Who thinks $5K speaker cable really better than generic 14AWG cable?

Why?

Buck, there are three types of audiophile for the most part.  Those who love the music and use the equipment to listen with the best possibly enjoyment.  Those who love equipment and listen to music to show off their systems (according to many in the industry, this may make up about 60% or more).  Third are those (me) who love both and will listen to anything they are in the mood for, but on occasion will listen to 'audiophile' pressings to show off what their systems can do.

I was just sent a pair of Audioquest Horizon balanced interconnects and a piece of their Diamond USB cable. I have always loved the Diamond as it makes a huge difference to MY EAR IN MY SYSTEM.  

I have been running an AQ Niagara interconnect, which for it's price range is an outstanding value (if you believe cable makes a difference).  The Horizon was the precursor to the top of the line WEL cable.  I was in shock at what i've been hearing this weekend. The Horizon just does EVERYTHING better.  It doesn't change the tone or anything, but the system just sounds so much better.  

My wife doesn't give a crap about audio.  She just likes music and will go to many concerts with me from rock to blues to jazz to...  I never tell her what I've done or haven't done to the system, but she stopped me dead in my tracks after I changed the cables and asked what I did.  She had no idea I had them and didn't see me do anything to the system.  When she asked me, I asked her why.  She said it just sounds like the Joe Bonamassa concert I took her to at Carnegie Hall last Jan for my birthday.  They recorded it and just released it on Blueray and Tidal is streaming it (acoustic).  She said the instruments sound like they did that night and that should could almost feel Tina Guo in the room (Google her as she's a GREAT cellist).  

I audition a lot of gear. I have left cables for last to be honest and for good reason. They make a difference, but often taking the cost and upgrading a component makes a larger difference.  When stepping up to this level of cable, I was shocked that in a system like mine, it make such a difference.  If I had to pay full price, I could not afford a cable like this, but as I've stated, there is a point in a line where you get their best 'value' in a component or cable.  I felt for years the Niagara or it's similar cable was that point and I believe it still is today, but I will not be selling these Horizon cables for a long time, if forever.  I feel blessed to own them.  Oh, the diamond going from my server to the DAC is equally as good and makes a full component difference for me from the Carbon that it's often compared to.  JMHO

Dynaquest4

I will not attempt to change your mind about, well, anything. But I will use one of your statements to make a theoretical case for several ways cabling interacts with your whole system, and how that can be more rewarding with more accurate or revealing gear.

"Assuming that exotic cables do, in fact, cancel out or mitigate external influences that distort or otherwise modify pure audio signal transmission, it would seem that the more expensive your system, the less you would need cables and other interconnects to assuage these issues. But, no...it seems otherwise. The more you spend on your system components the more you need to spend on wire to cancel out these external influences. Interesting."

Assuming the quest of many audiophiles at one level is to come as close to faithful reproduction of the original recording as possible, then doing everything within budget and set up as possible would seem like an obvious goal. Cabling affects this pursuit in at least three ways.

1. Keep bad things away from the original signal. Bad "things" in the environment around your cables can come from several sources, devices in your home, building or neighborhood that emit electrical fields or interference, your systems own electronics, and its other cables that all come together behind your rack. Effectively keeping desired signals in their lane and interference out of their lane so the original signal arrives at its destination relatively unscathed is the goal here. This is one way good power cables can help, even though they are not purpose built to transmit any of your processed data. The better the original signal, the more rewarding the effective treatment of this problem.

2. Keep the cable itself from differentialy absorbing or only preserving some portion of the audible spectrum in your signal, or smearing the time signature of different elements in the audio signal. This is where the tone control idea comes in, and "better" cables keep this from happening to the greatest degree, I.E. they do not act as tone controls at all, allowing you for better or worse to hear what your electronics and speakers are trying to do. When you start hearing differences in room acoustics, production and the sound engineers choices, you are getting "the rest of the story".

3. Because different electronics and speakers have different output and input impedances, resistive loads, efficiencies, etc. not every cable will match well with every piece of gear, and so "bad" cable/gear match can reduce how effectively the above cable attributes are revealed in practice, so some thought and trial and error are in order to get the best results in cable choice.

OK, so why would expensive, well designed gear benefit at all from well designed cables? Well for starters, assume that better gear is generally producing more accurate signals out of the gate, and protecting these signals enhances the value, investment in, and enjoyment of better gear.

Also, your top end gear only reduces the need to address issues one and three above to the extent that each piece is not a significant source of electrical interference to the room or area where your cables are concentrated, or back into the power grid, and that your gear is not presenting odd loads or other electrical properties to the cabling, so protecting signals from intereference resulting from other sources in your listening room is still a valid goal, even if your gear is completely begnign in this regard (which it very likely is not).

And, regardless of how good the signal is when it leaves your gear, it has to get to the next piece of gear for processing intact. If the cabling absorbs any of the very expensive and accurate signal you are generating, I am going to go out on a limb and say that’s BAD.

So in summary, the better the gear, the better and more information rich the signal (analog or digital), and the better you should be able to notice when some of it is left behind of suffers some artifact in transit, or when such problem is corrected. To the extent that a user wants certain artifacts because they find that pleasing, then cables can be a part of "tuning" any system to the extent that they may be better at passing one or more signal elements relative some other cable.

I hear a difference as a result of all these processes operating in each of my systems. And my better gear sounds better to me with different and often but not always more expensive and sophisticated wires in between. But what is really remarkable is how good some very inexpensive gear can sound with better designed and implemented cables (not always... in some cases it just sounds... really inexpensive). While this does not pencil out for the average user, the results can be quit shocking, and can demonstrate just how universal the the properties above apply, and how well-designed some inexpensive equipment really is. Just my experience here, YMMV a lot.

kn