2. cables
  3. 124957-818

Are audiophiles still out of their minds?

I've been in this hobby for 30 years and owned many gears throughout the years, but never that many cables.  I know cables can make a difference in sound quality of your system, but never dramatic like changing speakers, amplifiers, or even more importantly room treatment. Yes, I've evaluated many vaunted cables at dealers and at home over the years, but never heard dramatic effect that I would plunk $5000 for a cable. The most I've ever spent was $2700 for pair of speaker cables, and I kinda regret it to this day.  So when I see cable manufacturers charging 5 figures for their latest and "greatest" speaker cables, PC, and ICs, I have to ask myself who buys this stuff. Why would you buy a $10k+ cable, when there are so many great speakers, amplifiers, DACs for that kind of money, or room treatment that would have greater effect on your systems sound?  May be I'm getting ornery with age, like the water boy says in Adam Sandler's movie.
dracule1
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Repeat after me, "It’s only a hobby. It’s only a hobby." In terms of price spread high end audio is not really a whole lot different from say model railroading, mountain climbing or stamp collecting or even baseball card collecting. There will always be ridiculously high priced products in any hobby. Not every mountain climber can afford to climb Everest and of those that can most undoubtedly don’t want to. The Mickey Mantle baseball card from his rookie year is how much?! I suspect the the whole answer to the high priced audiophile cable debate is whether the SQ of very expensive cables is superior to inexpensive cables, generally speaking. I far don’t see any real evidence to the contrary, only a lot of who shot John. I can't help pointing out that inexpensive cables, say Radio Shack, might actually sound better than much more expensive cables if they're broken in and the expensive ones aren't, they're cryo'd and the expensive ones aren't and/or they're inserted with the correct directionality in mind while the expensive ones aren't.

dracule1 OP
1,085 posts
 
"vs someone who buys $10k speakers and slaps on cheap cables without auditioning, simply assuming cables don't matter..."
If you mean lamp cords or rolls of Monster Cable at Best Buy, I agree. 
jl35
4,017 posts
 
for me Drac, the key is the auditioning, deciding by what sounds best to you, within the constraints of your budget...
jl35
4,017 posts
 
and yes, some truly have no budgetary constraints...
phd
1,320 posts
 

It's not hard to get caught up in the hype especially when you are trying to get the most out of your system and want to fine tune it but I'm convinced that we want to believe that a ten thousand dollar cable should and will  make a huge difference in spite of the fact that all logic says other wise (diminishing returns). Any audiophile with experience knows that cabling is system dependent regardless of it's cost.

If you built an addition on to your house and the electrician told you that he could install electrical wire that would dramatically improve the performance of anything plugged into it but it would cost you a $100.00 a foot would you go for it?


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