could somebody help me out on the benefits of expensive phono and speaker cables?

mapman, no offense, but it appears your reading comprehension skills have deteriorated even more than I would have thought possible. One imagines an Amish upbringing might not encourage math skills or reading comprehension skills. No offense to Amish or any other religious groups is intended. I’m sure they have their strengths. Or maybe it’s something in the water where you are, who knows?

drdeth,
You are free to believe whatever you want to believe. The world is your oyster.

numba nine, numba nine, numba nine, num...


seriously, I support Elizabeth’s assertion on this one, that seems about right, though I will say I’ve had very good results with Blue Jeans’ Belden sourced cables and they are a high value bargain. Just an option for not much $$.

Also, consider that the most often-used cabling in professional recording studios, everywhere, is Belden. So, it would seem that the same cable would be just as appropriate for playback as well, right?

10% is not reasonable. I’m my system, that gives me 17k to play with. Not happening. 18-20% was my sweet spot. And yes, cables make a massive difference. The problem is, people ask others for advice and are ignorant to your system so their advice is crap. Take the time and study, demo what you think you might want. Talk to the owners of the companies. Most are very willing! I know Tom Vu from Triangle Art, Joe from JPS Labs we’re an absolute pleasure to deal with. They sent me the cables to try for a month to see how they sounded. I stayed with Triangle Art with interconnects and power & JPS Labs for my speaker cables. I ended up also purchasing Toms phono stage & Reference tube amps as I already had his reference se turntable. Don’t be fooled by some of these guys on this site bashing cables. The difference is huge!