Current recording engineers - what cables used?


Two sets of questions for currently active recording engineers participating on this forum:

1) what cables are you using for power supply and low level signals in your recording studio? What is the overriding factor in this decision - cost, durability/reliability or performance? If higher quality is desired in certain applications, where and why? If these are trade secrets, tell us anyway :-)

2) what cables are you using in your home system, if you have one, and do you consider yourself an “audiophile”? What is the overriding factor in this decision - cost, durability/reliability or performance?

Some aftermarket suppliers of audiophile cables boast that their products are used in pro studios.  Others posting here have suggested that use has more to do with durability than exotic design and performance.  This makes no sense to me because I have build bullet proof power cables with hardware store parts at low cost that could be dragged through hell and work for years, but did not come close to more exotic design in terms of audio performance in my systems.

I would assume this forum focused on audiophile home gear might select for recording professionals that are more informed on the audiophile cable “market” and have more developed opinions on this, and so do not represent a general crossection of the pro industry.  But had to ask anyway.
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Very entertaining read. Great interviews can take you back with a level of appreciation not achieved much nowadays.
shadorne, you are, of course, composing a letter to David and Phil informing them that their equipment is poorly designed and/or faulty since they report to have clearly heard significant differences in cabling, and, oh my, power cords!!! Horror of all horrors: audible differences from the directionality of wire!!! Worst of all, this pronouncement coming from a professional studio engineer using ATC speakers!!

Dave

"What was the difference that you heard? A difference in clarity, I suppose. One way it sounded a little middle-ier, and a little more distorted than the other direction. Anyway, back to audio cable. We went though all these regular cables that people wire studios up with that are fairly inexpensive. And the one that we ended up using was made by - this is for the 23 kilometers of cabling - was made by a high end hi-fi audio manufacturer called Van den Hul from Holland. I’d actually later found out they had originally designed this cable for the Philips Studio in Holland. Now because they had a lot of stock on the shelf, ready to go, I was able to negotiate a terrific deal. It only cost five times more than a regular cable would cost. But it was worth it. It was our one chance."

"And all the cabling is all, every run, directionalized correctly through the whole place. It’s all running in the right direction in regard to the signal path. And every termination is made with silver solder rather than lead solder, because again, it sounds better."

"We realized many years ago the AC power, the mains as I call it, can make an incredible difference to the sound, to the audio. Most people, or a lot of people, are unaware of that. They think that if you plug something in and it lights up, fine, it works, with no conception that it could sound different."
I think this is a great thread.  Haven't had time yet to go and read the articles but really looking forward to it.  For my part, I've been using an Apogee Wyde Eye digital cable for years and can't seem to take it out of my system.  Stupid cheap by audiophile standards, but just sounds like music.  After all the fidgeting and expense we incur messing with wires it'll be interesting to hear more of what the sources of our music actually use. 

They found out that cables are critical... But these differences were found on very long lengths, right? Not 5ft of interconnects or 10ft speaker wires?