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How Much You Spent On Cables In Your System(s)

How Much You Spent On Cables In Your System(s)

  • £250 - £500

    Votes: 30 15.7%
  • £501 — £1,000

    Votes: 28 14.7%
  • £1,001 - £2,000

    Votes: 20 10.5%
  • £2,001 - £5,000

    Votes: 14 7.3%
  • £5,001 - £10,000

    Votes: 6 3.1%
  • > £10,000

    Votes: 7 3.7%
  • 0 - £250

    Votes: 86 45.0%

  • Total voters
    191
Audioquest Pearl USB-A to USB-B from iMac to CXN-V2 @ £20, Audioquest Pearl Ethernet cables from router to iMac and iMac to CXN-V2 @ £35 for two, 4 VanDamme/Neutrik balanced XLR’s for CXN-V2 to Sub and Sub to Monitors @ £30.

So £85 all in, not an insignificant amount and no better than bog standard cables apart from quality of construction (I hope)
 
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£40 or so on a Supra USB because I thought the screening might be worthwhile, and £40 or £50 on van Damme XLR cables, though I have other similarly priced lengths to suit the different rooms and layouts I have had, and some I made myself. No fancy mains cables. The thousands I have not spent on exotic phono cables, speaker wires, mains leads and mains blocks got spent on decent active speakers, which I think is the most effective way for me to have spent my money. I don’t have an equipment rack either. My brains just about exploded listening to Andreas Schiff yesterday, so I think I’m on the right path.
 
I think the cost is largely dependant on what type of system you have, if you have active speakers connected to a DAC & streamer only you will obviously be less likely to spend very much but if you have a rack of pre/pwr/cdp/streamer/dac/phono stage/tt/headphone amp/passive speakers etc even buying reasonably priced Van Damme & Neutrik cabling the cost can quickly add up.
 
All Van den Hul. Some of it the trick carbon stuff. All bought carefully used. Its a nice, small part of my system that brought modest, but clearly audible, improvements in sound quality. I'm very pleased with it.
 
All Van den Hul. Some of it the trick carbon stuff. All bought carefully used. Its a nice, small part of my system that brought modest, but clearly audible, improvements in sound quality. I'm very pleased with it.

Darren is the interconnect cable? If so the carbon on old design microphone cable had carbon to stop cable microphonic noise, good kit.
 
About £400, that's for 4 stereo interconnects, 2 digital cables and speaker cables.
Mostly VDH mixture of new and used.
 
10 metres of NAC A5 £220
ATC amp give away moulded mains cable - mains and IEC plugs changed £37
Naim CDX2 give away mains cable - IEC plug changed £32
Din to RCA basic interconnect £35

I will admit that I have tried more expensive cables but they have always sounded worse, changing the 'tone' and limiting dynamic slam. The differences were not trivial.
 
really not meant to offend anyone here and not all types of interconnects have made the same difference to me but after many years of trying different levels cable options, I believe those spending little on their cables are spending too much. those basic branded (e.g. entry level) cables usually make effectively no real difference in sound quality and I would just use the free stuff if there is such thing, where available (to connect components to make them work). Not that there are no good cheap cables but it’s really not easy at get them good, not happened easily to me at least. Those that make their own are a separate category but for the rest of us, unfortunately better sounding decent systems require the investment in cables too.
 
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As one contributor put it, perhaps percentage of total might be more enlightening.
I’m a firm fan of cables (esp mains) and tables contribution and see them as the the foundation of a good system.
My choices are in signature. This loom all bought s\h except in wall mains, last loom of hfc stuff was new.
 
My system is hooked up with XLR cables and optical cables mostly. So 4 x Starquad XLRs came to about £45, Optical cables x 3, were about £15. I did buy a Chord coax digital cable the other day for £37 to connect my new Bluesound Node to a DAC. So that’s under a hundred for everything.
 
I think that there are many who are keeping quiet on this, or who're being economical with the truth! I cite the recent EWA LS40 cable tour; many seemed quite willing to stump up £850 for a 3m pair.

My system has a new cost of around £20K. Current cables cost me around £900, if that's of interest to anyone.

Me, I really don't care how much someone else spends on cables, kit, drink, fags, et al. We're all grown ups and are free to spend our cash however we like. The 'group think' phenomenon on forums is interesting, I always find.
 
I think that there are many who are keeping quiet on this, or who're being economical with the truth! I cite the recent EWA LS40 cable tour; many seemed quite willing to stump up £850 for a 3m pair.

My system has a new cost of around £20K. Current cables cost me around £900, if that's of interest to anyone.

Me, I really don't care how much someone else spends on cables, kit, drink, fags, et al. We're all grown ups and are free to spend our cash however we like. The 'group think' phenomenon on forums is interesting, I always find.

I believe many people don't want to wear their cable expenditure like a badge of honour hence the lack of involvement in this thread, This 'hero' mentality seems to be more prevalent in the 'less you spend, makes you a god' sentiments as seen on this thread, and the many many other threads that get invaded by the same cyclic rhetoric.

My favourite observation is as soon as someone posts 'I use the freebies' , the usual suspects get the 'likes' in like quick fire. Like a round of applause for the hero!

If you spend a £1 and you're happy, thats great. If you spend £10k and you're happy, thats also great. Who gives a f**k :)
 
I believe many people don't want to wear their cable expenditure like a badge of honour hence the lack of involvement in this thread, This 'hero' mentality seems to be more prevalent in the 'less you spend, makes you a god' sentiments as seen on this thread, and the many many other threads that get invaded by the same cyclic rhetoric.

My favourite observation is as soon as someone posts 'I use the freebies' , the usual suspects get the 'likes' in like quick fire. Like a round of applause for the hero!

If you spend a £1 and you're happy, thats great. If you spend £10k and you're happy, thats also great. Who gives a f**k :)

I personally think the less I spend on cables the more money I have to spend on other stuff e.g records

There's no "hero mentality" here, just a desire to spend my money wisely, and surely like a lot of things in life if you can achieve the same results for a fraction of the cost, then that's got to be a good thing?
 
Music system comprises active speakers, dac/pre, 2 sources - circa £1200.

2 x toslink and 2 x XLR all from e-bay £30 in total.
 
My main system would cost me around £12,000 if I were to buy it all new today, so I guess I've spent <5% on wires.

For the avoidance of doubt, this was not a result of any conscious decision on my part: it's just the way it's worked out, and I am neither vexed nor elated by this revelation, neither do I seek the condemnation or affirmation of others. Having said that, I find the whole issue of the passions stirred by cables mildly interesting, or I wouldn't still be here.

Speak later.
 
If I try to work out what my two systems cost, I go into denial mode, so I never get round to working out what the relevant cables cost as a proportion. I also shut out the knowledge of the shedloads of spare cables lying about the place.
 
The only fancy cables I use are from my Turntable to my SUT, then on to my Phono Pre Amp and finally to my main Amp. They were all bought second hand and are all Van Den Hul I got on here and Ebay and all cost around a tenner each. Speaker cables are just standard 79 strand copper in a plain jacket.
All seems to work ok.
 
Just to add the the above, I use the Van Den Hul cables because the plugs seem to be better quality than the freebies and the cable is supposedly shielded.
 


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