Choosing new cables

Might as well throw in Hemingway as a viable contender for that budget. Z core Alpha cables would come in around or a bit more than your budget. Lot of interesting cables through Gestalt though…

I think the obvious thing to do is spend the entire 15 grand on one cable (pair, unless it's a 15K USB or something), as it would sound SO good as it would lift all the more pedestrian cables up.

You could buy so much music and get some decent cables (that don't make any difference anyway) for a lot less  money. But hey, you do you, as they say.

I don't have the years of real-world experience that a lot of guys have here, and this is not a recommendation, just my own journey.

My jump from lower end Nordost started by looking for high-end OCC conductors.

This led me to Zavfino. IMO the value proposition is highly competitive. I'll be good for quite a while and you could go top of the line for a small fraction of what you are proposing.

Details in my profile should you be interested.

@bobheinatz Unless I'm reading your original post wrong, it seems you love the sound of your system now.  So why bother spending another 10k - 15k on cables that don't seem to need replacing.  The simple fact they are old is not a good reason, unless you just want to spend a lot of money?  Take a nice vacation.  Make some memories.  So many other ways to spend your retirement funds.  IMHO  At the very least, make sure everything can be returned if you find the improvement in sound is not there.