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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
kijanki's avatar
kijanki
4,428 posts
 
Gherrea1 - I ended up 18.6% Now I have to upgrade equipment to bring ratio down to recommended 10% (at least that's what I'm going to tell my wife)
gherrera1
88 posts
 
Kijanki,

That's the perfect excuse to upgrade. Tell the wife your system sounds better with the 10% wire rule.
stringreen's avatar
stringreen
6,475 posts
 
There is no correlation between cost and performance in wire. I use Anti-Cables...I compared it to the top of the lines in Nordost, Audioquest, Kimber, Wireworld, Purist, Cardas, etc.,etc. To my wife's and my ears, Anti-Cables came out best. The closest to the Anti-Cables were the Audioquest Sky/Everest combination at a huge increase in price...and even then the Anti-Cables were more like music. Wire has to work with the components you have. A meter of interconnect will sound different with different components. All we can do as audiophiles is to experiment ourselves with our own systems, since MIT or any brand will sound WAY different in my system than in yours. The joy of this hobby is not to read reviews and abide by them, but to find out what floats our own boats.
joeyboynj
621 posts
 
I agree with Kijanki... But I'm at 39%...ouch!
mitch2
4,030 posts
 
Kijanki, you say;
"I re trimmed my Satoris with new spades and discovered that wire has inside isolated strands (9 I think) + 1 strand that is not solid but has inside again 9 very small strands."
and I found from the AZ website;
“An incrementally layered, multiple strand, non-extruded, pure "zero crystal" copper cable designed for amplified signal delivery in perfect phase with absolute spectral and tonal coherence..."
AZ seems a little vague compared to other manufacturers who more specifically report their cable construction or even provide pictures, so I have been curious to their construction. Are saying you found the Satori's use both solid core and stranded PCOCC copper wire?
I am finding a number of well-respected cable manufacturers using stranded wire for both IC's and speaker cables. To my ears, there seem to be trade-offs with stranded wire being maybe a bit more dynamic and solid core being maybe a bit more clear/pure sounding. Maybe Robert Lee has found a good sonic trade-off? I have been recently using and enjoying his Double Barrel speaker cables in 5 ft. length. I have been considering DIY speaker cables, but it is hard to justify when the Double Barrel's sound so good.
I am using DIY IC's of solid silver, some made from the raw Jupiter wire, and others made from bulk premanufactured wire with a 23awg twisted pair and foamed Teflon tape dielectric. My total cable expenditure with that set-up is about 6.5 percent of equipment cost and my system sounds as good or better than ever.
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