Cable Costs Relative to System

"My thinking is that if you want to hear what the recording engineers wanted you to you should use the cables they used making the music, anything different is coloration"

Jamo1,

So, if cables used for recording are coloring shall I use the same cable to color 2x or shall I use the most transparent/neutral cables?

IMHO studio equipment has no bearing on my home system otherwise I might start using distorting VOX guitar amps for playback.

What they produced is a starting point for me. Judging system's transparency/neutrality is whole another subject but I would use studio cables, or any cables, only if they sound better to me in my system. My AZ Satori has some roundness/fullness that compensates lean lower midrange of my class D amp.

Hi Kijanki,
My point was that the cables used in a studio should be the most neutral to the playback of the music that was being produced and that using something other than that used in the recording studio in your home equipment can add colouration or change the end result. At one point A&M Studios was entirely wired with the Mogami quad wire that I have mentioned. The producers like Daniel Lanois etc. heard everything throught that wire, voices, guitars,drums everything when they recorded and engineered the music. Thats why I gave it a try. I get what you are saying about matching and compensating for equipment room acoustics etc. For me this stuff has worked fine with everything I have tried it on and I a-b compared it with my expensive wire before selling it. In my case it has worked out great because the money I got from selling my higher end cables went toward better equipment. For example, my Moon lp 5.3 @ $900.00 used with a $30.00 Vann damme silver coated XLR sounds way better than a Project Phonobox SE II @$300.00 with a $600.00 used interconnect of whatever Cardas golden ref, AZ silver ref etc. Anyhow I made the suggestion and if people give it a try I think some will agree and benefit.

Jamo1,

I've heard a lot good things about Mogami cables and absolutely agree about trying what professionals use. I'm just not sure that they use the most neutral cables since they might find similar synergy between microphones, electronics and cables. Also studio cost constrains might prohibit them from using long runs of very expensive cables. Their choices are likely to be very smart (good compromise) while many cables were not even taken into consideration since wiring whole studio with cables like Stealth Indra or AZ Absolute (that I use in 0.5m XLR) would be extremely expensive.

I also suspect that some studios might not even care since I have many CDs recorded very, very poorly.

how does one answer this question when it is impossible to ascertain the contribution of cables to the overall sound emanating from a pair of speakers.

there are so many variables, including the room and ac, that questions such as this are at best, highly conjectural.

it ii is possible that some cable may have a profound affect upon the sound of a stereo system to the same extent as a pair of speakers.

After years of chasing power cables I have decided to know what's in the cables I purchase. If the cable design is a secret then I'm very leery. The last few sets of cables I have purchased work well and are a good value in parts alone. In my recent adventures I purchased cables which although pricey at least were able to be rationalized by the price of the parts alone. If a cable has $80 worth of connectors then the cable would be a bargain at $85 assuming the cable used good conductor which is not cheap.To purchase a $200 cable with $20 worth of parts is criminal but if a cable is priced more reasonably then a $500 is a good cable or at least should be if $400 of that cable is parts. Many cables are far too pricey for their actual value in parts. For me I found that there are many good cables made by smaller individuals or companies which charge a better parts to final product price ratio.I would feel more comfortable spending $500 on a cable with parts which justified the cable rather than a $200 cables which use $30 in parts and charge a 7to 1 ratio parts cost to final product cost. Good cables can be found at fair prices if one researches what they are after. Some DIY cables work with perhaps $100 worth of parts.It is important to be familiar with the sound characteristics of connectors as they can dramatically change the sound of a cable.$80 Wattgates sound better that $18 Wattgates. This is my experience.