From my experience, I seem agree with Stereophile's assessment of Audioquest. They seem to sound midway between the "soft" cables like MIT(see a LOT of Krell people with these...) & Monster, and the "forward" cables Straightwire, Wireworld, Kimber. Maybe you should try. Look at the ones between their cheap stuff, and the real expensive ones. That being said, I really don't use Audioquest, I have one cable in one of my systems.