Cable Costs Relative to System

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.

hi mitchlib:

you raise a basic question: what is a businessman's fair profit ?

have you ever owned your own business ?

as a business owner, with all of his/her fixed and variable costs, what do you think is necessary for a businessman to charge for his product to remain vaible, in relation to all of the costs expended to maintain his operation ?

hello I have read your trend and the topic similar to the one I raised cables are really the worst investment and if you only knew the mark up on cables in some cases up to 80%. In the audio sales industry it's called paying the rent and keeping the lights on. Many view spending thousands of dollars on cables as the norm . I assure you it's an audio placebo for some it's enough to cure the problem and for others the problem is still there. I have two systems a solid state system and a vacuum tube system I'm not sure what a digital system is? I guess that means a cd/sacd/dvd-a player. I initially said worst investment with a return on the dollar of less than 50% when you start selling your cables you'll find out it's much less. think about in these terms if the retailer purchased the cable back from you at 30% of what he sold them to you in the first place he would be just breaking even as if he was buying them new from his supplier. in used audio market cables are considered used and audio equipment is considered vintage. in the vintage audio market you will realize higher returns in most cases and profits on some rare occasions I can't say the same for cables. I wish you luck on your decision. I guess the 10% rule is better than 50% rule especially when the cable retailers apply the 80% mark up rule with the return on your dollar of less than 40% rule.

Elizabeth, in 2005 I posted;

To answer the original question, in general I believe you can get the job done pretty good at about 10 percent of system cost, and no higher than 25 percent. Beyond that, I would probably start replacing components or speakers.

I just calculated the retail value of my system at around $50,000, of which the cables are about $4,000, or just about 8 percent. I have gone to DIY mostly made with high quality bulk cable and some of the best connectors available. I also have some DIY made with raw materials but, I generally like the bulk cable variety better. My only remaining manufactured cables are two Isoclean PC's I picked up with an amp purchase. In comparison, I do not believe the DIY cables are at all inferior to some of the better manufactured cables I have tried, by Cardas, Purist, Acoustic Zen, Harmonic Technology, Audioquest and others (no, I haven't tried them all). I still believe the bigger bang for your buck is in the components and speakers, and would allocate maybe 10 to 15 percent for cables, and another 5 to 10 percent for isolation and room treatment. Of course, buying used and DIY can reduce those numbers.