I am sick of cables

...And with their irons holstered the two strangers rode separate ways as the sun set like a sliced cantalope on the horizon. Grown men bowed their heads and removed their hats as each of the gunslingers passed, one heading east, the other towards the sun. And so another chapter ended, only to spawn the beginning of yet another, and another. These are the stories that young boys would read by flashlight under their sheets decades later. These are the times when men were men, and a wire was not just a wire, it was a way of life. Fortunes were made and lost. Blood was shed and some men died leaving their wives and children with only the wires they fought for so fearlessly. I was there my friends, there when legends were made. I would be able to tell my grandchildren, if I actually had any, that I was there when those life-affirming words of wisdom were uttered;"...a man incapable of discerning a $2000 wire from a $3000 wire must be either deaf or seriously hearing impaired." Those are words not just to build a system on, but words to live by and to teach your children lest they never be forgotten.

ROTFL.

-- Al :)

LOL Jax2. What story/movie was that from?

Argyro, you have every reason to be absolutely fed up with this high price crap and voodoo of the month club approach to marketing cables. I've had upwards of $30K rigs and everything else in-between with tons of different equipment both tube and SS. Recently I put together the most cost effective system I could that would still convey the essence of my favorite music. Well, I traded my fancy cables for a pair of Wilson Sophias...a great start right! Then I went with my favorite integrated, the Krell 400xi (don't even bother with the new S300i). Next I needed the best CDP I could find for around $2K. I bought a used BAT VK D5 24bit (msrp $6000)...after a few days I realized just how dated and wrong sounding this player was. Sold it, and then I came across an advert for the newest Sony SCD XA5400ES for under $1500...well, after checking out the specs and securing a good deal, I figured what the heck, I'll bite! Next, I wanted to get as close to the sound of some of my best systems wt previously overpriced cables. I remembered trying a pair of Monster Cable Z200i IC's (soon to be discontinued for sounding too good) and thinking they sounded better then my MIT Oracle V2.2 IC's. I also remembered a friend of mine telling me that the Monster Cable M2.2s speaker cables were designed as well or better than the Transparent Ultra/Reference spkr cables...they also have the same networks in them! I bought both of the Monster products, hooked up my system and immediately heard music being made that was so far beyond anything I had heard before that I just smiled and spent the whole day digging through my CD collection for epipheny after epipheny:) I owned the Transparent's before...the Monster M2.2's and Z200i combo was better and lest you think I'm easy to please, I've been know to dump $15K components right after I bought them if they did not deliver on the promise of the reviewers and manufacturers. Expensive anything is not necessary if you know what you are after...it just takes wise purchases and alot of experimentation.