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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
muralman1
1,527 posts
 
The answer is the value of any component is only perceptible by the system owner.

That given, I can truthfully say, on my system, no 10k speaker cable was worth looking at. The cabling I have is is worth .01 the worth of my system.

MIT, Cardas, Jena, and Kimber among others failed miserably.

Obviously, I am a lucky audiophile to spend so little on wires, for a sound I love.
bradleyc
10 posts
 
Imo, audiophile-grade equipment and decent source material need good cables to preserve the signal quality by adding as little distortion as possible. Unfortunately this doesn't usually doesn't come cheap, even with used cables. I find it hard to believe that anybody would claim they can't hear the difference between RadioShack wire and a decent set of cables, unless they've blown their ear drums and/or mind out...
dave_b's avatar
dave_b
3,159 posts
 
I'll say this again, one of the best finds in cabling is the Monster Z200i IC. The shame is they are discontinueing it. It allows a huge soundstage with extremely pure and grain free highs, open warm and detailed mids with killer fast bass. I am currently trying to best it with A/B listening off of my CDP which has XLR and RCA outs with the same line level signal output.
dave_b's avatar
dave_b
3,159 posts
 
After extensive listening with the Monster Z200i vs MIT's Magnum M1 Proline IC's the winner is the Z200i RCA's! Also trying to gain an improvement over my Monster M2.2s speaker cables by auditioning SRTesla Accelerator, Purist Aqueas Anniversary and Analysis plus Big Siver Oval's. Also tried Magnum M1 speaker cables but they failed horribly. So far the SR's have not bettered the monster's and it looks bleak for the others as well.
joeyboynj
621 posts
 
Dave_b, the accelerators are ok but SR's Apex are 100 times better. I'm curious to see what you would think of an all SR top-O-line cables with a Powercell and a Teslaplex outlet. ;-)
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