John:
They were my fairly new, broken-in pair of Reality's at Rich's speaker cable shoot-out last year. Based on all of the favorable reviews of the cables over on AC I had purchased them. I think Carlman and I were shocked at the results of the shoot-out as I was expecting the Reality's to hold there own. Unfortunately everyone in attendance believed they were clearly bested by the AU-24's, the Grover Bi-Wires, The HT Pro 9's and blown away by the JPLs. All electronics were the same with the only difference being a change in cables.
I know this was not a scientific test and maybe we can conduct another shootout to determine our opinions. There is a guy on AC that uses $2000.00/pair interconnects and uses the Straleys as he believes they are the best SCs available. Maybe the results vary depending on the speakers and amps involved. I don't have a clue, I was just darn disappointed that night at Rich's.
Ken
To me this always come down to the system that is in play and of course individual tastes. I have fooled around with the AU-24's, JPS, MIT and even some off the map stuff from smaller outfits and to my ears, Gregg's stuff works fine for me. I don't use his interconnects, but I do like his speaker cables.
Are they the best?...probably not but they work for me. I have heard stuff I actually preferred but it's my personal choice not to spend the money if I cant justify it.
I have stuff kicking around here from Acrolink (6N-S7000 - $3K for 2 meters) that I would put up against anything for those willing to spend "whatever" and some of the newer stuff from Audioquest has come a long way also. I sell both of those lines but don't use either one as the stuff is expensive and when I have put it up against Gregg's stuff, the gains were not enough to make me spend the money.
That may change one day as I move into an all NAD Master Series front end that is going to be powered by the new Spectron stuff but as it stands now, I cant bring myself to swap.
