Author Topic: Has anyone had the opportunity....  (Read 17857 times)

Offline Emil

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Has anyone had the opportunity....
« on: February 27, 2016, 07:14:59 AM »
to hear some super expensive cables in their system.

Owners of these http://www.highfidelitycables.com/ almost sound orgasmic when they talk about them. ICs start at $1600 a pair.

I set a limit for myself that I woudnt pay more than $200 for a pair.
Maybe I should rethink that. Not saying I'd spend $1600 but if I'm willing to spend say 2k on a component, why not on cables? Shouldnt they be considered a vital link in the chain?

Please, lets not go into cost of construction and materials.





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Offline rpf

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Re: Has anyone had the opportunity....
« Reply #1 on: February 27, 2016, 07:58:11 AM »
Cables are absolutely a vital link, essentially a component.

Unfortunately, finding those that work best in one's system is largely a matter of trial and error.

Fortunately you don't have to spend mega bucks to find great cables and price is not necessarily the best determinant of how the cables will work in any system. 

See our own Pete/TWL. (plug, plug, plug).   :rofl:

I also really like Paul Kaplan's wires.
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Offline mfsoa

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Re: Has anyone had the opportunity....
« Reply #2 on: February 27, 2016, 08:00:15 AM »
Super expensive? Probably not.

But in general I do believe that the higher the cost the better the sound (I said in general - I know there's a lot of scatter around the cost vs. quality line) to the point where it gets silly.

Nowadays I feel you can get pretty good quality from a say $500 dac. Maybe 90% of the way to state-of-the-art But what cables are you going to use?  The 10% rule? $50? Nah - you'd be throwing away too much SQ.

$200? OK, now most of the SQ is back, cable-wise.

But the pisser is, spend $500 and my guess is you'd be able to significantly improve on your $200 jobbie. But now you've equaled the cost of your dac and that's just insane.

But spend more than $500 on your cable and I would not be surprised if the SQ goes up even more. But now the apple cart's been totally overturned.

So what to do? Each person has their own ratio of acceptable sound vs. $$ that is theirs alone.

So yeah I don't doubt that a megabuck cable can do things that a $100 one can't. How far do ya wanna go down the wabbit hole....

-Mike



To the point that

Offline Triode Pete

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Re: Has anyone had the opportunity....
« Reply #3 on: February 27, 2016, 08:04:55 AM »
to hear some super expensive cables in their system.

Owners of these http://www.highfidelitycables.com/ almost sound orgasmic when they talk about them. ICs start at $1600 a pair.

I set a limit for myself that I woudnt pay more than $200 for a pair.
Maybe I should rethink that. Not saying I'd spend $1600 but if I'm willing to spend say 2k on a component, why not on cables? Shouldnt they be considered a vital link in the chain?

Please, lets not go into cost of construction and materials.







You should read Art Dudley's review of the High Fidelity Magnetic adapters in the March 2016 Stereophile... Smooth... but that smooth sound was also duller, less contrasty, and altogether less interesting. His other comments regarding a John Lennon song is that "the song sounded tired and listless: The pace dragged, and the players sounded bored." He tried another song from the Nitty Gritty Dirt band, "the pace was laggy and lack-luster, and the reverb-drenched spoken intro sounded desultory and, again tired"...

He concluded, "I was surprised when the technology pushed the sound of my system in the wrong direction."

Wow, for Art Dudley to publish a "bashing" review says a lot...

Just because there's a ton of marketing hype on this "quantum" magnetic technology doesn't mean you'll get synergistic results. Others who spent a ton of money of these cables aren't about to bash them either, to avoid the "foolish syndrome"...

A couple years back Consumer's Reports discovered that a certain Mercedes Benz model wasn't a very dependable model and had tons of issues. What they had found is that owners of this Mercedes Benz model were embarrassed that they paid so much for this car and were embarrassed to report their "actual" experiences with this model. Instead, they rated the car with very high marks, to avoid feeling "foolish"...

My $0.02,
Pete

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Offline Emil

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Re: Has anyone had the opportunity....
« Reply #4 on: February 27, 2016, 08:37:02 AM »
See our own Pete/TWL. (plug, plug, plug).   ROFLMAO


Oh I know Pete's stuff very well. Have a bunch of his power cords as well as his speaker cable.
Pete offers the best value in cables in the business :thumb:
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I got to say it was a good day"
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Offline jbtrio

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Re: Has anyone had the opportunity....
« Reply #5 on: February 27, 2016, 09:07:22 AM »
Emil,
 I have a couple of their IC's and they are worth the praise.
The problem with Art's review is you can't just put them in and out. They need to settle a couple of days also, those weren't the cables they were the RCA adapters. Which adding extra connectors isn't a good thing, IMHO.

I also think Pete's stuff is excellent. One of these days I'll like to try his new PC on my monoblo :Dcks.
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Offline jbtrio

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Re: Has anyone had the opportunity....
« Reply #6 on: February 27, 2016, 09:10:10 AM »
I remember a few years back Art Dudley didn't think power cords made a big difference, just saying.
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Offline tmazz

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Re: Has anyone had the opportunity....
« Reply #7 on: February 27, 2016, 09:21:08 AM »
Not saying I'd spend $1600 but if I'm willing to spend say 2k on a component, why not on cables? Shouldnt they be considered a vital link in the chain?

Emil, I think in these two sentences you cut right to the heart of the question. At $200 a cable is an accessory purchase, but at $1600 it is a component and should be evaluated the same way that you would any other component, by asking A) Does it make my system sound better, B) Is the amount of sound improvement worth the amount of money you will have to pay for the new component (This is very subjective and your own opinion is the only one that matters here, because you can be sure that there will be all kinds of people who will want to tell you how they think you should spend your money.  :lol:) and finally C) What other options are there for a system upgrade with that amount of money and would any of them produce and even bigger SQ improvement over what you are now considering.

Steps A & B are pretty automatic for all of us,but especially with cables step C often gets overlooked. And that is OK if you are dealing with $200 cables , because putting that kind of money into hardware us unlikely  to yield a significant increase and if there was say an amp that was significantly better than the one you have now that was only $200 more you probably would have bought that one in the first place. However the game changes significantly when the price of the cables begins to approach the price of the component they are connected to. Say you have a $200 amp connected with a $200 pair of ICs. Your total investment in this setup is $2200. If you are evaluating upgrading your IC to one of those $1600 IC the question now becomes would a $2000 amp with !1600 ICs sound better than a $3600 amp with $200 ICs. Hmmmm, that is a much different proposition. or taken even further, would my musical experience be enhanced more if I just left the amp and ICs as they are and sunk $1600 into a better DAC or Phono cartridge?The decision tree just becomes much more complicated, as it should for a purchase of that magnitude.

But back to your original question, I have upgraded cables several times over the years and got nice improvements each. Many years ago I pretty much standardized on MIT cables. When I first got my system I went trough and extensive period of trial and error testing and listened to pretty much every cable that Audio Visions carried (Steve and Nick were very patient about lending me cables and actually insisted that I do this) After extensive listening MIT was the best match to the equipment I have and over the years (and many later experiments) that has not really changed) Other people have varying opinions on MIT, but they just work for me, except for some reason between the TT and the phone input of the pre,where the run of Monster M-1000 bests the MITs, I don't know why and of course the power cables, which are all TWL). When I got the VT-200 amp the huge size of the chassis dictated that the amp had to come out of the rack and on the floor between the speakers. I needed a shorter run of Speaker cables and when I shopped around the used adds I spotted a 6 ft pair of MIT MH-750 Shotguns for $400 that was perfect for what I needed. My Thiels had always been connected with the standard MH-750  cables so I figure the shotgun would have the same house sound and they were the right length and reasonably priced so I went for it. Now if I remember correctly back in the late 80s when I originally bought my original speaker cables a 6 ft run of standard 750 cost in the area of $400 and the shotgun version was about $1200 (Don't quote me on the exact numbers, but I remember that it was a bit more than double. Now I did not seek out the shotguns for a SQ upgrade, I did it to meet the needs of a new physical configuration, but I was very pleasantly surprised with the amount of additional SQ they gave me. Would I have paid this $1200 for them back in 1988, I doubt it (and of course when the amp was in the rack on the side of the room I would have needed 15 ft runs of shotgun which would have come close to $2000 in price). I have also twice moved up within the MIT line, one because I got cables on a clearance sale when MIT and Transparent dissolved their US Distribution and Audio Advisor was blowing out $600 cables for $99 and the other when I needed a 15 ft IC to feed the VT-200 on the floor and just found a great deal on ebay.) Both times I could definitely hear the difference in the "Better" cables.

But I also have to warn you that better is not always better, even with the same cable. When I got those MIT Clearance cables I quickly ran over to the home of another AudioSyndrome member, telling him "you have to listen to these right away. They sound great and the clearance stock will not last long. We plugged them into his system and not only did they not sound great, they sounded awful.Never mind not buying them as an upgrade, I would not have put them in that system if somebody gave then to me for free. And I found out about them from another friend who bought some abd brought them over to my house. In our two system they sounded Great (and are still in place in both systems today), But at Jim's house, YUCK. Cables are very finicky. In my peersonal experience just because they are expensive doesn't mean that they are good and just because they are good in one system does not mean that they will be good in another. (or even in two different spots in the same system as with my phono stage.)

So in answer to your original question, more expensive cables can, and often do sound better, but not always.

And just for the record, in today's market $1600 hardly qualifies as super expensive cables. Even though I would agree that $1600 of a big pile of cash to lay out for 3 feet of wire it is nowadays pretty much middle of the road in cable prices. Serach MIT Cables on Ebay and you will see ICs being sold used for $7500. Now of course I don't foresee those cables getting shipped to either of our houses, but there are people out there who have a lot of money and are not afraid to spend it on stereo equipment. Hey to each his own (I for one really like those people, because their purchases are what feed the used market when something new comes out. I never would have gotten the deals I got on used expensive cables if somebody else hadn't first bought them new.  :thumb:)
Remember, it's all about the music........

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Offline tmazz

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Re: Has anyone had the opportunity....
« Reply #8 on: February 27, 2016, 09:25:51 AM »
See our own Pete/TWL. (plug, plug, plug).   ROFLMAO


Oh I know Pete's stuff very well. Have a bunch of his power cords as well as his speaker cable.
Pete offers the best value in cables in the business :thumb:

+1
Remember, it's all about the music........

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• Sunfire True SW Super Jr (2)
• McIntosh MC 275
• ARC SP-9
• VPI HW-19 Mk IV/SDS/SME IV/Soundsmith Carmen Mk II ES
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• DigiBuss/TWL PC&USB/MIT Cables

Offline tmazz

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Re: Has anyone had the opportunity....
« Reply #9 on: February 27, 2016, 09:26:46 AM »
Emil,
 I have a couple of their IC's and they are worth the praise.
The problem with Art's review is you can't just put them in and out. They need to settle a couple of days also, those weren't the cables they were the RCA adapters. Which adding extra connectors isn't a good thing, IMHO.

I also think Pete's stuff is excellent. One of these days I'll like to try his new PC on my monoblo :Dcks.

Just go for it.  You will not regret it
Remember, it's all about the music........

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• Sunfire True SW Super Jr (2)
• McIntosh MC 275
• ARC SP-9
• VPI HW-19 Mk IV/SDS/SME IV/Soundsmith Carmen Mk II ES
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• DigiBuss/TWL PC&USB/MIT Cables

Offline _Scotty_

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Re: Has anyone had the opportunity....
« Reply #10 on: February 27, 2016, 09:38:59 AM »
I have a pair of Waveform Fidelity ICs in my system and they are some of the best sounding shielded cables I have ever had in my system.
A review of the Waveform Fidelity line up can be found at the URL below.
http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/0114/waveform_fidelity_cables.htm
 Emil, I would say that cabling is very important as is power filtering.
As it is, the rest components in your system determine how much benefit better cabling will net you. There is no substitute for an in system audition of both gear and cabling.
Scotty

Offline Werd

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Re: Has anyone had the opportunity....
« Reply #11 on: February 27, 2016, 12:27:42 PM »
Depends if there is a resale value. Brings down the risk if you can sell them. If they are expensive but can not be resold I wouldn't bother. Then they are just that... Expensive. 
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Offline rpf

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Re: Has anyone had the opportunity....
« Reply #12 on: February 27, 2016, 02:49:41 PM »
I have a pair of Waveform Fidelity ICs in my system and they are some of the best sounding shielded cables I have ever had in my system.
A review of the Waveform Fidelity line up can be found at the URL below.
http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/0114/waveform_fidelity_cables.htm
 Emil, I would say that cabling is very important as is power filtering.
As it is, the rest components in your system determine how much benefit better cabling will net you. There is no substitute for an in system audition of both gear and cabling.
Scotty


For those who don't know, Paul Kaplan is Waveform Fidelity.

The ICs I have are the prototypes that were reviewed in the Enjoy The Music issue listed above. The production design (which I have not heard) are supposed to be even better.
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Offline topround

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Re: Has anyone had the opportunity....
« Reply #13 on: February 27, 2016, 04:43:28 PM »
Art Dudley in general needs to be taken with a grain a salt
System consists of an amp a preamp, 2 speakers a turntable and a phono preamp, Also some cables and power cords and a really cheap cd player.

Offline _Scotty_

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Re: Has anyone had the opportunity....
« Reply #14 on: February 27, 2016, 07:06:33 PM »
Where did Art Dudley come from? I missed that part.
Scotty