Are expensive cables worth it?

IMHO, very few things in the audio world is worth it. But niether is a 60K car. When you look at the price of some cables it's hard to justify. I have found in audio that for the most part you get what you pay for up to a certain limit. When I upgrade hardware and cables usually paying more has bought me a cleaner, quieter, richer sound. I try upgrading one component at a time so as to make sure that I can hear / percieve the difference. The best way to tell if something improves your system is to work with a dealer that will loan you the gear or cables. I find that when you are not committed to something you can be more objective because you have nothing to lose. When I've purchased something I pretty much had to acknowledge that it was an improvement or admit that I made a mistake or was taken. I really appreciate the establishments that allow you to take something home and hear it in your enviroment. With that said usually a 1K cable will present something in your system that a 100.00 cable won't. Providing your system is at the level that subtle changes can be appreciated. In other words if you have cheap components adding expensives cables will not make much of an improvement. If you have high quality gear not just expensive, good cables should make a difference. One last thing, now that most systems don't provide bass / treble adjustment besides tuning the room the only other way to tune the system is with cables. So if your system is dull or bright by carefully matching cables you can acheive the desired sound. If we all stop buying expensive cables will the prices come down?

There really are two questions here.

1..Do details of wire construction, other than adequate copper size, make a difference?

2..If "Yes" to question 1, does "properly" constructed wire require absurdly high cost?

I am undecided about question 1, but for question 2 the answer is NO.

Sometimes....sometimes not.Paul Speltz Anti-Cable just replaced the Audience Au 24 in my system.The Speltz cable is MUCH cheaper and sounding better.

Why do you "understand" $200-400 cables? I mean (wink, wink) shouldn't a SOTA cable only really cost $100/meter, right? You would think so! But it doesn't seem to pan out that way. BTW, my cables cost $100/meter by coincidence (not because I think that's the ceiling for good cables!!!), but so far all of the dealer demos and used audiogon cables in my system have not been able to best the synergy of what I currently have. It's left many 'a dealer scratching his head. But when I do heard better, I will probably save up and upgrade to them.

To summarize, yeah expensive cables (within your means!) are worth "it" but _only_if_ they give you the synergy you need. Else they're just another "$20-bottle-of-wine-marked-up-to-$200." without the synergy? No way! I will pay the difference between a "flat sounding" system and one that sounds "full of life." Sign me up. :-)

Aaron

A better way to approach the question might be to identify a particular expensive cable and then ask, "what does this cable do that would be worth the asking price?"

Pick any $1,000 cable and tell me what it does to justify the price.

Not just an anecodtal explanation, "it removes all the veils," etc.

I mean, a scientific explanation.

What does it do to the signal to justify the price.

Or, even better, what *can* an expensive cable do to the signal it is fed to justify a price of $1,000+?