Cable vs. Electronics: biggest bang for the buck

Sean, the quote is all wire is crap, but some are less crappy than others....I don't try for state of the art, but a very good reference with all my wires. I am happy with their performance and that is all that matters.....Regarding state of the art SS electronics I know a bit about this as that is what we strive for at CTC.....CTC is a specialty manufacturer as you are aware and we started the company for glory and nothing more as we haven't made a dime :-) Curl, Thompson & Crump just completed the design work on a huge set of mono amps for Parasound and I'll be curious of the reaction of the audiophile community as these are shipping now.....Always better to spend the money on better speakers or electronics than expensive wires keeping in mind 10% of system cost will allow darned good wires in a 25K system.......

There have been many comments made about how the cables are functioning as filters, as well as having other negative effects on the signal. Is there any reason this wouldn't be true of every piece of equipment in the chain? Amps and pre-amps are not passive. Everything has a sonic signature! When there are large amounts of capacitors and resistors and powere supplies the signal is going to be altered even more. It stands to reason that electronics detrimentally effect the signal more than cables will.
Maybe all componants are crap, but some are less crap than others.

Nrchy - it seems to me that you're really beginning to get a good understanding of how this works. :)

Its the "end result" or the final sonic signature of the component that really matters - how it gets there should be mostly irrelevant to the listener. The fact that a component sounds good is all that should really matter.

I've seen lousy wire used inside of great components and while the quality of the wire was an initial concern to me, I ultimately realized that it was silly to worry about that when the sonics produced by the component were outstanding.

Likewise, I have known people who re-wired their equipment with GOOD wire, only to have horrid results.

As Tim (Tireguy) so eloquently stated in the first post - "Your system is a sum of all its parts". & I would have to agree.

But I'd like to take an additional step...

Audio is really quite similar to the game of Black Jack whereas the objective is to get a "21" without going over - by adding too many cards.

When building a component (or a complete system) every change made can take you closer to what might be considered a "21" - making too many improvements sometimes results in a sonic downgrade or "going bust".

You are right - everything has a sonic signature.

A component adds its own signature to the signal it receives. For example, if a component is bright sounding, a bright signal being fed into it will be undesirable.

The trick is to ensure that each component is fed with the sonic signature it needs to produce an optimal result.

Make sense?

In my experience, I have seen customers go two ways, depending on their components:

In the first case, their components are accurate and have low-impedance output drivers, particularly the source CDP. In this case, cables with lower reactance (capacitance and inductance) generally improve the system sound, particularly the image focus, soundstage and detail rendering. They get improvements that are worth the money spent on cables.

In the second case, the components/speakers are adding some coloration, usually high-frequency harshness or bass bloat. In this case, they are tempted to use inferior cables designs as "tone controls" to the get "sound" they are looking for. Unless they identify and eliminate the inferior component, usually the source, but sometimes the preamp or speakers, they will continually chase their tail, often dismissing excellent cables in fovaor of inferior ones. This is the "garden path", and unfortunately many audiophiles go down this path. Some finally discover the error in their ways.

Ah... but if inferior cables (less expensive) can benefit the sound of an inferior component vs. a continued degradation in the sound with a superior cable, wouldn't that make the inferior cable the truly superior cable in that instance? :)

I would gladly dismiss excellent cables in favor of inferior ones if the inferior ones make my system sound better.