Narrowed to 3: 802D3, Sopra 3, Reference 3

Prof lets make the comparision with a sports car you going to spend $80k on a sports car and just replace the expensive stock tires with just anything and expect the system to perform?

The fact that most people in audio who have acutally demoed cables will agree with premise that cables will make a rather audible difference in the performance of a system. 

We have purchased our demo cables at a very ridiculous amount of money, if we couldn't hear the difference do you think we would have shelled out the money ourselves?

The fact that sometimes changing one cable in a system can make the sound pop to life is proof that cables can be a huge part of getting a system to sound right. 

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ

The Doctor is correct! My recommendation would be to call Joe Abrams at Equus Audio/Portal Audio and discuss your system and budget.  He is an audio industry veteran who will give you sage advice for free.  He also has huge discounts on MIT cables which are extremely musical and involving to listen through.

@audiotroy I've agreed with all your other feedback, but the analogy with cars I'm not so sure... I just happen to be somewhat of a subject matter expert in sports cars. The reality is that for ~99.99% of sports car buyers, they will buy a car and will be set. It's not a matter of buying expensive tires, so much as they come with expensive tires and you should always just replace them with the same thing. 

The audio world is different. You can't just buy speakers. They obviously won't play sound by themselves. It's more akin to the speakers being the chassis or body of the car, and the electronics being the engine. Perhaps the cables are the suspension. I could have an amazing chassis and engine, but if I put on shocks from an '88 Buick, the car is probably going to feel pretty shitty.

As an update, I heard the Ref 5 and 802s again last night on the exact setup that I wanted Mytek > C47 > MC452, and it was an easy decision. The Ref 5 sound good, and have an epic mid and low end, but there was just something a little unnatural about the sound for me. The 802s were really just spectacular. I ordered them in white, along with the 452 and C47. Since I was throwing around money, I also ordered AQ Water ICs, but still need speaker cable, power cables, and perhaps a power conditioner.

Mayor the analogy was when it is time to replace warn tires on an expensive high end car replacement tires are expensive, don't put on the good tires watch the car's performance suffer greatly.

The only way you know if you really like the B&W better than the Kef's or vice versa is to hear both on the same system or at least setup with electronics similar to what you are using or going to use.

The KEF's you might have actually liked better than the B&W on the correct electronics, the B&W are excellent we have heard the 802 and they didn't rock out boat but what you like is up to you. 

As mentioned before these are all fantastic state of the art contenders and with a suitably well setup system any of these loudspeakers should make you very happy.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ

audiotroy,

I’m not saying in your case that you are out to shaft people in selling cables. I see no reason to think you don’t honestly believe what you say about the performance of high end audiocables.


And I’m trying to convince you otherwise.

Your car/tires analogy only might hold if audio cables had the type of audible difference you and other audiophiles ascribe to them, which is begging the question at hand. If high end cables are changing the sound in a tone-control manner, that’s not higher fidelity, it’s choosing a way to color the sound. If they perform "better" in terms of actual fidelity, actually passing more, and more accurate information than lower priced competently made cables, then that claim seems to remain problematic.I’ve given reasons in long threads on this elsewhere so need to go in to it here.

What you offer is anecdote, and I have my own anecdotal evidence to justify why I personally wouldn’t take your "30 percent of the budget" advice. I’ve heard speakers I own hooked up to regular old belden cables, and also hooked up to $40,000 worth of Nordost (and other) cables. If there was *any* sonic difference going on, it didn’t jump out and sure as hell wouldn’t have been worth such an insane difference in price point between the cables to me.

I’m no high roller, but a rough estimate of part of the system I’ve been using at home is around $45,000 in speakers/amps/pre/turntable/dac.Yet a rough estimate I spend on my cabling (mostly belden and old kimber pbj and some other cables) is around $400. (Which is probably more than I’d spend now if I were to re-do it).

So that’s about .8 percent of my budget on my cables. Whereas if I’d spent your recommended 30 percent, I’d have laid out about $13,600 just for cables!!! I can buy amazing speakers for that amount of money!

As I’ve detailed in a long thread on this forum, I’ve been out auditioning a great many terrific, well regarded loudspeakers. And usually they have been hooked up to very expensive audiophile brand cables, power conditioners, ac cables etc. Yet, as I have expressed that thread, almost none managed to impress me as much as my own speakers - in any respect, be it detail, resolution, tonality, etc. And my poor speakers are being fed by "meager" cheap cables.


That strongly suggests to me that my audio budget - as outrageous is it is in light of your advice about cable expenditure - has been spent more wisely where it matters to me; the quality of speakers in particular far swamps any apparent contribution of expensive cabling. I’ve "saved" a tremendous amount of money that I would have had to spend if I listened to rules like the one you espouse. If I had another $13,000 to spend, I’m quite sure that sonic benefits would be much better realized by putting it into even better speakers (or room treatment) etc, vs cabling.

You have your views based on your experience. I get that. I’m just offering another view, and why I’m glad I don’t follow the type of advise you are giving.  And offering alternative viewpoints may make someone, like the OP, think a bit more before simply imbibing audiophile lore about the money they should put in to cabling.  It may be helpful, maybe not, depending on the mindset of whoever reads it.  But that's how it goes.


(That’s all I’ll write on that subject here, as it’s been covered in the cable forum anyway).
Cheers,