a custom built one. Socalled high-end stores can offer me nothing except making me shake my head and smile.
And what kind of cables do I use? DIY all over off course, no fancy junk;P
Speakercables are thick solid copper, not flat,twisted or anything else that would influence sound quality. One separate cable to each element, all shielded. 10awg gives a good dynamic midrange;)
Unlike most others I don`t see the negative conductor as a "retur" but as the other half of a AC-signal so I treat it just as carefully as the positive half.
I stumbeled over a TV-coax years ago (while I was re-building my CD-player) that showed to have unseen audio-qualitys, first in double configuration as an IC and later it showed up to be the only coax to definitively outplay a AT&T optic by beeing cleaner in both ends. No other coax even came close. The secret is called Vivanco KX-710 and looks like just an ordinary coax. Off corse; only inner thread fore signal, fully shielded.
Now I`ve come to realise that signal- & sdpeakercables has to be solid to keep the signal clean, but still my jaw dropped (my friends too) when I first started experimenting with solid powercables.(shielded;)
My intension was to use them on his Jadis monoblocs, but since my rebuilt Electrocompaniet outplayed the tubes they were put on his CD-combination during a CD versus vinyl duel. And the dynamic gain was jawdropping on a system like this.
I`ve seen grown, sober audiophiles cry over my Vivanco-IC`s..

>>I`ve seen grown, sober audiophiles cry over my Vivanco-IC`s<<

LOL

I was in Montreal, a few years back, and visited the Tenor Audio factory. Robert Lamarre gave me a demo on both his Lamhorn 1.8c, and a Kharma version ($60,000.00). The speaker wire he used in his demo room was a thin, unshielded, teflon coated 6n copper wire, simple. Robert, being at the manufacturing end, only smiled when I asked why he didn't use 'proper' speaker cables. Does he know something the rest of us don't.

I spoke with Mr. Gilmore, of Gilmore audio, ex. Atma-Sphere employee/owner. He suggested I get a few lengths of Transformer wire. Varying guages, and seperate the + and - as much as possible. This was to diminish capacitance?, inductance?. This worked, I sold my Cardas and Acoustic Zen. This is what I have been useing.

Your Lamhorns, being very efficient, would probably work best with a thinner speaker wire. Look at tonearm wire as an example. Because the signal is small, a thinner wire maintains purer harmonics, I think. Goertz recommends smaller guages of their wire for smaller amps, and only recommends their larger guages for hich powered amps.

Am I rambling?.

I too am looking at the Lamhorn 1.8c, likely with the MDB3 driver.

LOL