Single brand vs. multiple brand ICs and ACs

I've set up my system both ways and am enjoying great success right now with the all one brand method. Until March of this year, I had a menagerie of cables and cords behind my components and was never fully satisfied with the sound. Since going to a uniform set of oversized pipecleaners my system has opened up immensely.

Now for the backpedal. Going from a mixed to matched cable scheme worked with my mix of components, but I wouldn't say it's necessarily the best way. I started adding cables one by one, warm and neutral in band-aid fashion, and never found a good mix. Installing a single brand of revealing cables allowed the purest signal to pass through so I could do all my tuning via tuberolling. When using different brands I probably just didn't find the right combination.

I think Perfectimage makes a good recommendation of trying one brand first, then if you're still not satisfied try introducing a different cable to tweak your sound.

From an enthusiast's perspective, buying a whole set of matching cables is fun, but buying cables one by one extends that fun. Good luck.

Perfectimage, is right on. Unless you have unlimited access: (1)to a variety of cables and (2) time to compare and (3) keep copius records, it can become unwieldly. Of course there always exceptions such as having someone you know and trust with experience with the same equipment, who appreciates your goals and unique circumstances (in which case, the audio Gods are truly shining on you!).

I use to mix and match interconnects using Silver Audio Appassionata, Bear Labs Silver Lighting and Granite Audio #444. When I demoed Pure Note Epsilon Reference I noticed that by mixing, it choked the sonics. Everything improved as soon as I went to all Epsilon Reference. With further experimentation I noticed my secondary system sounded better when I used all Granite Audio #444 interconnects.
(For what it’s worth) ;)

I think single brands approach is an effort to make it easier for the buyer and more sales for the company selling. If you do your homework you shouldn't have a problem. Its all about system matching.As one of the other posts mentioned if you want to go a certain (sound)direction you purchase a wire that will get you back to that.The best way is to try as many cables as you can get your hands on and weed out what you don't like. Good luck

I think using more than two brands of cables at any one time is enough to drive anyone crazy, and the same is true of two cables which are very different also. However, if you stumble across two cables which are generally similar in type of sound, but different in specific ways, it may work very well. After experimenting I have found that in my system using Purist Dominus interconnects and NBS Monitor 0 speaker and digital cables gives me a more detailed upper treble and especially lower bass than I could get with Dominus alone, but a warmer midrange in general, and especially lower midrange, than I could ever get with an entire system of Monitor 0, which I had for a while. But I doubt this kind of matching would ever have worked if the basic sound of the two cables wasn't generally quite close.