Cables that cost more than the speakers?

I just remembered a demo show by a B&W sales rep at my local B&W dealer back home around the time the original DM602 came out. The show was really to discuss and show off the Silver Signature, Matrix and CDM speakers, but at the end of the evening the Rep hooked up the 602 to the same high end system they were using for the other speakers to show off what $550 would buy. I remember everyone was impressed.

I'll admit that I have some power cords that retail for more than many of my components. The total retail cost of my cables (power, interconnect, and speaker) probably equals the retail value of all my amps. I only paid a fraction of those prices, however, thanks to the used market and such.

Doug is right, these reviewers who have 5 pieces of new eqipment that they review all at once are morons. Even worse is people who listen to their reviews, and don't think that these guys have a whole bunch of new components, yet are talking about the capabilities of just one of those five pieces.

In my experience, which is limited, I have noticed a couple of anomalies: 1) great electronics can make a crappy speaker sound better than you would think. 2) sometimes inserting a superior component in your system, even if it is a mismatch dollar-wise, may have a greater impact in a marginal system . This "revelation" came to me as I have been without several key components at various times due to upgrading or repairing something. While doing without my normal components I would have to substitute with inferior quality pieces. Even though the sound was not as good it was still enjoyable because of the other superior components remaining in the system. Does this make sense?

Yes. The notion of a chain being only as strong as its weakest link does not really apply to audio systems, in my experience. Because it seems that you can always improve the sound of the system by strengthening ANY of the key links, even the strongest one. ----dan

Metaphysics, I too found that particular issue of Absolute Sound very bizarre. Then I realised my speaker cables cost mearly as much as my speakers too, the difference being I bought the cables on eBay for 10% of what I paid for the speakers. And I would not like to go back to a lesser cable.