Single brand vs. multiple brand ICs and ACs

Thanks, all. Just the kind of discussion I was hoping for.

It really depends on the cable company whether you will be sucessful with a full complement of their cables. Many companies use similar constructions for both their speaker cables and their IC's. This is an indicator that one of these is probably a good design and the other is a compromise. The requirements for each of these is so different that they should not resemble each other at all. Other companies try to optimize all of the cables, using their reference series to determine if they are doing the right things.

For my own cables, I have a philosophy. The idea is to enable the maximum bandwidth and minimize phase-shift for all cables up to the speaker cables. Then eliminate all resonant content by filtering ultrasonics at the speaker cables. Many of my customers use my IC's with other speaker cables with good results, but I believe that my own speaker cables will result in a more accurate and better focused image.

It has been my experience that cable companies excel at certain cables more than others. For instance,Hovland makes an excellent phono cable(Music Groove), it is hard to beat the Illuminati digital cable, top of the line Discovery speaker and innerconnects are also excellent. As others have said, it is best to try them in your system as cables tend to be very system dependent. I would not hesitate to pick and choose from various cables and get the best for your system. Good listening

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.

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 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'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 started off with all the same brand cables and all the same brand electronics. I dont neccesarly think that this is the best way but I think its the best way to start. How can you ever be sure mixing and matching is best if you dont have a refrence point to compare to.

I dont' know that it's totally necessary to use the same cables throughout the system. In my experience cables are used to tune the system. If you want a little more bass, look for a bass heavy cable. If you want to kill some of the brightness from your cdp, try a cable that does that. I have never had my whole system set up with only one brand of cable, so maybe I am missing out on something, but I doubt it.