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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
I plumped for 0-250:
£80 odd for TQ Black speaker cables
£40 for two sets of Carkokab interconnects
£20 for a power cable
£25 for the bits for two more power cables
£10 for an old Chord interconnect
 
I used to buy decent cables in the 90s, but never more than £20 or so. Ever since I've just recycled the old stuff. Not sure when I last bought an interconnect. Certainly never paid for a mains cable.
 
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.

IMG-6290-36.jpg

I heard these in Munich. Utterly extraordinary. One of the top three sounding rooms at the show in my book. What amp and source do you run with them?
 
I guess if you’re committed to spending many £100’s/£1000’s on cabling for subjective sonic differences then £200 on a umik mic+REW or similar software will be a very easy sell, and that’s on top of simple acoustic treatment.
 
Cables in this gaff:

Mark Grant mains (2)
DH Labs mains
Atlas Mavros aes
Atlas 4DD mains (2)
Shunyata Delta nr mains
Chord Sarum T mains
Yannis Tome interconnect
Musicworks Revive mains
Shunyata Alpha nr mains
EWA mains
Puritan Ultimate
Wot is in the box mains for ARC pre.
Atlas Asimi XLR
Transparent music wave + speaker cable
Lessloss c mark digital
Lessloss c mark interconnect

Das ist alle I think.

No it’s not - MIT shotgun interconnect
 
I bought a Siltech G7 550 interconnect from Badger recently. It is superb. It's better than the £200 cable it replaced by some margin.

Mains cables make the biggest improvement in sound in my system. I'm using MRCU Pinnacle into my regenerator (this made a terrific improvement), MCRU ultimate to an Oyaide USA plug mains block, Siltech 330 mains cable to my pre amp (Iego Silver connectors), Nanotec Golden Strata to my monoblocs (Oyaide 004 connectors), an entry grade Furutech mains cable bought off the roll with the Furutech FI50 connector into my Denafrips Terminator. My analogue system doesn't need mains cables as the Phono stage is battery powered.

Speaker cables are Analysis Plus Big Silver oval. Again superb.

There's another pair of Siltech 330 interconnect and then the rest are Yannis Tome.
 
Slightly off-topic, but I've often wondered how designers of exotic and invariably expensive cables go about the process? Given that we are not talking about simple and well understood changes in LCR, how do the designers predict and measure the apparently unpredictable and unmeasurable? Is it a totally random process?
 
Slightly off-topic, but I've often wondered how designers of exotic and invariably expensive cables go about the process? Given that we are not talking about simple and well understood changes in LCR, how do the designers predict and measure the apparently unpredictable and unmeasurable? Is it a totally random process?

Here we go..
 
Slightly off-topic, but I've often wondered how designers of exotic and invariably expensive cables go about the process? Given that we are not talking about simple and well understood changes in LCR, how do the designers predict and measure the apparently unpredictable and unmeasurable? Is it a totally random process?
Another thing that puzzles me about fancy cables is does a fancy cable sound better the longer it is, in which case how does it do that, or does a long length sound worse than a short length, in which case why is a long length more expensive?
 
Cables in this gaff:

Mark Grant mains (2)
DH Labs mains
Atlas Mavros aes
Atlas 4DD mains (2)
Shunyata Delta nr mains
Chord Sarum T mains
Yannis Tome interconnect
Musicworks Revive mains
Shunyata Alpha nr mains
EWA mains
Puritan Ultimate
Wot is in the box mains for ARC pre.
Atlas Asimi XLR
Transparent music wave + speaker cable
Lessloss c mark digital
Lessloss c mark interconnect

Das ist alle I think.

No it’s not - MIT shotgun interconnect

Interesting cables you have. I love the Shunyata Alpha. I have the ef (extra flexible) version. In my systems it sounded better than the Shunyata Sigma, which was twice the price. I ended up with 5 of them as they just made both DACs and amps sound better, more so than any other mains cable I have tried. Crazy that they stopped making the Alpha ef.

I am curious about Lessloss - the manufacturer of my speakers (Boenicke) likes them very much. And they have interesting mains products. Did you compare them to others, and if so how would you describe their sound in your system?
 
Another thing that puzzles me about fancy cables is does a fancy cable sound better the longer it is, in which case how does it do that, or does a long length sound worse than a short length, in which case why is a long length more expensive?

By cable type where I have tested same cable at different lengths - rca I found sounds better shorter though it was so close I may have imagined it, but Xlr I notice no difference on length. USB definitely better shorter. Ethernet I notice no difference. Mains cable - I have not tested different lengths of the same cable. DC cables from a PS - the manufacturers all seem to agree shorter is better but I heard no difference between 0.5m and 2.0m. Speaker cable - I couldn’t tell the difference between short or long lengths of the same cable. Optical (though you don’t get 'fancy' optical cable), no difference by length for me.

The reason longer is more expensive is due to the greater amount of materials used to manufacture it, though that is so obvious I suspect your question is facetious in the way anti-cablers think amusing.
 
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.

I don't really see any hate! From a quick scan of the thread there are only two posters using freebie interconnects. Everyone else seems to be using competently designed/constructed interconnects of the type you describe or more esoteric/expensive high-end cables. Not many hairshirts in evidence.

Surprised that no one has posted anything about DIY cable designs - I've seen these pop up on other forums and TNT Audio have published designs in the past.
 
No idea how much I've spent over the decades on cables, but it will be well south of 250 quid. Most of my interconnects have been made from UHF TV coax bought as a 100m drum decades ago. There was a time a decade or whatever ago when 'shark' brand coax was cheap so I bought some. (I was shocked more recently to see the price for the same cable had gone up by ordered of magnitude! Tells you something, I guess.) But overall I've bought from RS, CPC, Farnell fairly standard cables with no fancy claims of prices. I have tried others many years ago and found none were magical.

I choose USB cables on length and class rating.

FWIW The co-ax runs in the main system are about 8m and 5m IIRC. They run beside a two-wire mains cable. No hum problems though.

Speaker cable chosen to have a low resistance/metre and be as short as possible.

No magic, just music. I'm all for cables. I wouldn't be able to hear the music without them! :)
 
I don't really see any hate! From a quick scan of the thread there are only two posters using freebie interconnects. Everyone else seems to be using competently designed/constructed interconnects of the type you describe or more esoteric/expensive high-end cables. Not many hairshirts in evidence.

Surprised that no one has posted anything about DIY cable designs - I've seen these pop up on other forums and TNT Audio have published designs in the past.
I'm using DIY.
 


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