Cable septic

A good rule of thumb is budget about as much for wire as everything else.

Nonsense. HEA is overpriced and price is no guarantee of quality or compatibility. A good portion of the cable market is visually beautiful yet egregiously awful electrically with unflawed components.

Cables interface components and must compliment. If they don’t, which is at fault: cable or component?

I’ve heard the ear-opening revelations millercarbon describes from simply replugging connections.

See http://ielogical.com/Audio/CableSnakeOil.php for some background on cable properties.

tomic6013,245 posts12-13-2019 2:16am"@unfairlane Rober has some very fine wire in his system, got a good deal on silver Audioquest, so I would say he is already there....$500 cables aren’t the lunatic fringe to some... great IF one can get them for $100 but let’s all be clear his wire is NOT the free junk that comes in the box...."

I know most best-of-the-best cables, none of them are even close to what I once stumbeled over as a diy`er. (won`t take too much credit, just "found" them) 
Audioquest makes decent ic`s while they are way out on speakercables, too tiny. And silver will never work as a ic, thick silver though works in speakercables but not better than equivalent and cheaper copper.

I`ve sold cables to several distributours, and some of them has even sold my cables "under the table" to frustrated customers. I`ve seen grown, divorced audiophiles crying after swapping out their overpriced gold-and-diamond-edition ic`s with my diy`s.  
I know what perfect, inaudible cables can do to a system. So pardon me for sounding adjudicating.

I love these type of posts. People post so much more in depth when they want to tell you that you’re wrong. I think there’s a lot of improvements that can be made in the area of things you don’t know you don’t know.
I’ve never bought an aftermarket power cord. I’m still using the same AQ type2+ cord that they cut off a spool and gave to me when I bought Dynaudio Audience 82s 20 years ago. I only recently replaced an even older AQ snake of some kind interconnect because after upteen moves one connector became a little loose. I didn’t like putting in a freebie interconnect even temporarily so it prompted me to order something quickly. Been happy with a Stager Silver interconnect so far, but I think I’m falling down the upgrade rabbit hole now that a (very) little research has given me some idea of how much improvement is there for the taking. The hard part is the proper planning and budgeting, because I’m not eager to buy and sell multiple components, but would like to rebuild my system toward a specific target as funds become available. It might be incredibly mismatched until the final bits fall into place, but having one or two parts being overkill isn’t going to sound bad. Some pieces just may not shine as brightly as they can until the rest of the system is at a level to support it. I think I’m ok with that. Now I need the patience to not jump the gun and blow up my credit cards. 

If you can’t hear a difference you should save your money, they’re not meant for you.
I can hear a difference, so I have chosen to invest in cables. I just got some Nordost Heimdall 2 interconnects for the signal path from my TT to my preamp and am enjoying them and am look forward to their sounding better- no matter how long it takes. I’ll just keep listening and enjoying what I budget for and is in my budget that I appreciate.
Okay, return to arms and let the battle continue.

mmporsche,

I’ve done quite a bit of cable experimenting in my system over the years.

If you haven’t read the long bit about the Schroeder Method (Doug is a reviewer for Dagogo online), it talks of the use of double ICs with 4 sets of connectors to connect to the 2 pieces of equipment. This is obviously more expensive, HOWEVER, the sound result is well past the cost of doubling the cost of the ICs from even the same manufacturer. Doug told me about it, and I along with several friends have tried this with great success. I have double ICs going from both my CD player to the preamp and from my phono stage to the preamp. I run doubles to the amps from my preamp. All the changes were heard first with just one cable set on each, and then switching after a couple hours of listening to the double with connectors. The result is VERY easy to hear and just makes the sound more real in all ways.

That said, Grannyring on Audiogon sells his Acoustic BBQ cables with Duelund double wires for a very reasonable price with outstanding results. He is a DIY fanatic and has made several excellent components into super components in addition to building his own brand of cables which sound very organic with excellent clarity. I just know Bill (Grannyring) and have been to his house and heard what I’m talking about here. You could spend way more than this to get cables that don’t sound near as good.

Personally, I would have bought his but he started selling them after I bought the cables I heard in my system prior to buying them.
I now have Teo GC II with the Schroeder Method. They might be a little better in some areas, but these doubles cost much more than Bill’s.

I also had Speltz Anticables for speaker cables for many years. It took much more money to better them in sound. They don’t look like much, but sound very clear and detailed. They are pretty cheap at under $100 for an 8 ft. pair. I had to spend almost $700 to beat their sound noticeably. Again, Bill’s cables would only be about $325 for an 8 ft. pair. Cerious Technologies Graphene Extreme speaker cables are very well built and are the jump up I made to beat the spelt cables, finally. If you wanted much better sound than that, The CTG Matrix cables by the same company are a serious threat to many extremely expensive cables.

Grannyring’s speaker cables would be a great way to SIGNIFICANTLY upgrade your sound at a reasonable coast as would his ICs. I have nothing to do with Bill’s stuff. It’s just the best deal with very good sound in wires on Audiogon.

If you tried these cables, you’d have to be near deaf in both ears to not hear the difference in just one substitution cable set in your system.

I’ve tried many of the low to high cost cables from companies like Audioquest, Morrow, DCM, Magnan, Crimson, Harmonic Technology, Darwin, JW Reference, Clarity, Amadi, MG Audio, and others I can’t remember. The Darwin and Amadi’s were both excellent silver wired cables--the other were all copper.   The Clarity Cable Organic speaker cables are the best I've used in my system.  The CTG Matrix would be right there with them.  Many of the tried cables mentioned are best buys in their price range.  For your own benefit, the Harmonic Technology Pro 9+ speaker cables were $1499 for an 8 ft. pair and the Speltz sounded better in my system.  The MG Audio Planus III speaker cables were about $1500 for a 6 ft. pair--they were the first really excellent cable to beat the Speltz.  Bill's cable would also be considerably better than the Speltz--very natural and full sounding with still great detail.  There is now much info on the Audiogon Forum about Acoustic BBQ cables form Grannyring.

Much of the cable experimenting has been done after I finally nailed down my main components. My system is very detailed, dynamic, and transparent with no harshness at this point. I do have tubes in my preamp, and CD player--the rest of the components are solid state. The speakers have RAAL ribbon tweeters, fanatically well built mids and bass, and exceptional cabinets--like no other in build quality.

This is probably more than you wanted to know--but there you have it.  Buying used will allow you to get MUCH better sound for your money.  Used cables are generally at least 50% of list price or less.  

Bob