Cable Costs Relative to System

OK, if so many are convinced that very expensive cables are a rip-off, who produces cables that sound everybit as good as top-of-the-line offerings from the big boys, e.g. Nordost Quattro Fil, Cardas GC, Kimber Select, etc. IN A HIGHLY RESOLVING SYSTEM?

Unfortunately, I believe that a lot of bias is introduced because people with lower resolving (generally, lower cost)systems absolutely will not see improvements from expensive cables. They therefore conclude that Brand XXX sounds the same as the expensive cable in all systems. I would be curious to hear from those that have systems that retail for >$50k, yet have significantly <10% spent on interconnects and speaker wire and <10% spent on PCs. I don't mean to suggest that all >$50k systems are better, but I am trying to put this in the context of the most expensive cables.

Is there anybody using <$250/meter cable in a >$50k audio system. If yes, please let us in on the magic.

Finally, if the big boys have such huge profit margins (and they do) why doesn't our free market handle this by us favoring high-value cable manufacturers? Are we all just sheep following advertising dollars? In the pre-internet days, we could blame the audio rags, but now we have forums like these to disseminate reviews and therefore can only blame ourselves if we are being "ripped-off".

One more point. We must also consider that although materials cost and manufacturing are a very small percentage of expensive cable costs, it may take an awful lot of Non-recurring Engininering (R&D) to get to the design of that cable. I doubt that Nordost Valhalla costs 20X more to produce than Nordost Solar Wind (Hell, they look the same!), but it does sound a ton better and it probably required more R&D to get it that way.

I often find the prices of some of these cables to be incredible. Certainly it doesn't cost considerably more to use teflon as opposed to PVC, or one grade of copper over another. Making jackets and tubes, braiding or twisting etc can have their own additional costs involved, but stuff like that is done for all kinds of cable, computer networks, power transmission, video etc, and it doesn't cost very much. The cost of designing, testing, prototyping and perfecting a design go into making more exotic designs more expensive but I can't see that these projects would take so long as to drive the cost up to these high levels. I was just looking at the Kimber Kable site this morning, and again this afternoon - they have a brand new site up and running - complete with price increases. 4VS up $1/foot, 4TC up $2.60/foot - and certainly the R&D costs for those cables has long since been recouped and the manufacturing of those is nothing new. The thing I found most laughable on their site was the breakdown for BiFocal X, its $120/foot, but a whopping $600 for termination! Who is terminating these things? The designer himself at $100/hour for nearly a whole day?

Now I can see that one company needs to keep up with the Jones' in order to maintain a certain level of reputation. If they determine that their cables match the performance of another company, they must charge a similar amount otherwise they seem like a "cheap" company in the sight of their customers, but geez, isn't this getting out of hand?

I didn't believe that cables made much of a difference as long as they were a certain quality, so I played around some, comparing zip cord to Kimber 8VS to some cheap hardware store wire that I twisted and braided in a completely unscientific way - and the cable I made myself indeed sounded terrible, and the others steps better, so I can see that there is something said for certain designs, and using quality components etc, but I haven't had the guts to lay out big dough to try the multi thousand dollar cables. Seeing how the components and designs don't warrant the high prices, I don't ever think I could bring myself to spend such a crazy amount on cables. The price is dictated by the market - somewhat like a fine wine, where it may not cost too much more to process than other wines, but because it turns out so well, it has a greater value. But by the same token, you can detect a much greater difference between a $4 bottle and a $40 bottle of wine than you could tell between a $40 bottle and a $400. I think once you get beyond the $40 bottle, its a bit crazy to spend the $400 - unless you have plenty of money. Some people have spent a considerable amount on the equipment, and can now afford to tweak with higher and higher priced cables and that's where the market is for those items. I think there really is a point of seriously diminishing returns.

Hey, what's wrong with the rating system? Just tried to give high marks and the thing came back as negatives. What's up, Audiogon?

I just did some quick calculations that showed I had about 14% of my 35K system in "wires". I believe in good wire, but also agree with Trelja in that I think excellent wire can be had without going too extremes. Where I think most of the high value wire lies is in the middle of a reputable company's line, eg I use Syn. Res. Mid-priced ICs and speaker cables, and I also use their SR/MC power cords. When I went up one notch in Syn. Res. ICs, there was minimal improvement but a doubling of cost. I have auditioned some expensive PCs that sounded worse than my SR/MCs. I concluded that I was already beyond the diminishing returns area. However, If the cost of my components doubled to $70K, I maybe really could take advantage of even better wire??? Only you guys with the high bucks systems can answer that? Cheers. Craig