A true believer

Agaffer, it seems to me going reading through the thread that it morphed into a simple observation by you in your opening into yet another thread about cables and their value vs price. I tend to agree in general with this theory. On the other hand I do not believe it is always the case.

The only point I attempted to make is that I "bought into" ic cables that retail for 2,500.00 a 1 meter pair throughout the system. The further point is that they DID make a significant difference (read improvement) after doing numerous controlled comparisons over an extended period of time, years, with cables at different price points. I was willing to pay what I did at the time though it certainly wasn't retail. The part about letting the music through without a signature that was obvious, a clarity that was different than what I had previously experienced, an epiphany moment. Maybe there is something out there comparable to what these cables do in my system at a much cheaper price but at the time I sure didn't find it. I don't consider myself irrational with ANY expenditures, least of all audio, and can certainly afford whatever I'm willing to spend. Again, you put down your money and live with your choices. It always has been less about the gear to me than getting a desired result.

And again, I believe that cables, sometimes, can improve a system. That is why I don't use zip cord.

Based on your post it seems what you did to improve your system makes sense. Now if you paid $2500 a 1 meter pair throughout your system, which what little you told us, it would add up to $5000. If that were true than my personal belief is, that since the idea is to get better sound, zip cord plus better equipment would be more bang for the buck. But, the amount you spent wouldn't fall into that category. It was well spent.

Are you now handing out seals of approval?

There is a great analogy to this statement; "Using better components or keeping said components and improving them with wires or other tweaks".

You can find numerous other hobbies where people are willing to spend tons of money on an older product or upgrade to another product altogether. In the Corvette automobile racing or street mods world where I dwell quite often, you will see people adding cams, blowers, every fiberglass bolt on known to man and listed in Mid America Corvette catalog. Some of these mods have real benefits for the normal driver, others, well a radical and lopey cam for the street, or C6R racing wing for high speed track use, do not. But, the owners choose to mod their car and tweak it to suit their own personal taste and desires, regardless of the age of the car. I have seen people buy newer corvettes to get the latest and greatest version of Corvette, the ZR1 and Z06 are great performers in the segment in which they compete, and others, who decide that their older version modded to the hilt are what is best for them. In our Corvette club, some members do race, including myself. Some like to mod and show off, and others prefer stock. As you can guess, people who mod are putting money into their car and most do not care about the majority of the populace being overly concerned about their decision, or how much money they threw away and will not get back if they decide to sell or race their Corvette.
So, if someone chooses to mod the heck out of their system with cables, tubes, fuses, or whatever, and throw money at their system for their own pleasure, I think that is great on them. Yeah, you might still come across systems where you might ask yourself, "what is that mod all about or that mod does what", but you should appreciate the fact that someone else is willing to explore and try unknown and unlikely combinations for the rest of us to see and or hear about.

I am still trying to figure out how to hook up $20,000 cables to a $99 all in one music box. I think the all in one has some "exotic" connectors and the cables will need to be sliced and diced to fit correctly, yeah, that's it.
Ciao,
Audioquest4life

Onhwy61,
Yes, I don't like yours. I like mine better, I made better choices, you should have bought what I bought. But, since your signature indicates a liking of Bob Dylan, I'll give you a seal of approval just the same.