Cables more hype than value?

Macdad - the investment in developing cable architectures, choosing a wire and plugs, spec-ing you own cable designs is significant and a whole different science compared to circuits and quality parts.

I asked a manufacturer the same question and his answer...
- why should I bother
- the customer will do what they want anyway
- it's a waste of my energies.

And he is right.

At this point in time though, component manufacturers will give you as cheep a cable as they can get away with. It's called designing to a price point.

Most components can perform way above what their provided cables will allow them to - I've personally demonstrated it time and again to others.

And that's why there is a whole cable industry out there!

As for seeing component companies develop cables - it has already started - NAIM has carried their own line for years and their new amps have caused them to bring out a whole new line of cables.

Do you think other companies are going to sit back and let them rule the roost?

I doubt it

Only time will tell :-)

Regards...

Do you think other companies are going to sit back and let them rule the roost?

I think that horse has already fled the barn and is into the next county. Sure, some companies offer their own cables (another is Ayre who offers cables constructed by Cardas) but folks are so into buying what they want that whether a manufacturer offers cables or not is virtually a moot point.
Sure some manufacturers will offer their own cables as a convenience to customers, but more likely as another way to make money because, the cable industry has been a money-maker for many...for the very reason stated in the question that started this thread.

Mitch2 - I used NAIM as an example because their customers seem to be extremely loyal and believe NAIM can do no wrong.

I was on their Forum for a while and it seemed that anyone that even dared to mention another brand would be labelled a heretic - People actually seemed scared to admit they used another companies cables.

With this hobby/obsession getting more complex - if more companies offered their own cables I think you could see more of the NAIM customer mentality.

But thankfully not on this forum :-)

Just thinking out loud.

Its interesting that you bring up Naim. Personally, I like the concept of Naim, but I don't think the performance is equal to the cost. The Naim components I've owned, over the years, wasn't in the same league as comparable products from other brands. And I understand that may not be the case for all of their products, but that was my experience. Getting back to the cable discussion, I was thinking about trying a Naim CD player, so I went out to a dealer to demo one. I brought a CD player along with some cables that I normally use with it. To make a long story short, the AQ cables I brought with me made the Naim cables sound defective. They were just in a different league. Not to mention Naim cables are balanced and mine were SE.

I wonder how they would like this story over on the Naim forum? lol.

"08-21-15: Williewonka
Macdad - the investment in developing cable architectures, choosing a wire and plugs, spec-ing you own cable designs is significant and a whole different science compared to circuits and quality parts."

That's another good point. People always use the argument that cables are just wires and they're not as hard to make as a component. In many cases I would agree with that, but like anything else, there are some products that genuinely stand out. Here's a couple of examples I use that usually win people over. Cardas is one. If you search on the internet, you can find pics of Cardas cables that are stripped down so you can see how they are put together. To view it in sales literature is one thing, but when you see the actual cable, its just amazing. Nordost is another. Aside from the connectors, they have to make everything in house using special designs and machines. If you look closely at some of their work, the attention to detail is flawless. The way they apply the dielectric to the conductors looks like something NASA would make. Although, it wouldn't surprise me if they needed Al to help them.

Anyway, I could give more examples, but with some cables, I feel the price is justified given what it takes to make them. And of course, you still need to know what you are doing when you buy them or you can waste a lot of money.

I agree that some brands display very high construction quality but my question remains, "is the price justified relative to the level of sonic improvement provided by using uber-expensive cables?"

I do hear sonic differences between cables, and I prefer the sound of some cables over others, but IME the "level of improvement" resulting from changes in cabling comes nowhere near the level of improvement possible by changing source components, amplification or speakers.

When you factor in the high cost of many cables for what is really just wire with increasingly fancier ancillaries such as stainless steel collars, carbon fiber coverings, electic bias systems, network boxes, etc., one could argue the cable industry is a magic bean that has grown beyond all proportion based on the need that audiophiles have to keep up with the pack on the road to audio nirvana.