why do people feel the need to buy expensive cable

@mesch. Your comments are right on point. No matter what you spend on cables the synergy has to be right. I think you should have decent cabling. Chicken wire is not going to work despite what others may think. Some folks have cable envy!!! Lol!!! It's funny. I think you put good cables on good equipment. I agree that if you can get a better component you do that instead and long as you have reasonable cables. I'm not going to put cheap cabling on great equipment.

Calvin,

thank you for the kind words and comments in the 'spirit' of this thread,

@mikelavigne, you are slacking on your cable game. You got to get better ones. Lol. I'm rolling on the floor again laughing. On a serious note you seem to have an amazing system. Cheers!!! Lol.

sorry I'm not watching Audiogon every day so my responses are not always timely. the 'gon' interface keeps me away.

this week I did receive my second set of Tara Labs Grandmaster Evolution 2 meter RCA's for my Lampizator Golden Gate 'dsd only' dac. again; I am quite amazed with the step up in overall performance I hear. and I've not yet placed them on my Audiodharma Cable Cooker yet.

allow me to explain my 'other' cables a bit, although any attempt at a serious comment on this silly thread is likely a waste of time. i use the new darTZeel NHB-18NS preamp and the NHB-458 mono blocks. darTZeel has their own proprietary interface using BNC connectors called 'zeel'. this interface is superior to RCA or XLR in my experience. so that is what i use between my dart pre and amps, an 8 meter pair of 'zeel' style Evolution Acoustics BNC's. then also between my King Cello tape repro (for my 2 Studer A-820's) i use a 13 meter pair of darTZeel's own BNC's as those tape decks are on the opposite side of the room. the 'zeel' cables can be any length and sound the same.

I've commented earlier in the thread on my speaker cables.

Hi mikelavigne, did you know Dan D'Agostino invented the cable interface you have?, Dan did this when he was still with krell back in the late 90's, it is called krell cast, my amp has the same interface as your equipment does, I do agree that it is quite good, and that cable length don't matter, however, even this did not beat out the entire taralabs loom I use, the Zero interconnect was entirely in another league over the cable interface system, cheers.

Thanks Calvin. Been following this thread and finally felt the need to respond. I think threads like this are worthy, allowing thoughtful exchange, humor and camaraderie. Just plain fun!

Audiolabyrinth,

Hi mikelavigne, did you know Dan D'Agostino invented the cable interface you have?, Dan did this when he was still with krell back in the late 90's, it is called krell cast

wrong.

the Krell CAST system has nothing to do with the 50ohm BNC interface of the darTZeel 'Zeel' interface. other than it's proprietary to a specific manufacturer.

they are totally different concepts.

and if we are discussing the Zeel interface compared to the Tara Labs, one only need go to page 3 of the August 2012 Review of the darTZeel NHB-458 monoblocks to read this snippet from Michael Fremer comparing what happened when he switched from his Tara Zero interconnects to the (10% as spendy) very very cheap 'Zeel'. snippet below.

At Delétraz's urging, and because I own one of his NHB-18NS preamps, I had substituted his 50 ohm, BNC-terminated, coaxial Zeel interconnect for my TARA Labs Zero. I don't have the space here to discuss transmission-line theory, or why Delétraz believes his Zeel connection is superior to any standard interconnect, especially in terms of eliminating electrical reflections. (Years ago, before he began making amps and preamps, he wrote a paper about this for Stereophile's November 2001 issue—also see this article.) In any case, the relatively inexpensive Zeel cable connection took everything I've described above to an even higher level of clarity, dimensionality, and harmonic and textural purity.

as great as the Tara Grandmaster Evolution I'm using is; if these new dacs had the zeel interface I would have used it instead of buying this crazy spendy cable. I think that the Grandmaster sounds better than the 'zeel' does.....but at 5% of the cost I would not have even thought about it.