cable upgrades , real or rip off

There is never going to be consensus in regard to this. Everyone is going to have different experiences. Some homes (for whatever reason) benefit from better power cords, or even powerblock, regenerators, and the like. I saw a review here of a Purist cable where the reviewer concluded that using that cable was a bigger improvement than buying a better amp for the same price.

People are not going to agree, but IN MY EXPERIENCE all better cables make a difference. It doesn't matter what the power company used to get the power to your house. I have replaced all the circuits, cables and outlets, and then the PCs, and all of it was an improvement. Next, I would like to run copper underground from the pole to my breaker box. Maybe I'll buy one of those upgraded breaker boxes for $3000 too.

Here is a copy & paste from a thread by Bigjoe, I went to the website mentioned and must say that I was amazed to hear someone so high up on the audiophile "food chain" speak this way about cables:

"This is a link to Roger Russell's web site where he gives his thoughts on wires & cables & reports on blind testing that was done, if your not familiar with him he was a audio engineer for many years & from some of the gear I own that he designed I'd say a damm fine engineer too.

If you are of the belief that big buck cable's are not worth using you may get a chuckle but if your a firm believer then you might be bummed out, anyways here's the link if you care to read about wires.

http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm

Hi Studioray,
Thanks for the link. For years, before I actually invested in high end components, I read "Stereo Review" and "Audio" magazines simply because I found them fascinating (translation: I had no money). Still, I developed opinions based on, what I thought was, good old fashion horse sense. I had tremendous respect for Julian Hirsch of "Stereo Review", who claimed that all well made amplifiers sounded alike. When I finally decided to dive in, my mind was pretty much closed to tubes, interconnects and tweaks in general. I am now a firm believer in those very things, not because of measurable data, but because my system has IMO evolved musically because of them. My basic components have remained unchanged through several upgrades and changes in ancillary equipment.

Studioray: I think the Big Joe thread is a bit outdated as he referred to cable comparison tests held in the first half of the 1980's. In this decade audiophile grade cables were emerging. Monster was the leader in that field at that time but I was never convinced of the sonic qualities of Monster cables from that period. My personal opinion is that cable comparison tests should be performed with current state-of-the-art cables and using the cable comparator from Wireworld's David Salz. It should make a difference if you are using zipcord or a high quality audio cable, whether it is used as interconnect, speaker wire or powercord. I am fully convinced of this. The differences are quite subtle (not like day and night!) but they can be heard, even by non audiophiles. The equipment should be discriminating enough to expose these differences (higher midfi to high-end gear, not the lower midfi stuff).

Chris

here's something to really make you nuts-
i have upgraded transparent cable several times according to budget constraints, and each time i noticed an incremental (pleasant) improvement in the sound. then 6 mo.ago i ordered the next level up which would have been ref-XL (w/MM technology), but due to some confusion the dealer got ref-MM instead. this error resulted in a complete transformation in the sound quality- a BIG improvement in bass, soundstage, layering of instruments, etc. we worked something out on the bill because there was no way i was going to send this wire back- the improvements were definitely at the level of replacing components. BUT, can i recommend that someone invest $19k for speaker cables? there's no way, unless $$$ is simply not an issue. but as far as the law of diminishing returns goes, in this case i experienced an exponential improvement instead, so go figure. i can only tell you what happened...