How high end must your system be...

Despite this most recent critique of your equipment, I’d ask, “Do you feel it’s important for you to hear differences in various cabling?” OR “Do you feel you already can hear the desparities between different brands/models of cabling?”

Or is it you want to begin checking out other wires now but haven’t?

I’d recommend you simply borrow or buy some and see for yourself if you havn’t done so yet. If you have and aren’t able to discern much if any changes from one set of Ics to another, but feel all is well enough, let sleeping dogs lay.

There are folks around here who can and do spend tremendous amounts of money on equipment. Yay them. Some routinely chase something they’ll never ever find, and that’s satisfaction, for they seek something that can’t be provided…. Perfection…. Or they’re satisfaction lays on some future horizon… so the actual chase is as close as they’ll ever get to being happy with things indefinitely. And their treadmills continue to roll. Yay them too.

Then too there’s just plain audio snobbery at times or ego’s unrestrained in play now and then

Wether it’s true or not should not matter as much as if you feel otherwise..

I’d not let someone else’s ideas on how my system should sound affect me negatively. Each and everyone here who get’s involved to whatever extent they do, remains sole judge and jury on the product they’ll derive from the system they amass. INO it’s about pleasing yourself.

The answer though has to be a very relative one… a system is resolving enough when upstream or downstream component exchanges elicit marked results. Noticeable effects. Clearly. No guessing involved. No maybe’s. Straight ahead “Hey! That’s ???? than it was before”

What’s something like that gonna run? I’ve no clue. There’s a bunch of variables. A bunch. Like Tvad said initially, the noise floor is a big part of it. The degree to which your individual items are resolving and capable of rendering the signal accurately. Your room. Your own hearing! Just how revealing are the loudspeakers?

I’d concentrate on putting together something that I like the sound of for me…. And be less concerned of what some other’s might think about it.

I’m not being callous or telling how to do things I’d not do myself. It’s just that there’s a whole bunch of very good equipment available to us these days and for not tons of dough, it’s not hard to create a rig which does right by music. I’d bet too your’s is pretty good already and you enjoy it frequently.

Always let your own ears decide. It’s a simple matter to find out too… simply try some other cables now and then at your liesure. Enjoy.

Three variables that haven't been mentioned but I think are significant:

1)Recording quality -- the greater the realism of the recording, the easier it will be to perceive differences in cables, as well as differences between other components in the system.

2)Cable length -- the greater the length the more likely it is that differences will be heard.

3)Component output impedance -- for interconnect cables, higher output impedance of the component driving the cable will increase some cable effects.

Regards,
-- Al

Using Zu Wax Biwire cable ($1000+ new, bought used at $400) on sub $5000 systems did not reveal notiecable difference from $100 single wire from Signal cable.
My current system (amp, preamp, cdp, turntable, speaker) is a bit over $15,000 (if bought new ;-), and I start feeling some differences. The biggest difference was with ClearDay shotgun silver speaker cable ($240 new). Brighter and more detailed sound. (Some may not like it though.)
However, I still havebn't noticed any significant differences, if any, among several sub $200 cables (power, IC, speaker) I've tried.

A fourth factor that I should have included in my previous post:

4)Speaker impedance characteristics and sensitivity -- everything else being equal, speaker cable differences will be increased if the speaker impedance and/or the speaker sensitivity are low, and/or if the variations of speaker impedance as a function of frequency are greater.

Some speakers are more "revealing" of differences in speaker cables not because they are necessarily better, but because they have these characteristics.

Regards,
-- Al

Lots of factors that determine....how high end the system is is probably not a determining factor in of itself, though better systems will probably reveal more differences in general.

Try it yourself and see. You do not have to spend a lot to experiment. Start with vanilla stock RCA ICs and basic copper zip cord speaker wire from Radio Shack. Then try a few low cost alternatives that might make a difference. I'd switch ICs first before speaker wires. Try a used pair of MIT Terminator ICs. These should cost less than $50 and the difference has a good chance of being audible. If you want to go a bit higher, try DNM reson ICs, probably less than $100 used. I'm you can search other threads here on Agon and find lots of other recommendations to consider as well if you like