$20 XLR cables that sound good

I first want to point out that OTL designs such as Ralph's have considerably greater output impedance than most amplifiers, and are designed based on what he refers to as a power paradigm, as opposed to the much more common voltage source paradigm, and so we should be cautious extrapolating from what works best with his amplifiers to others.

For that matter, as Vett93 alluded to above, source components or preamps with highish output impedances will tend to be "revealing" of cable "differences" which are in reality just the interaction of their output impedance with differing capacitances of the cables being compared. And power amplifiers driving difficult loads (loads that are either low impedance at some frequencies, or are highly capacitive such as many electrostatics) may react to those loads differently depending on speaker cable inductance and resistance.

Not to mention that many expensive cables are designed to be non-neutral.

I'm not particularly taking a position on the disagreements which have been expressed in this thread, just pointing out that it's easy to mis-generalize about cable differences, and that some of the reasons for differences don't correlate with price.

Regards,
-- Al

Regards,
-- Al

Jafox,

My view point is that well designed, well matched and well built gear should not be a victim of slight differences in cables. I know you disagree with this approach to equipment selection but from my perspective we simply disagree on what is a "well designed, well matched and well built" gear. I don't subscribe to the princess and pea philosophy - I expect my gear to work despite a pea underneath twenty mattresses. I know you think the sound of my gear will be awful from your perspective but I value repeatability and robustness in products under a variety of conditions and loads and levels. I value these aspects equally as much as the sound quality. I would not be happy with a "princess and the pea" type product just in the same way I could not handle a speaker that required my head to be in a vice like position to get the perfect imaging - I like and expect a large sweetspot - I even expect to be able to stand up and have it sound substantially the same (why I prefer a far-field position).

I can tell a HUGE difference between different XLR interconnects on this system.

I don't question your observations but this would drive me nuts...how do you know that you have solved the problem? How do you know for sure that $100 or $1000 or $10,000 is enough to spend on IC's. I mean if a different wire makes a HUGE difference then how do you determine that you are getting the best out of your system...I mean there are literally hundreds if not thousands of IC's you might try?

Good point Shadorne. I am sure that I have not found (and cannot afford) the best cables, but the good part is that every cable upgrade (in lieu of upgrading componentry) brings a solid improvement in the sound of my system and a smile to my face. That is what the hi-end is all about for me...