Are those $10K cables worth the money?

treitz3

Perhaps. If I were to tell you how much the crossover upgrade has set my wallet back, there are probably many on this board who would agree with just that. Thing is, my bills are paid, the family is being fed and my responsibilities are being done. For me, it's not about justifying the cost to myself or anyone else for that matter. It's all about the end result as to what hits these ears of mine, sitting back and not only enjoying the music but experiencing it in pure unadulterated sonic bliss.

Tom

bikezappa

Tom

It's all about having fun.

Mystery

George Grand wrote: »

And to be fair, there are plenty of people (learned people) who don't feel these are bottlenecks. So if you perceive them as bottlenecks, that is when you want to go out and do something about it.

I actually raised a question in another forum about this.
I asked about freakin expensive power cables.
They are only 3ft long but cost over $1500 so my question was if the in-wall electric cable (I'm sure that doesn't even cost 10x less) is not of the same quality as the power cord, how can give more quality than the in-wall electric cable?
Everyone/most mentioned that doesn't matter, it only matters from outlet to the amp.
:eek: :rolleyes:

bikezappa

[QUOTE=
Everyone/most mentioned that doesn't matter, it only matters from outlet to the amp.
:eek: :rolleyes:[/QUOTE]

That statement that it only matters from outlet to amp makes no scientific sense to me. The line cord is not designed to be a filter.

tonyb

C'mon man, not every power cord cost 1500 bucks.....and the best way to solve your mystery is grab a decent one and try it yourself.

Mystery

Yes and I've used after market power cables with better build/size costing around $20 to replace really thin OEM cables but no idea to measure how it affected sound.
Not all cost $1500 but there are even more expensive ones.
So it just a matter of how deep the pocket is as the improvement is not as linear as increase in price.

$1454: http://www.upscaleaudio.com/products/Nordost-Brahma.html
$2699 to $4799: http://www.upscaleaudio.com/products/Nordost-Valhalla-Power-Cord.html

tonyb

LOL....my good man, there's a lot of real estate between 20 bucks and 1500.

bikezappa

It's your money and you should spend it any way you like.

Mystery

tonyb wrote: »

LOL....my good man, there's a lot of real estate between 20 bucks and 1500.

True but I'm not yet convinced to spend more neither on interconnects nor on power cables.

Well, I did pay around $50 for a pair of Taralabs interconnects and that's the most I paid.

As someone mentioned here, upgrade has to be on the whole thing.
If I buy a $500 interconnects and $500 power cord but the amp is not even $200, CD player is $100 etc..., I won't get full improvement so it all depends upon upstream/downstream audio gears.
I will not use a $20 cable on a Krell but for the cheapo A/V receiver, even that's too much.

So to bring perspective back to OP's question, if everything else is high end and only the interconnects are cheap junk, adding $10k interconnects should improve quite a lot but adding $10k interconnects to a system that doesn't even cost few hundred, improvement may be very subtle to really justify the cost.

bikezappa wrote: »

It's your money and you should spend it any way you like.

+1 as they don't make them just to fool people. They actually have measured improvements so if one can afford, one can give them a listen.

pretzelfisch

Price is not an indicator of quality. If you spend more money on any part it does not mean it will improve your system. So the question is, how do you evaluate that the 10k wire is better then a $150 wire? If you can not measure the differences what are you left with?

tonyb

pretzelfisch wrote: »

So the question is, how do you evaluate that the 10k wire is better then a $150 wire? If you can not measure the differences what are you left with?

Simple....your ears.

Let me also add, nobody goes from 150 buck cables to 10 g's. Chances are they have already heard the improvements just a few more hundred bucks can provide and are already sold on how good cables can improve the sound. That said, I agree however that price is no guarantee of improved sound.

BlueFox

If people would pay attention then they would know that Shunyata can measure their cables. They use two methods they developed. First is DTCD which measure how well a power cord, or other cable, can supply instantaneous current on demand. Power supplies suck current from the wall as they are called on to supply the power needed on reproducing a signal. Ordinary power cords, while capable of supplying 120v at 15a are terrible at supplying instantaneous current. They ramp up slow, and it can be measured. The DTCD difference in the ability of various power cords is measureable, and directly relates to the audible sound quality. Having this tool allows Shunyata to build cables that outperform competitors at a fraction of the cost.

The second item is the invention of 'Zytron' technology. This cancels out the opposing voltage created by the dielectric as a signal passes through the cable. The net effect is that a square wave into the cable is a square wave out of the cable. I asked the founder of Shunyata how long was the cable they used to measure the square wave, and he said it was 150 feet.

Both of these technologies are available on their web-site for anyone to read and understand. Obviously, there is more to cables than just being a piece of wire.

http://www.shunyata.com/Content/technical.html

cnh

I have no problem with all of this but, personally, I can't afford huge expenditures on cables if I'm going to remain married. While I may be able to hear some difference between various interconnects it is never going to matter to my wife who will "remain" a skeptic forever and claims to hear absolutely NO difference and insists there is none! So you boys with the LARGE cables and the BIG bucks, how do "you" deal with that? I don't want to have to go Freudian here. lol

And to tell you the "truth". The difference I hear is not stupendous, or mind blowing. I hear one. But I don't hear 10K++ worth of it. So that makes this even more difficult.

I agree with Tom above. You cannot talk about these things in the ABSTRACT as though more spent is always better or even "necessary". Because there is an economic component. You have to budget for these expenditures and you have to do it with your "entire" family in mind. Especially when you have a young one who will be in college soon.

Let's see! One year at an Ivy League school vs. an equal amount of astronomically priced cables. The future of my daughter or some somewhat noticeable difference in a system. That's a no brainer. Even our esteemed elders realize there are "budgetary" considerations.

If you can "afford" multi figure tweaks to your system. No one is stopping "you"! Or criticizing you. It is your cash, after all!

But as far as testing cables shouldn't that be an "independent" of manufacturer enterprise? I have colleagues who can easily verify "any' such technical info or declare it bogus if it is." And they have multi-million dollar labs on campus!

cnh

bikezappa

I get it now. College costs ten cable units per year.

gumbay13

10k cables?

And here i am trying to squeeze a few cents out of buying multiple cables from Monoprice.

halo71

bikezappa wrote: »

It's your money and you should spend it any way you like.

Tell 'em....."It's my money and I need it now!" lol...just saw a JG Wentworth commercial.....


Being as broke as I am, as always, yall would laugh me off this forum if you saw what I used for IC's! I am happy with the MIT Terminator 6 speaker cable though. :cheesygrin:

cubdog

I recently purchased power cables from Emotiva and Cullen cable. I'm still at the evaluation stage but I'll be damned if I don't believe that I can hear a difference. It's too early to post any definitive observations but, being a skeptic, I'm surprised.

cubdog

Geoff4rfc

pretzelfisch wrote: »

Price is not an indicator of quality.

Oh yes it is!!!! That's why Bose ROCKS

mantis

When your building a Audio system, you want synergy. It's really starts with the room , placement , calibration.
Starting with the source , IC to Pre , IC to Amp , IC to speaker. If anything in this chain is out of balance or synergy , each link in the chain can't perform it's best.
Most systems can't benefit from a 10k cable. Not many if any system can benefit from such a high dollar cable. Out of all honestly it's not the amount of money spent on a cable that matters , it's IF that cable can pass the signal 100%. Once this goal is achieved , nothing you can do can make it better.
So I'll explain in short. If you have a 2 channel system with a nice cd player , preamp , amp and a nice pair of speakers. The ability of those speakers can lets go crazy and say they can play full bandwidth in 20 to 20 , you need a system behind it that can pass a full 20-20 signal. The Speaker wire you use to connect to these speakers needs to be able to handle the amount of current the amp can put out to power the speakers without restricting it. It also needs to be able to pass the signal coming out of the amp without losing or gaining anything along the way.
Once this is achieved your done. Does it take 10k? I can't answer that , well I can but it's not up to me to decide IF one is going to keep going for no reason or not. Reasons after the job is done is for bragging rights , comfort , love ,or what have you. Again not for me to judge. All I will tell you is once the goal is achieved , nothing more will make any audio difference positive.
These rules apply to all cables in a system including power cords and IC's.

There are companies out there who go crazy with cables as there are people who will buy them. They feel a warmth inside that is achieved buy owning such high end cables. If thats what it takes , please go for it. The companies I respect on the highest level make some of these extreme cables. But I have found that their lower end cables can get the job done correctly.

tonyb

I think we part ways on your thoughts on this Dan. You say it's not up to you to judge yet that's exactly what your doing. You've had an ear on many super high end cables have you ?

I guess we have to agree to disagree, your certainly welcome to your perspective. I might add however that you are doing exactly what others claim that we frown on, making judgments on theory rather than experience.

treitz3

cnh wrote: »

I have no problem with all of this but, personally, I can't afford huge expenditures on cables if I'm going to remain married. While I may be able to hear some difference between various interconnects it is never going to matter to my wife who will "remain" a skeptic forever and claims to hear absolutely NO difference and insists there is none! So you boys with the LARGE cables and the BIG bucks, how do "you" deal with that?

Hello and good morning to you, cnh. That's a good question for many people.

Foundation -

For me, it was an accepted part of "me" when my wife [girlfriend at the time] met me. Unbeknownst to me at the time, my best friend had a chat with her years before we got married and told her stories about how I would make a change on the EQ, swap out a cable or perhaps move the speakers just a little bit and I would describe the change(s) in exacting detail.....when he couldn't hear any change whatsoever. He helped me without even knowing it when he mentioned that gear has been going in and out for as long as he had known me. So, it started with somewhat of a foundation that my hobby was a normal thing that is and has been associated with me for decades before I even knew her. Plus, as an interior designer, she could instantly tell what the focal point was in my bachelors living room. That was most definitely the rig.

Planting the seed -

My wife has always been a fan of music, albeit through a set of headphones or at best a boom box type set up. Back when we were dating, she would stop by and more often than not I would be sitting in the sweet spot enjoying tunes while dinner was cooking. When she arrived, I asked her if there was anything that she wanted to hear. It didn't matter whether I liked her selections or not, I put in whatever she wanted and we listened to it while we were cooking, eating, cleaning or whatever. I always invited her to listen to what she wanted even though some of the time she declined to put anything in. Turns out, her music tastes and mine were a lot alike and listening to music showed me that she knew quite an extensive array of music. She even knew of a lot bands and songs that I would have expected her NOT to know.

Getting involved -

Fast forward many years and now we are married with child, still listening to tunes whenever we can. At this point, I had discovered this thing called the "web" that allowed me to talk to folks all around the world about one of the passions that I really enjoy. I took her to an audio event that I had started and this allowed her to see first hand the sickness that abounds with the pursuit of good sound....I wasn't alone. Bless her heart, she even came to one event with our son when he was only 3 months old. Yes, I know. I'm blessed with a good wife. Anyhoo, over the years she has gotten to know my likes and dislikes when it comes to audio and she has listened to some albums of ours often enough now that she pretty much knows what they and my rig sound like.

I love it when she comes home from work and walks into the room after a change happened [that she didn't know about] and she asks, "What happened? It sounds like crap" or "What did you do? That sounds better". I always ask her to explain what it is she hears with great interest......mostly because she doesn't know all of the audiophile talk, so she has a funny way of explaining things. It cracks me up listening to her trying to describe what it is she hears. If I made a change for the better, if she doesn't ask first, I'll invite her to sit down in the sweet spot after picking out an album or a couple of songs of her choosing.

Music has and will be a big part of both of our lives. As for the cost of it? We have an unwritten rule that the less she knows, the better. So long as the bills are paid [along with other responsibilities], she could care less what I spend my leftovers on. Oh, she has a feeling but after all of these years? It's still a normal part of "me".

Tom

leftwinger57

As Dana Mecum of Mecum Muscle Car auctions once famouly said "recession what recession people who could afford these cars can still afford these cars and 20 more like them. Same anology applies here, if you can afford multi K cables and it greatly improves" your sound" then all power to ya".

polkfarmboy

I want to try out some nordost odins

ViperZ

F1nut wrote: »

We used the MIT Oracle Matrix Super HD 120 bi-wire speaker cables with the LSiM 707's and 703's at CAF. I think they run about $36,000. Sounded fantastic! If I had that kind of coin, hell yeah I'd buy them.

Wow, you'd run a $36K pair of cables on $1.5K pair of speakers? Ugh, ok.

treitz3

Hello, ViperZ. F1nut's personal rig does not include these speakers. Please offer him the courtesy of speaking his observations without misinformed ridicule.

Tom

DarqueKnight

Sumerian wrote: »

Untill i became a member here and started reading the forums i never knew there are cables priced at 10K. did any of you did a A/B comparision are they really worth that much in terms of SQ.

Do we have any speakers in Polk which can really make use of such a cable?

Yes. LSiMs and highly modified SDAs.

Here is my speaker cable upgrade path in my two channel system:

2003-2007 - Monster Cable Z3 Reference, $300 per 10 foot pair.
Sept. 2007 - PS Audio xStream Resolution Reference, $800 per 3 meter pair.
Nov. 2007 - AudioQuest Volcano 72v DBS, $3,300 per 8 foot pair.
Jan. 2008 - AudioQuest Everest 72v DBS, $11,700 per 8 foot pair.

Sonic improvements as I went from Z3 Reference to xStream Resolution Reference to Volcano to Everest are described in these reviews:

PS-Audio-xStream-Resolution-Reference-Speaker-Cable-A-Review

A-Review-Of-Audioquest-Volcano-72-Volt-DBS-Speaker-Cable

To-The-Mountain-Top-Audioquest-Everest-Speaker-Cable


I think it is important to maintain a rational perspective in any hobby. When I started studying saxophone, I did not start out with expensive professional quality or luxury grade instruments. When I started studying photography, I did not start out with professional or luxury grade cameras, lenses, and film. In music and in photography, I started with equipment that was appropriate to my level of skill, experience, and understanding. I did not concern myself with how much money serious, more advanced hobbyists and professionals were spending on their gear. Even if someone had gifted me a pro quality camera and lenses in my early stages of photography, I would not have been able to appreciate all of its performance advantages over the entry level cameras and consumer grade film I was familiar with. The same would have been true had I been gifted a professional grade saxophone when I was first learning to play or a Mercedes Benz when I was first learning to drive.

I must admit that I am always puzzled by the apparent fascination that some people have with high performance and luxury grade audio equipment. I was never any more fascinated by high end audio equipment than I was by high end anything else (shoes, clothes, furniture, cameras, musical instruments, cars, etc.). I never wondered if higher end merchandise was "worth it". I took it for granted that it was, otherwise, there would not be a market for it. In every field of merchandise, there is a class of experienced and knowledgeable enthusiasts who seek high performance in function and aesthetics.

In audio, as with my other hobbies, I started with very modest equipment and upgraded to more advanced, higher performance (and, of course, higher cost) equipment over the years as my interest, knowledge and skill increased. There is nothing mystical or supernatural about my audio journey. I do not have superhuman hearing or "golden ears". I can discern and appreciate the performance advantages of high performance stereo equipment simply because I have trained my mind and ears in stereophonic perception. In other words, I have listened to a lot of different equipment over a period of time. Careful and consistent listening causes your ears (perceptive abilities) to evolve.

DarqueKnight

Mystery wrote: »

I actually raised a question in another forum about this.
I asked about freakin expensive power cables.
They are only 3ft long but cost over $1500 so my question was if the in-wall electric cable (I'm sure that doesn't even cost 10x less) is not of the same quality as the power cord, how can give more quality than the in-wall electric cable?
Everyone/most mentioned that doesn't matter, it only matters from outlet to the amp.
:eek: :rolleyes:

bikezappa wrote: »

That statement that it only matters from outlet to amp makes no scientific sense to me. The line cord is not designed to be a filter.

Why do you think some power cords come with ferrite beads? The shocking answer is that ferrite bead is used to suppress (filter) high frequency noise. What do you think the effect would be if a power cord, such as the PS Audio Statement SC power cord, had ferrite bead impregnated in the insulation jacket rather than in a canister at the end of the cord?

Here is a nice overview article to get you started:

Ferrite Bead

Cross talk noise in a phone line can be cancelled (filtered) simply by twisting the two insulated conductors together.

Twisted Pair

Shielding can reject (filter out) high frequency environmental noise.

The twist geometry, size of conductors and cross-sectional shape of conductors have all been proved to have effects on the noise performance of power cables.

I never cease to be amazed by the old, worn out fallacious argument "how can 3 feet of cable make a difference when the wire in the wall and on the power poles is the cheap stuff?"

It seems that the concept that a power signal can be cleaned up, that a power cord can be designed to reject and filter noise, is science fiction to some people and inconceivable to others.

BlueFox

DSkip wrote: »

Anything is easily debunked with a closed mind and lack of experience.

Yes, some people get upset when the facts interfere with their fantasy.

Jhayman

Some end up with faces like this:redface::redface:
When they have taken the time to understand better this happens.

BlueFox

Jhayman wrote: »

Some end up with faces like this:redface::redface:

Sooner or later, we all end up like that. At least if we have an open mind on any subject, and are willing to listen to alternate viewpoints. Nobody is right all the time.

Congratulations on the amp. Now you need to get some good power, interconnects, and speaker cables to go with it.