why do people feel the need to buy expensive cable

MGM wrote,

"The only item in ones system that has a sound signature is ones speakers . The cables used are going to determine how the drivers move . Find the cable that moves the drivers to the speakers full potential and then you have "The best cable for your system" Same goes with amplifiers."

Or put another way, the only thing in one's system WITHOUT a sound signature is the speakers, which output precisely the accumulated sound of the various components of the system, including the cables.

;-)

earlier in the thread I had some comments about my recent experience with 'crazy expensive' Tara Labs Grandmaster Evolution 1.5m XLR cables. one thing I mentioned was that they 'got out of the way of the music'.

Devilboy writes;

One thing they DO NOT do (and this one's my favorite), is "Get out of the way of the music". That phrase drives me mad. In fact, I believe they are doing the complete opposite.

I have to strongly disagree. no doubt some cables add coloration to the music with what else they do to transfer the signal. but some cables do actually further remove distortion from the signal path. and you can hear that.

these very expensive particular Tara Labs Grandmaster interconnects apply some exotic technology to the equation. some of the technology could be marketing speak, some of the technology is less likely marketing speak, and some of it is easily verifiable by the user.

cable geometry and metallurgy benefits pretty much is something none of us are in a position to actually verify. even assuming we believe our ears unless we go through the process of listening to various versions we are just guessing about cause and effect. so we must just accept the manufacturer's claims on those issues.

looking at the quality of the actual plugs it is easy to see where the cable manufacturer went to a much higher degree of effort and expense compared to other cables. we can see this. does that actually affect the improved performance? we don't know; but our experience with plugs and outlets with power cables does indicate that these things matter.

then there is the vacuum dielectric and air tube technology. we know this matters with cables. how much does it matter? we have no way of knowing really unless you would have one cable with it and one without.

then we get to the HRX dual monoblock floating ground station. the cables are grounded. here we don't need to take anything on faith. we can simply plug or unplug the grounding cable and listen.

now we easily hear the part where the noise floor drops dramatically and the music is revealed in much greater detail. it gets much more out of the way of the music. there are no trade-offs. crazy good. I wish for my finances it did not make such a profound difference.

you can sit there and plug and unplug and hear what is happening. it then becomes a question of whether that difference is worth it or not. no question it's not hype. it's simply life priorities.

I happen to have a 'borrowed' similar Tara Labs '2' steps down (Tara Labs Zero Gold) also on hand for comparison. this has an earlier version of the vacuum dielectric and grounding system. I also had the opportunity to try the Zero Evolution (the next step up above the Zero Gold) grounding box with the Grandmaster version. so I've been able to appreciate the steps up and what is doing what.

in the context of your system is it worth it?

happy to have anyone visit and they can plug and unplug that grounding box for themselves and listen.

The reason people often state that expensive cables will not make budget speakers sound better is because the budget speakers drivers are limited in their excursion . The more money one spends on speakers generally the larger the drivers will be in the statement speakers . (harder to drive to their full potential ). Thus cables that can send the proper amount of current is more important for those speakers . Hence being able to hear large differences in cables in those systems.

Bravo! , we'll said Mike, I've done experiment's with taralabs cable's since the introduction of earlier ground station's of the mid 1990s, you can pm me and I share a few with you, also, at one time, I had the Taralabs, the one with two mono blocks grounding station and one stereo grounding station, all on the same interconnect! , talking about low noise floor that was not supposed to be heard on this model interconnect.

Ohm's Law suggests that if you desire more current to the speakers all you actually need do is reduce the length of the speaker cables. While this may or may not solve you particular concern regarding woofer excursion, I tend toward suspecting that increasing the current by itself will solve the other issues involved not related to woofer excursion. Such as grain in the treble, soundstage depth, resolution, tonality, frequency response, dynamics and inner dynamics, warmth and sweetness, to name a few.