combining different cables

IMHO the need to use "ONLY" the same brand of IC's and cables is a myth circulated by manufacturers and salesmen.

I agree fully. This is also not the "ONLY" myth associated with IC's, Cables and power cords....there are many more. Why are these myths perpetuated? Probably because some audio components are not robustly designed as to be largely imuune to these minute changes in power or cabling. IMHO, they ought to be. Frankly a good design should not be influenced by miniscule resistive, capacitive and inductive changes of one high quality speaker cable to another. Frankly a good power supply design should not be influenced by dirty power. Frankly a good circuit design (allowing for true balanced and XLR shielded connectors with low output impedance and high input impedance) will usually prevent audible differences between one connector and another.

Instead manufacturers use unbalanced designs (higher noise), cheap RCA cables (often no shield but, of course, GOLD PLATED), amps with very high output impedance (making speaker cables quite influential) and low cost power supplies often relying on cheaply sourced parts that may not have high QC standards.

The end result is that different cables cause no end of sonic wonderment when stictly speaking they should have inaudible or at the most minimal impact.

There is no one cable manufacturer who is equally good at power cords, analog or digital interconnects and speaker cables. At least, I do not know one. Some manufacturers make excellent digital interconnects, while other manufacturers are very good at power cords. Just my two cents.

Chris

I've went both ways on this and find that there is synergy using one manufacture. While it is hard to imagine that every type of cable that a company makes ie,. analog, digital, power will be as good when you think about it if you like there interconnect cables and they sound good with your equipment then you would / could expect that thier speaker cables will sound good also. Not to be confused with whether there are other brands that will sound better. I have been caution not to mix metalurgy, meaning copper with silver because of the different properties effecting the transfer rate which I believe is just resistance. In any event you have to listen to different cables in your system and if they provide the sound that you want then why worry about it IMHO.

Ps: I use to mix silver interconnects with copper speaker cables which my dealer advised against. So I went to all silver and I honestly think that the silver / copper setup provided a fuller sound in my system. lesson learned trust your ears not what you hear or read.

I've tried using the same interconnects and speaker cables from several manufacturers, and have had the same result with all except one: too much of a good thing. All cables inject some chararcter (or "color") on the sound. I find that if I insert company X's interconnect I may really like what it does to the sound, but when I add company X's speaker cables on top of the interconnect, I get more of company X's signature on my system than I want.

I suspect, but have not heard for myself, that if you get in the stratosphere of cables they become neutral enough that the "too much of a good thing" phenomenon wouldn't occur. I'm not willing to spend quite that much money on cables, though.

Note I'm only talking about speaker cables and interconnects. Power cords are "a whole other" subject of discussion and debate.

I've been down both roads, and I feel that using all of one brand/model doesn't matter much. I've had good and bad experiences on either road. There is no one right path in this hobby.

John