Reasonable high end interconnects: without breaking the bank

@millercarbon
My speaker cables could have cost 1/8th my speakers. My point was that I am not averse to expensive product per se, if it is better.

Other than owning a HiFi, what are most posters creds? Take a scan through some of the virtual systems here. https://systems.audiogon.com/
No doubt, some are stunning, but then so is a taser. Some are so badly set up and in appallingly bad environments as to be hopeless. Anyone with an uncovered TV or equipment stack between their HiFi mains please 'fess up. And go away.

I ignored the topic "List your System Ingredients: Listed most to least expensive, by list price or price paid" because cost is irrelevant. It is possible to purchase the very best [read most expensive] into an unlistenable system.

It is possible the $12K cables were just not as good as the $6K cables.  It is also possible that the $12K cables exposed deeper issues with the Mac and B&W gear, or the original recording, or that the more expensive cables were just a poor match for that particular gear or weren’t broken in yet.  In any case, your story just reinforces that cables sound different, and that it is important to try different cables in your system to get the right match for you and the kind of music that you prefer listening to.

PS - Full disclosure, I often cover my TV monitor when listening, but not always.

"Anyone with an uncovered TV or equipment stack between their HiFi mains please 'fess up. And go away."


I have been reading this same idea for many years, and my own experience doesn't support it. It does sound like it would make sense, but I have tried it in my system both ways, and not heard a difference. There is no discontinuity in the staging, and centered voices sound very focused. I don't know much of anything about acoustics, but it seems to me that it shouldn't make much of a difference because the projected output from each of the speakers is aimed at the listener and sums at the listener's ears; so at least with some types of speakers, what is between them shouldn't have much effect. I listen to horn speakers and they have a more controlled directivity, but I have experienced the same with direct radiating cone speakers.
I can't comment on having a TV on the wall between speakers because I don't have a TV in the listening room. I wonder how many people who feel this way about racks between speakers have actually tried it. I will admit that it could have a psychological effect, looking at all of the gear between the speakers.  

The effect was first demonstrated to me in a control room decades ago. When mixing, packing blanket were hung in front of the glass.

Large screen TVs are reflectors and resonators, albeit becoming less so with ever more integrated electronics and increased power efficiency.

For those with undamped large flat rigid surfaces between the mains, enlist the help of a couple of pals to lift a packing blanket while listening blindfolded in a darkened room. If you can hear the difference, there is work to do.

I and others I know have done this blind testing and notice a difference in terms of more a continuous and coherent soundstage with a blanket on a 55” screen.  In some rooms there seems to be slightly better top to bottom coherence across frequencies as well.  For critical listening, I prefer to have a blanket up, and prefer double layer fleece blanket to wool.  Have not tried a packing blanket yet.  YMMV.

kn