How are Crimson cables

Never owned them but I did demo them. Great bargain for the price, transparent and revealing. My only critique would be on their construction quality. But at that price, you can't have everything.

I first heard about them when I asked about cables from my dealer when buying my speakers and preamp. He loaned me a pair to try out and threw in some of their ICs too. I compared them over the weekend against some Kimber 12TC (which i had pretty much pre-made up my mind to buy before I heard the Crimsons) and a few other cables and ended up with the Crimsons. Their ICs made the biggest impact on me. They sound great but yes, the jackets get scuffed up easily. I believe they are closely related to Cat6 cable.

Their US distributor, Creston Funk at Austin HiFi, is also a stand-up guy. I went over to his home in LA to have him re-terminate some Crimson jumpers from spade to banana and he made me a stellar cup of coffee, played a bunch of records for me on his all Crimson/Tocaro system, re-terminated my jumpers and charged me only $20.

I own them and they got me off the merry go round. Balanced and engaging sound.

Yes, they are great interconnects. They are extremely "open" sounding, with a great sense of air and speed. I demo'd many interconnects a few years ago and they were the best by a considerable margin. The only IC that was close was from WyWires, but I felt the Crimson Music Links were better. And they were the least expensive to boot. I use the ICs exclusively in my system now. I think the distributor in Austin TX is pretty easy going about demos. Bob Neill at Amherst Audio is also a dealer who offers lengthy trial periods.

I've been using Crimson speaker cables for a long time. Many a cable has come and gone, but the Crimsons always find their way back into my system. I have no intention at all to make another substitution.
I've also used the RCA and XLR ICs over the years with amazing results. However, I'm currently using JW Audio's Reference ICs and am VERY thrilled. My system configuration has changed many times since the Crimson ICs so I can't really make an accurate comparison.