$20 XLR cables that sound good

How do you know for sure that $100 or $1000 or $10,000 is enough to spend on IC's.

Is this not true for every link in the system? The progress that many people here continue to make is to add another level of refinement to their system with each change. Do we only upgrade sources, electronics and the speakers? ... and stick with budget cables forever?

And what does repeatability and robustness have to do with this? Once you get off the upgrade train, you have repeatability. But for the rest of us, who says we need to stop with budget cables?

If you are off the upgrade train because you are content with the sound of your system, that is fine. But every time you imply that cable sonic-differences are the result of poorly designed products, you do a disservice to the designers of those products and to the readers here who seek advice to improve their system.

As for the basic circuit designs of line and phono stages and amps, no new rocket science has really come along here for quite some time. But the implementations of these designs and the associated parts, active, passive, transformers, etc., allow many of us to hear detail in our recordings that we did not hear even 5 years ago. And this allows the music to get us a little closer to the real thing.

Shadorne, you put too much emphasis on what is on paper and not the end result, that which many of us can readily hear, of such high performance systems.

I've had my share of cables in my system in all different price ranges. I do subscribe to the theory that there are differences in cables. However, I have come to the conclusion that while there are some excellent sounding high end (and high priced) cables, the cost/benefit ratio was out of whack. Spending 5 times the price to achieve a 10% improvement got old with me. So I scaled back on my cables and spent more on my components, One of the best things I did with the extra money was upgrade my speakers.

To top it off, it's not like the cables I'm using today are slouches. They are all very good IMO (and yes they all sound a bit different in my system) and I can live very happily with them:

Magnan Type Vi
Grover Huffman SC
Chimera Labs
Mogami Gold
Oyaide PA-02

Jafox,

You are correct that I have a lot of respect for paper or the science behind our systems. This may be my problem (from your perspective) - no worries at least we know where we both stand. I just cannot see how a wire should make a significant or huge difference unless there is some unwanted or unintended interaction between the equipment at one or both ends. I just don't see why it should be necessary to spend thousands on a wire (my original post on this thread).

Some manufacturer's can assist you to match IC's. What cables did they find worked best during the R & D bench testing processes?

For example, most of us have read several articles explaining that Mark Levinson uses Revel Ultima speakers for bench testing components during R and D.

I'm very happy with a Proceed AVP2 +6, matching AMP 5 and Yamaha TX-1 powered cathedral monitors (connected directly off my pre-out signals). All sources sound right.

For system synergy, I'd place Ultima's on top of my list should I ever have to replace speakers.

Audiophile talk is like music and it goes on eternally. There's alot of great info here. Ask the manufacturer what they used and include them in your order for 2-3 different sets to test on your mains first after checking the return policy.