Worth upgrading from Morrow MA4's?

This may be a silly question, but if Atmasphere designs really are impervious to cable quality, why would it be recommended to use a $200 cable?

It seems like we should be using a $2 cable, and spending the other $198 on music, no?

Actually, the Mogami Neglex cables are much less expensive than $200, as can be seen here, unless unusually long lengths are required. (Note, though, that the indicated prices should be doubled for a stereo pair).

Those cables seem to be the de facto cable of choice in pro audio applications, BTW, which presumably says something about their reliability and build quality. I suspect those were among the reasons for Ralph's recommendation.

Regards,
-- Al

I went from MA-3 to MA-4 to MA-5's.....each time I noticed a real improvement. I did the trade in/up program.

Al is correct. A pair of 15 ft was about $100 a pair. My apologies. Furthermore, if Ralph's theory, proven in my case, that if the amp and preamp match perfectly, the cable expense is irrelevant. So even more evidence that this is all a crap shoot in most instances, supporting my thesis of trying cheaper first, which was all I was trying to say!

05-04-15: Springbok10
So even more evidence that this is all a crap shoot in most instances, supporting my thesis of trying cheaper first, which was all I was trying to say!

One more reason that would make sense, IMO, is the short lengths of the cables Rrolack requires. As I alluded to earlier in the thread, nearly all of the effects an interconnect cable may have, including those that are technically explainable and quantifiable, as well as most of those that are controversial and/or debatable, are proportional to length.

Paul_Graham, I suspect from your system description that the various MA cables you described using were unbalanced, and I suspect that the OP is and would be using balanced cables. Consistent with the comments by Atmasphere in the thread I linked to (and with my initial post in this thread), I would not extrapolate any conclusions about balanced cable differences from experience with unbalanced cables. Especially if the balanced cables are driven from a low output impedance, as is the case with the OP's DAC.

Regards,
-- Al