Cables that cost more than the speakers?

Another question: Would most of you agree that better performance would likely be had in an otherwise identical system with ~$17,000 speakers and ~$3,000 cable rather than $8000 speaker and $12,000 cable. I know it always depends on the specific system but who would start out with the latter configuration?

I don't think you can use any formulas because the retail cost of cable has little to do with what it costs to make and almost nothing to do with how "good" it is or how it sounds. They charge simply what the market will bear or what they can get away with. In addition, cable is so highly system dependent that, in any particular system, it is easy to see how a $400 cable can clearly outperform a $2000 cable. Given the above, I don't see how super expensive cables are almost ever worth it. Even when one finds one which performs well, there is probably another which is significantly cheaper that will perform just as well.

you have to consider that new cables are typically discounted to a much higher degree than new speakers. i am guilty of having transparent opus mm speaker cable ($23,500 list) and wilson watt/puppy 6 ($20,000 list). but i got full list trade-in ($9800) on my ref.xl ss speaker cable i had purchased for $3000 and a discount from there. so what i really paid for the cable was far less than the speakers. btw, the cables were more than worth the money for the performance improvement. it was more performance improvement than any electronics i have upgraded.

i believe you have look at performance improvement for the dollars not what you are spending it on. if the result doesn't justify the investment then don't do it. but don't get hung up on what component you are spending the dollars on.

Metaphysics, I doubt that anyone would begin with a budget that has a higher dollar amount allocated to cables. Mainly because of system synergy. I think that most people choose their favorite speaker (within their budget) and proceed from there. My cables cost about 65% of what my system costs, but through bartering, trade ins and buying through Audiogon I would estimate that I spent about 20% of system cost. My goal was to get the best synergy possible. If I could have easy access to say... 15 brands of cable, and time to try every one, perhaps I might have found a less expensive cable that sounds as good or better, but that is impractical. I relied on tips from members, and magazine articles to narrow my choices to four or five brands. I must say that given a choice I would pick the expensive cables I have any day, but if I had to pay full price retail for every one I would probably have settled for a lesser cable (for a while). Hail Audigon!

guess my spell checker can't spell Audiogon.