Best Copper IC under 200.


Based on what I have read here, copper ICs are probably best for my set-up. My system: Classe 6 pre, Cary CD 303, B&K 442 amp, Theil 22. I do not wish to spend more than $200 per IC. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. What are your thoughts on DH labs Bl1?
kadlec
You may be able to find a used 1M (or shorter) pair of Cardas Cross for that amount, and they don't do much wrong. They're worth checking out.
There's a guy in massachusetts who's company is called 'virtual mode' - he always runs a little ad in the stereophile classifieds - his $100 IC is great: I prefer it to the other 4 or 5 cables I've used (which no doubt makes me almost a cable virgin in this crowd!)
I don't think there is test gear good enough to measure a difference in frequency response or distrortion between differnt IC's. Just trying to inject a little common sense.
I'm all for buying things as cheap as possible. I too wondered about this, so I just bought/borrowed a couple different cables in different price ranges, and I do find that you have to spend lots of cash to get the 'ultimate' performance. If you want excellent performance the cost drops sharply. There are also instances where the 'expensive' characteristics of the cable you are buying do not benefit your system. For example, the transparency of a $1500 nordost cable does not really show enough benefit over a $250 truthlink with a vandersteen speaker because their inherently lower resolution (vandersteens make up for it in other ways) verses an audio physic speaker.

If you are building a very expensive, ultra high resolution system, you can hear the difference. They are there, and I'm not the only one who hears them.

As examples, my nordost spm cables sound more detailed than my nordost red dawn's, my (former) truthlinks, and the audioquest quartz cables I tried. All these cables were in the same general shooting range, but the spms were unquestionably better. I also tried some generic thick copper intereconnects, some $70 esoteric audio cables, and some mit 330's. All of these were a significant downgrade to the prior group.

On top of this, I tried my spm cables against the $8500 per interconnect Transparent Ref cable in my friends $70,000 system with all BAT electronics, SACD and Wilson Watts. We could both hear the transparent cable was better. No question about it.

I spent about $1500 (used cost) for my system's cables (2 red dawns, an spm, and oval 9s). I would rather it were $500, but honestly it would drop my system performance by too much. No question about it.
Hello Kadlec:

If interested I have 2 pairs of the Tara Labs Ref Gen II's with RCA's. One is 1 meter the other is 1.5 meters. I'm asking $125 & $150 respectively. Let me know if your interested. Thnaks...sagger