Are audiophiles still out of their minds?

hello ,
whenever some audiophiles or reviewer suggest spending about 15-20% of the cost on cables base on your total audio system cost. Do they mean per cable or the total cabling cost in the system? if a hifi system cost $10k, do i spend about $2000 on all cables combine? or per piece of cable about $2000?
any answer? pardon please if it sounded dumb question! Thanks!

Philipwu, not a dumb question at all. What is dumb is the person who came up with the idea that 15-20% of your system should be spent on cables.  It was probably cable manufacturers who brain washed gullible audiophiles to spend that much on cables. I've been in this hobby for 30 years, and you hear all kinds of BS based on no credible evidence. Like some have said, you can replace $2000 worth of cables with another for $250 and get better results because of system synergy.

Unfortunately, there are audiofools who will not consider a component worthy unless it costs above a certain price point. So to accommodate these fools, manufactures will purposely make components expensive by adding bling to the chassis but doing nothing to the all important circuitry.  A friend, who is a manufacturer of audio gear, once told me you won't get press or attention unless you make the chassis huge and substantial and charge a hefty sum. It is not unusual for some high end gear with 30-40% of its cost just in the chassis work.  So that $50k amp you're drooling over is largely made up of bling that doesn't improve the sound. Clever marketing will claim the substantial chassis is for resonance control,

I know of another famous audio designer who came up with a very efficient component with small footprint, but his customers complained it wasn't big enough. So he just put the same circuit in a bigger macho looking chassis which drove up the cost.  We audiophiles often shoot ourselves in the foot with our own stupidity.

Which is worse?

1. $24K interconnects

2. $102K turntable

3. $15K cartridge

4. $1.2M speakers

5. $12K power cord

6. $250K amplifier

7. $36K tonearm

8. None of the above

editor’s note: by contrast my entire system not including tweaks costs $20

$100-$150 fuses ;-).

"We audiophiles often shoot ourselves in the foot with our own stupidity."

I certainly understand how that appears to be true but it is a value statement that only the buyer can resolve based on their own system, tastes and wallet.

I had a manufacturer once tell me about a new component they had released,

"I made the mistake of not pricing it high enough."

Thus raises the often debated question of whether the price of audio gear should be based on manufacturing costs (as many like to point out when arguing against high priced gear) or sound quality relative to other gear in a similar price range (which is an argument for purchasing high priced gear).

At the end of the day, manufacturers decide which niche of the market they are after and manufacture and price their gear accordingly.  The market decides whether they chose wisely or poorly.  

I jumped out of the cable game a long time ago and have found the WE wire to sound excellent as speaker cables and power cables in my system.  I was less impressed by the Belden wire used as ICs, instead choosing to use a high quality/purity copper-in-cotton wire that I have found to sound very good.