Cable vs. Electronics: biggest bang for the buck

I have to agree with Mr Crump. Knowing that Bob Crump markets his own line of audio cables ( TG Audio ) and therefore has a LOT to loose by saying what he did adds further weight to his statements. The fact that he is a business partner with John Curl and Carl Thompson in making MULTI thousand dollar components ( $6500 power amps, $10,000 preamps, etc... ) via CTC Audio might lend even greater weight to his personal insights. Then again, if one does not like the products that Bob produces or is involved with, you might not agree with his other points of view either. Such is life and that is why we have SOOOO many makes / models of every type of product to choose from.

As to Thsalmon's comments, i basically agree with one MAJOR exception. I do think that cables CAN improve a system and not just change the "colouration" factor. Since cables alter the impedance that the component sees as part of the load, it can alter frequency response, transient response and other loading characteristics of the component feeding it. Since the effects of that loading would be further amplified and brought to the forefront of the presentation as it went down the chain, changing one cable early on in the system can have a multi-fold effect on the overall performance of the system.

Since i can already guess that Thsalmon's response might be that only "junky" or "poorly designed" components can be affected by changing the load that various cables present, so be it. All i can say is that there must be a LOT of "junk" out there. I haven't run across one component that was stable into every load that was presented to it. Sean
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True that a cable can only detract, but that can be a useful tuning device.

As an example, I would choose to use silver cabling with a vandersteen/tube system. Why ? Because a system like that needs all the detail and upper frequencies it can get. On the opposing side I would tend to use copper for a midprice solid state system and a revealing speaker such as audio physic. Why ? Because they tune out the solid state nasties, and may tune out high frequency stridency. Part of that is my taste in sound too. I hate bright sounding systems. I like an emphasized midrange. This is why cable matching is so important.

I do feel that as you head up to expensive components and cables, the matching becomes a little less relevent. It seems that all equipment/cables in the top shelf realm are very revealing and very low noise. Once I chose my reference grade ic's I have changed components around them. Occasionally I'll tune with a rounded vs bright speaker cable.

The effectiveness of cables does depend on the way your system is voiced, and your preferences. As an example, my home system is voiced to have a very revealing midrange, tremendous imaging, fast high-definition bass, and a slightly rolled off top. If I remove one of my $700 (used) interconnects and put in a $75 cable, much of the system's magic go away. The ic's are an essential part of the system's performance.

By comparison, when I had a less expensive system I could indeed hear a performance improvement but it was not nearly so substantial. I've seen some excellent midprice cables come on the market - Audioquest Quartz, Cardas Neutral ref, harmonic tech truthlink. You can go a long way with $125/ea truthlinks.

Back to the original post, I have found that once you get to the 3-4K per component level (a 15K system), cables start to become very cost effective. You can buy a 2 cable set of midlin i/c's for $500, or top shelf ic's for ~2000. That 1500 cost difference should be seen as a component.

Thsalmon---Never a more appropriate truth spoken. Cables can only subtract from the sound because they can't deliver sound better than the original source. I have seen so many "Tune" with expensive cables that sometimes I wonder why they don't bring tone controls back. I have always wondered what a neutral cable might sound like, the no wire cable that all could be compared to.
The bottom line here is that if you like one cable better than another, you are simply saying that "IN YOUR OPINION" it does less harm that the other or colors the sound that masks something you didn't originally like in your systems sound. You must match cables with equipment---what sounds good with one may not sound so good with another piece. We have to tune out what we don't want or the "Synergy" issue.
My vote is buy better equipment. Of course, that has its own set of problems---as in what is "Better?" And as mentioned above, money doesn't dictate better sound.

I'm confident that Nrchy is well aware of the standard diatribe concerning cables. He's familiar with the rules of thumb such as spending 10% on cables, auditioning as much as possible, the effects of synergy, the impact of marketing hype, etc. He's been there. Please read his posts! You will see that he's well into the advanced stages of this addiction.

What he seems to be asking is:

Despite any preconceptions that you may have, what has been your actual experience in terms of the sonic improvements observed in your system by the introdcution of high priced cables relative to high priced components?

I think he's suggesting, based on his experience, that the conventional wisdom may be wrong.

Here is an interesting article on speaker cables from a great guy, Nelson Pass.

http://passlabs.com/pdf/spkrcabl.pdf