Best Interconnects for under $300 pair

I'd try JPS Labs Ultraconductors (about $130 for 1.5 meter pair). Not bright, dark or clouded: just smooth, neutral and no exaggerations. You might also want to check out The Cable Company (www.fatwyre.com), as you can home audition cables through them before making a purchase decision. They carry a large range of interconnect and cable manufacturers, and a very broad range of prices.

Carl_eber's comment about the Alpha Core's design being flawed because of the close proximity of the conducters is wrong. That design feature is the reason they make sense to an engineer. There design cuts down on impedence (inductive and capacitive) and allows a square wave to proceed through them with the least amount of ringing. Alpha Core is the only design that has the guts to show the wave form of theirs and their competition.

I'm anything but wrong, and there's zero reason why such a "low impedance" design would better pass a square wave without ringing. I'm sort of an engineer too. Creating low impedance by just having the poles in close proximity is the wrong way to make a cable, and using a termination network to control impedance (among other things) is the right way. And Goertz certainly IS NOT the only cable manufacturer to publish square wave tests on their cabling. You need to better educate yourself about highend audio cabling, Keis.

Alpha-Core Micro Purl without hesitation. I was using the Transparent Ultra XL which cost $900/meter. On the advice (pleading) of an audiophile friend, I put in the Micro Purl just to shut him up. I sold the Transparent Ultra XL right here on Audiogon. I'm sure that there are other very good cables out there for under $300, but I strongly advise that you give the Micro Purl a listen. What do you have to loose? Alpha-Core will even let you try them out, at no cost, for 30 days! Transparent would not do that.

Besides many others, I tried Transparent Reference (XL) RCA, a $2000 interconnect. In my system, it was soundly beaten in every aspect by the MIT Shotgun 330 "medium" RCA (which can be had used for around $300). I'm not saying not to try any of the Goertz cables, I'm just saying that I have already (not the new Pearl, though). The balanced 330 Shotgun sounds essentially as good as the 350 EVO RCA ($3000)...makes me wonder how good the balanced 350 EVO is ($4000). Someday I'll find a good deal, and try some used ones...can't afford it now, though.