It's too bad that Cabledyne went out of business. Their engineer worked for Belden Cable & Wire for 20 years and he came up with a cable that was better than what he used to design for Belden. It involved a type of shielding and had a different cable geometry and dielectric than what you'd find on a "standard" cable.
The best part was it was not an expensive cable, relatively speaking. You could get interconnects for about $150 and speaker cables that cost me about $350 for a 6' pair.
The ICs weren't as good as my Darwin ICs so I asked for a RA to return them. Puzzled by that, Ed Bowman asked why I was returning them since no one had ever done that. He asked for my take on them so I obliged him. Once they were returned, he asked if I would try out a new set of ICs and give some more feedback. I did. And the new ones came scary close to the sound of Darwin's entry level line at 1/3 the cost.
All they did was to swap out the standard terminations for some Cardas Silver brand of terminations and if I'd heard only that, I would have thought I'd hit the cable lottery. I let him know that when I returned them and for the life of me, I don't know why they didn't change to those ICs as it wouldn't have been that big a price increase. They would've had an eternal backorder to deal with.
As for their speaker cables, they smoked any pair I used before them. Zu Mission, Zu Event, Music Metre, Mapleshade Double Helix, and a few more that I can't remember. When they had a Holiday Sale on their top of the line Virtuoso Speaker Cables, I jumped on them without hesitation since they were 50% off. Never looked back. No intention of looking further.
The whole point of this is that I don't believe that one has to settle for something because someone else holds forth on the belief that what they say is good enough because, engineering. The world is full of engineers and no two will decide on what's good enough for others, let alone themselves. There are shills on both sides of this equation and somewhere, in the middle, are some great finds, depending on your budget. Like Williwonka said, some cables require a lot of work to complete and use better than average design and construction, which is reflected in the cost. One must not assume that all of that cost is some very high markup.
If I were in the market for a new set of cables, I'd look into some of the smaller, cottage industry types who don't have the market exposure and need to factor all of those ads into their pricing.
All the best,
Nonoise
The best part was it was not an expensive cable, relatively speaking. You could get interconnects for about $150 and speaker cables that cost me about $350 for a 6' pair.
The ICs weren't as good as my Darwin ICs so I asked for a RA to return them. Puzzled by that, Ed Bowman asked why I was returning them since no one had ever done that. He asked for my take on them so I obliged him. Once they were returned, he asked if I would try out a new set of ICs and give some more feedback. I did. And the new ones came scary close to the sound of Darwin's entry level line at 1/3 the cost.
All they did was to swap out the standard terminations for some Cardas Silver brand of terminations and if I'd heard only that, I would have thought I'd hit the cable lottery. I let him know that when I returned them and for the life of me, I don't know why they didn't change to those ICs as it wouldn't have been that big a price increase. They would've had an eternal backorder to deal with.
As for their speaker cables, they smoked any pair I used before them. Zu Mission, Zu Event, Music Metre, Mapleshade Double Helix, and a few more that I can't remember. When they had a Holiday Sale on their top of the line Virtuoso Speaker Cables, I jumped on them without hesitation since they were 50% off. Never looked back. No intention of looking further.
The whole point of this is that I don't believe that one has to settle for something because someone else holds forth on the belief that what they say is good enough because, engineering. The world is full of engineers and no two will decide on what's good enough for others, let alone themselves. There are shills on both sides of this equation and somewhere, in the middle, are some great finds, depending on your budget. Like Williwonka said, some cables require a lot of work to complete and use better than average design and construction, which is reflected in the cost. One must not assume that all of that cost is some very high markup.
If I were in the market for a new set of cables, I'd look into some of the smaller, cottage industry types who don't have the market exposure and need to factor all of those ads into their pricing.
All the best,
Nonoise