cable reviews?

Don't forget that USED cables are among the best deals in hifi out there, and unless the cables were used on a lobster boat or in a greasy diner kitchen you can't really go wrong and you'll save a pile over new stuff (if you buy something that sucks, sell it if you can't return it)...I have mostly AQ cables that are all well made solid core fancy-schmantsy blahblah bought for less than half the cost of new wires, and all of these work perfectly and sound great. A good example is a VDM5 coax digital solid silver cable I would NEVER pay retail for (expensive) I bought used for a fraction of the list price...I could melt it and sell the silver!

"Thousans of dollars for actual materials that i would assume cost under $100 . granted they should be paid for going through the hassle of sifting through what all the suppliers have to offer , ect ... but cmon !"

Google search the word Cardas. Once the search results load, click of the images filter. Not too far down you'll see 2 side by side photos of a Cardas cable stripped down so you can see the internal layout. The image is resolution 912x358 and its an actual picture, not a drawing. You should have no problem finding the pic I'm talking about.

To me, it looks like making that cable is very labor intensive, and the price may be justified.

For what it is worth, I do not think that I can afford expensive cables so I would say try the lesser cost ones and you might be pleasantly surprised.

I tried some Cullen cables and it cleaned up the sound of my system and made it seem more live.

W4S amp and preamp, Oppo 105 with Ric Schultz mods, and Maggie3.6's.

Cable reviews are useless.... all cable sounds different in different systems. Unless you have the exact components the reviewer used, you're shooting in the dark. Cardas was recommended to me for my system (all Ayre) and it was awful....go figure.