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

[RXH2]

I now have my most expensive hi-fi, ATC 40As and their CD/pre. I'm happy that they are working fine connected with 5m balanced cables that cost less than £60 from Designacable, as I would not have been happy to have to find another £600 for Chord or whatever branded ones. I have short Chord Crimson? RCAs from my phono pre to pre amp, bought second hand. I've had lots of bit of wire over the past 20 years bought second hand and sold for little or no loss.

Back in the 90s I did spend £50 on interconnects to go between my Arcam 8se CD player and Audiolab 8000A amp, both about £500 IIRC. A 10% spend was the general advice but I would have balked at spending £200 if my CD player had cost £2k.

If you need some inexpensive but well made RCAs but are like me too ham fisted to make your own then this guy on EBay makes good 'chunky' ones. I have some 2m ones that I used between pre and monos in the past and they sounded good to me.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/22447411...d=link&campid=5338728743&toolid=20001&mkevt=1

 

[dweezil]

4 x 8M XLRs cost me nearly £100 and 6m of Supra Classic was over £25.

A few basic cables plus a long Halfrauds phono for the tap deck input.

I'd struggle to find £250 spent on cables or 0.5%.

 

[Luceo non uro]

I've now spent about £900 on cables (Speaker/interconnects/Mains), which sounds a lot when I write it down. Most of that is due to the recent purchase of the LS40s though! Up until now I was using cheaper speaker cable, but thought the extra was worth it.

Put in context though, it's not a large percentage of my system cost. New price for all my kit is north of £20k, however I didn't pay anywhere near that much for it! So less than 5% of the system value.

 

[Tony L]

Branded cable inventory/a lifetime of accumulation (from memory):

Mains:

3x old style switched MusicWorks mains blocks (much of my kit doesn’t have power switches, so I turn everything on/off here)*.
2x MusicWorks screened IEC mains leads (old ‘90s style)*.

Speaker:

2x 4m Mogami 2972*.
2x 4m Chord Rumour II (one of very few cables that fit non-butchered JR149s)*.
2x 4m Supra Classic 4mm*.
2x 6m Van Damme Blue 4mm.
2x 3.5m Van Damme Blue 4mm*.
2x 4m Naim NAC A5.

Interconnect:

vdH D102 MkIII (two pairs)*.
vdH ‘The Name’*.
vdH C5 ‘The Bay’*.
SME vdH 501 RCA to RCA with earths for the 3009 on the 124*.
Kimber PBJ*.
Linn ‘Black’.
A QED RCA to mini-jack for the Walkman Pro*.
Various Gotham GAC-1 including several Quad pre-power links, RCA to DIN etc. I’ve got their coax digital link too*.

The Gotham stuff is the only interconnects I’ve bought new as they are really good, beautifully made and cheaper than I’d want in labour myself to make them for people (example here on eBay)! I re-terminated the pair with the octal plugs pictured upthread for the Leak. It’s very good cable if rather higher capacitance than ideal for some uses, e.g. I’d never use it as an arm-lead. The QED was also bought new as I really couldn’t be arsed soldering a stereo mini-jack!

There is also a large tub of random leads, plugs, bits etc as I used to run a small recording studio so I’m certainly not short of guitar leads, mic leads etc.

I’d struggle to price it all as I have so little interest in the new audio market, but I suspect I paid no more out than the current resale value. Haters gonna hate, obvs.

*denotes currently in use (I have three systems in different rooms).

 

[Chops54]

Over the years I've spent the best part of five hundred quid on cables. That was a long time ago, maybe twenty years or so but after buying some cables from Jack at the Audio Salon and then finding the same cable on the drum for peanuts I started making my own and have done ever since. Some of the cable in my system came out of the skip at work

 

[Colin L]

I do find this hair-shirt holier than thou attitude of "I've spent naff all on cables" a bit strange.

Nevertheless, there's a huge range of systems used by forum members and a wide spectrum of things that members are seeking to achieve with their systems. Some are happy with something that belts out a good tune and that's fine, for them cheap cables may well be all they need or require. Good on them.

Others like me, and there are plenty more, are more ambitious, seeking greater volume, scale, detail, drive and energy for their music reproduction. In these cases money spent on better mains, i/c's and speaker cables are necessary to optimise the system. Individually the cables might make a small difference, but collectively they can make a very substantial difference to the way the music is portrayed.

Ive got NACA 5 and other cables not being used. If put into the current system the sound collapses.

 

[Tony L]

I do find this hair-shirt holier than thou attitude of "I've spent naff all on cables" a bit strange.

I do too. It is even more bizarre when some posts come from drinkers, smokers etc who literally piss or cough their money away. I don’t get the hate at all. By saying that I just believe in paying for high quality materials and engineering, so the cables I buy are very much as the logical/proven end of the market. They are just good quality. I don’t want cables that alter the sound due to bizarre construction or materials, and I certainly don’t buy into 98% of cable advertising copy. I just want the best quality electrical connections possible. Due to the nature of my systems (e.g. I use a MM cart, have a couple of passive attenuators etc) I do need to pay attention to capacitance etc, so I definitely factor that in too (vdH stuff is very low capacitance).

Ive got NACA 5 and other cables not being used. If put into the current system the sound collapses.

A5 is odd stuff. A cable I have in the past been able to identify with 100% accuracy in a blind test (against Kimber 8TC and I think Audioquest). It works very well in the Naim systems it was designed for, but I’d not personally use it elsewhere as it does impose its character on everything. I very much prefer the Mogami studio stuff in my own system, that doesn’t have any sound or character to my ears. It’s just quite a lot of copper connecting the amp to the speakers, which to my ears is the way to go.

 

[AndyU]

Others like me, and there are plenty more, are more ambitious, seeking greater volume, scale, detail, drive and energy for their music reproduction.

I too seek “greater volume, scale, detail, drive and energy” for my music reproduction. I just think that a pair of decently made active speakers, and a good DAC, is more likely to get me those things than exotic wires.

 

[Colin L]

I think you miss the point. Good wires don't make a great system. Good components wired properly make a great system.

I heard Mondie's big FO Adam active speakers - enormous buggers - and they did everything. Most other actives Ive heard, including the Kii's, Ive found lacking TBH. Its the problem I always had with Naim speakers.. there's only so much smaller drivers can do, however driven. The sense of ease disappears.

 

[AndyU]

Good wires don't make a great system. Good components wired properly make a great system.

I would contend my ATC actives are wired properly.

 

[Colin L]

Well done you

 

[RJohan]

Very little money spent on cables from me. My reasoning is that the signal, obviously, is coming through even with a cheap piece of chord. Even if very thin and long loudspeaker cables CAN change the frequency balance a tiny bit, it's just that. Tiny.

 

[Colin L]

Not half as strange as I find it that almost all audiophiles have been conned into thinking cables matter. They don't.

It must be one of the biggest cons of all time! All the changes you think you can here due to cables are in your head only.

I don’t doubt your electronic bona fides. Your ears, most definitely.

The manufacturers of my amps and speakers, highly regarded experts, advise use of specific cables. The speakers have jumpers to tailor the sound of the bass, mid and tweet. The means of doing this is by different types of internal cables. I think I’ll take their expertise before yours.

 

[Nic Robinson]

[Moderating]
Thread cleared of ya-boo ad hom exchanges. Cable threads huh!

 

[wylton]

I bought a pair of Atlas Hyper bi-wire loudspeaker cables for my active system, that cost over £600, but I don't normally pay that much for cables.

 

[Fatmarley]

Started off with bottom-of-the-range Chord Chrysalis because that's what Naim used to recommend. Tried more expensive Chord cables and thought they sounded less transparent (very slight differences, though), so stuck with Chrysalis.

 

[AndyU]

The manufacturers of my amps and speakers, highly regarded experts, advise use of specific cables. The speakers have jumpers to tailor the sound of the bass, mid and tweet. The means of doing this is by different types of internal cables. I think I’ll take their expertise before yours.

The manufacturer of my amp and speakers - notice that’s the same manufacturer, so they quite possibly know what they are doing, and they know in a very well defined way exactly what their amps are driving - supply their amplifiers already connected to their speaker drive units by a few cm of wire that they chose and which I can’t even change. They advise the use of standard balanced microphone cable to connect their amplifier to my DAC/pre. A few quid a metre. I am happy to take their expertise too.

 

[Colin L]

As you should

 

[paulfromcamden]

The speakers have jumpers to tailor the sound of the bass, mid and tweet. The means of doing this is by different types of internal cables.

I've never come across this but I suspect that's simply my own ignorance! Which speakers do this?

 

[Colin L]

Per the avatar...MBL101eMk2
The jumper options are cables of copper, silver wrapped copper and silver.
The wires are Wireworld and that's what MBL recommend for the bi-wired runs of speaker cable.