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
jl35
3,944 posts
 
not to mention the many who do not have to choose...they can do the $4k room treatment, a batch of $10k-40k cables, and $100k+ components...without concern with how much these items cost to produce...
jl35
3,944 posts
 
is there ever a correlation to cost and price with luxury items for the wealthy ?
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
jl35
1,057 posts
06-23-2016 8:28am
not to mention the many who do not have to choose...they can do the $4k room treatment, a batch of $10k-40k cables, and $100k+ components...without concern with how much these items cost to produce...

Eggs ackly! Not to mention that room treatments are not intended to replace - nor can they replace - cable upgrades in the first place. I’m pretty sure they call that a Strawman Argument. Cables and room treatments are two independent variables. The enthusiastic and thorough audiophile must actually pay attention to a host of issues, and address them according to his wants and budgetary constraints.
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
dracule1 OP
963 posts
06-23-2016 1:58am
Geoffkait: "I never said you did say there’s NO difference between cables. What you keep saying, though, is that there is NO SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE in sound quality between very expensive cables and inexpensive cables. And you yourself provided evidence to the contrary when you linked the blind test that showed otherwise."

To which dracula replied,

"Sigh. You just don’t get it do you? How many times do I have to repeat myself. CORRELATION, CORRELATION, CORRELATION!!!
You’re a horrible troll."

Oh, I get it alright. You apparently don’t seem to know that going to audio stores is no way to audition cables or anything else for that matter. For one thing they keep changing their equipment so much the system never gets a chance to break in. Hel-loo! You can repeat your correlation mantra as many times as you like. It still makes you seem like a naive troll grasping at straws. Some guy somewhere claiming that some audio product or another is too high priced. Yeah, like that’s not a troll we’ve seen a hundred times.
mapman's avatar
mapman
21,924 posts
 
Obviously how much anything is worth is a matter of opinion and opinions will vary.

Resale prices over the long run are most likely the only reliable metric to bank on when it comes to determining value.

Another truth would seem to be that those resale values are almost always way less then original retail price especially when it comes to more commodity type products like wires.

So its fine to pay a lot for nice new wires just don't expect anyone else is likely to pay you the same amount if you paid full retail.

I hope I'm wrong but I suspect in many cases here touting new expensive wires or other accessories that the touters did not pay full retail yet those influenced may well end up doing just that. 
More to discover