Spkr cbls & IC's-must they be same brand

Definitly not in my opinion. I've never had the same brand until recently and I've been through lots of wire with some satisfying results and not so satisfying as well. I do believe a synergistic match can be made but it takes lots of trial and error and you must trust your own ears - you'll know when it happens I guarantee you. I think Carl makes a good point, interconnects should be a step up from speaker cables unless your budget allows otherwise. That's my current setup; MIT Shotgun IC's and MIT 750+ Series 3. It is the best wire I've had in my system. Good luck.

Well, I think it's a matter of taste and how good your ear is. Mine's pretty shot I guess, so I can't really hear much difference between two GOOD cables. I'm not going to say you should use the freebie interconnect that comes with the closeout CD player you got from Best Buy or a penny-a-foot speaker wire. However, do listen to some different stuff and see if you CAN hear a difference. There's no reason the same manufacturer is all you should listen to or feel locked into buying. I bought two different manufacturer's interconnent just to see if I could see any difference. The system sounds just as good either way. 10% of your budget should be spent on cables. That sounds fair to me. Buy what you think sounds good. You're the one who's going to be listening to it!

I must agree with Audiolover on this one, he makes good points about different loads and tasks each cable faces, I say mix and match, best of class etc. I wonder if all those recommending interconnects and cables from same company have their CDP, DAC,Preamp,AMP from same company using the same logic, if the answer is no aren't you giving up the same "synergies" you feel cables provide? And why have interconnects and speaker cables match but not AC cords, this is a contradiction of previous rationale. You guys just killed the used cable market, as I must now have matched set of interconnects and speaker cables.....regards Sam BTW matched sets are fine, but mixed sets can often sound better for less money.

I understand your points Megasam. The issue of "components from one manufacturer" is interesting. In the case of Naim gear in particular I reckon you are wrong. Naim gear never sounds right to me except when everything is as per the Naim philosophy - but even then I am not a big fan. I have found that pre and power from the same manufacturer is usually beneficial, and while mixing and matching can be fine, that there are often problems. The caveat is that often manufacturers are good at pres and not powers and vice versa. But there is usually a synergy that is recognisable when both are from the same manufacturer. An even more extreme case is transport and DAC combinations where using the same manufacturer is almost always better. The point is surely a simple one - some manufacturers (but not all) will spend some time trying to voice their components together, and since they have more variables at their disposal, are likely to have some measure of success that is hard to replicate by random selection from the used components sites. But with the exception of say Naim gear, there is no "must be from the same manufacturer" about it. Carl, I wonder if you are so keen on the T2s because you are getting some synergy with your MIT interconnects (I'm not trying to wind you up, I am just intrigued by your reports on this cable), have you tried them in combination with other interconnects?

Redkiwi: I am about to try some Synergistic Research interconnects, yes...don't expect much, though. But, I don't see why it should necessarily be presumed that the speaker cables should "only" work with MIT interconnects (your'e thinking that only something very unusual would allow such high performance from such an affordable speaker cable? Guess I can understand that.).............................It's certainly not been the case with the MIT interconnects, which work with every speaker cable I've tried, and help even to point out the imperfections in those speaker cables (that I HAVE noticed with other interconnects a while ago, but it was harder to "see" those imperfections). If that's not "reference quality" (in my system anyway), what is? I'm sure there is some synergy, but these T-2's are making my brother's cheap Sherwood receiver sound very nice and "real" without loosing detail, and this is with NO interconnect (internal FM tuner)...so, unless it unusually also synergizes well with cheap and colored internal circuit board traces (besides "only" with MIT's interconnects), and NOT with interconnects from other manufacturers...then it would seem that these T-2 speaker cables might just be better than everything else I've heard!...........................Redkiwi, I'm more than happy to try your Wireworld Gold Eclipse 3 speaker cable. Just send it to me, I'll pay insurance and shipping both ways. I could send you the T-2's or T-3's to use in the meantime. Let me know...