Cable Costs Relative to System


Since making a spread sheet with my audio system prices, I have been thinking(shocked) about my total investment in cables. My total system retails at $67,000 (Digital and analog front ends included). I purchased all of it here on Audiogon so my investment is about 50%. Of that I have about 10% invested in interconnects and cables and another 10% in Power Cables (Shunyata Hydra included). That's $13,000 worth of wire. I'm starting to question whether it might be more effective to put some of this budget into acitve components. It would take forever to listen to all possible combinations, but would like to hear others experiences with relatively high end systems and cable selection. It would seem to me that the point of diminishing returns would be reached sooner with cables than with speakers and amps. Do most of you follow the 10% "rule" for cabling? How do PCs fit into this rule? Are there any super bargain cables capable of keeping up with highly resolving electronics?
metaphysics
not to dredge this back from the dead, but geoffgarcia, i was actually debating the same a few months back, at the time i had a very minimal system (integrated reciever + dvd/cd player, so a single digi-coax and some speaker wire was all i needed). i quickly dumped a good 7-8k into my system in a matter of months, scary thing is, everything seems to have "fit" a ratio of 50-55% electronics, 30-35% speakers and 10-15% cables with 5-10% left over for supports etc (speaker stands, av rack, etc). now - the thing is, i did NOT spend all of that at once, and it went in this order: speakers, then electronics, then cables. in fact, i would bet that your system from a price standpoint is about where mine is now minus the cables.

here's what i'd do:

skip out on buying ANY power cables (for now). or at least, dont spend more than 50-150 on any, and only to power your amp, and a line conditioner. buy a nice panamax or similar (ie somethingin the $4-500+ range) and plug everything but your amp into that. that in my opinion is better by FAR than spending $150x3 for pre/transport/dac power cables etc. get a good cable for that, or at least take and put an RF-blocker (at the component IEC end) on the stocker. get two hospital grade (aprox $10-15 worst case) outlets and put your amp and sub if you have one onto one, and everything else on another. then invest in the absolute best COPPER you can afford (something like audioquest's PSC+ level of product ie coral / king cobra would be a good balance of price/sound for your price range). the ones to obviously pay the most attention to is pre->amp and dac (or player) -> amp. don't do something crazly like a $400 cable pre->amp and $40 cd-player to pre... it's all about balance.

about the last thing to choose / upgrade is speaker cable. now, that might sound CRAZY because let me tell you, upgradeing mine (and i still have lots of room for improvement there i'd say) was the biggest improvement i've ever made save changing speakers -- however hear me out. all of the other things going on in your system make drastic changes to the character of stuff as well, so you don't want to say choose cables that are so revealing that a certain interconnect and speaker wire combo seems waaaaaay too bright or lean or whatever. i'd certainly go with the 10-20% rule and spend maybe half to two-thirds of that on interconncets and the rest on speaker cables (throwing in power cables later except again maybe the one to the conditioner).

hope my recent experiences helps lend a hand, btw to give you an idea of what i consider balanced:

(the 2ch portion of my rig)
B&W CDM1-NT bi-amplified from a Rotel RB-985 using 2 runs aq CV4
Rotel RDV-1060
comparing 1060 built in vs. Cal Audio Labs Sigma vs. CI Audio VDA-1
running aq king-cobra from whichever DAC to Rotel RSX-965
(using it as a pre and to power rears)
running 2 runs of aq coral from the 965 pre-outs to 4ch total on the 985
when using the outboard dac, aq optilink 1 or vdm-1 (toslink vs coax)

it's nothing incredible but i'm absolutely thrilled about it (upgraded from an old marantz dvd player, the 965 as an integrated amp and a pair of b&w 602 speaks). i know on here so many people seem to piss on b&w and it's main-stream-ness and yeah, i've heard a lot of stuff i like besides theirs (lets just say, my next speaker will likely be totem forests) but hey, sometimes the price is right :)
My system is in excess of $100,000 and the interconnects that I now use all Belden 1800f balanced. I have these as bi amp cables and use them on such components as M Levinson preamps 326s and amps 2 dual mono cd/sacd player Esoteric and thats just the audio side.I did use high priced cables but found when I wanted to change the type of termination on my cables that I could buy these Belden cables at a fraction of the price,so I purchsed the cables required and listened to the music there was no difference in sound at all.All those years I had been throwing my money away.Spend on components its those that make the difference not the cables.
Anyone interested look up prices on bluejeanscables.com you will be in for a suprise
Well, here is my two cents worth on cables. I just bought a Rega Jupiter/IO DAC on this site. The Rega supplied digital cable was replaced due to a reviewers recommendation for this combination. I bought an $11 silver digital cable from a guy on ebay because I too was a skeptic about throwing $500 at a cable. I can say that this $11 silver cable made a TON of difference in the sound of this Rega CDP. It opened up the soundstage and turned the muddy midrange into a delight. No longer a cable skeptic.

My next question has to do with a different digital cable. I'm tempted to buy a used Kimber D60 or Nordost Silver Shadow to see if there is an audible difference to this no name cable that cost $11. I'm also curious what difference a power cord will make for the amp. I'll let you know.

My curiosity concerning power cords goes to how your house is wired. Most residential homes are wired with 14 gauge copper. Hmmmmm..... what then is the meaning of a fancy 6' silver cable attached to an 80' run of copper.

My system is low to mid-fi. Everything was bought here on Audiogon. Jolida JD801A(J&J KT88/6SN7EH/Sovtek 12AX7LPS), Rega Jupiter/IO DAC, Vienna Acoustic Bach's, and a Velodyne CT80 sub. Silver 12ga. 50' speaker cables (ebay), Straightwire Encore Interconnect(ebay), and $11 digital cable(ebay). Nothing great but a nice sounding system for $ 2,261. New this system would have been around $5,000.

My thought is this. Buy decent but not the best. I hear more of a difference in the CD's that I buy and the engineering that was done there than I will ever hear in a decent versus ultra-expensive interconnect or power cable.
Digital cables,I compared a kimber digital cable costing in the UK.£570 with a cable from bluejeans costing $40 (£20) I connected both up to a levinson dac with two inputs so I could do a/b tests there was not the slightest difference in them,only the price.Cables are an absolute rip off.
At a recent audio party, we tried a half dozen digital cables between transport, and DAC. It was a blind test. We had: On one end of the scale was a cheapy, with the three RCAs, red white, and yellow. At the other end of the spectrum was a thousand dollar Virtual Dynamics digital. In between were some silver connectors, one I remember being "Homegrown."

All the connectors sounded the same, except, darn, the thousand dollar VD. It sounded better.