12 Gauge vs 16 Gauge??

treitz3

Us old timers on the forum read posts like that and wonder why some folks are even on an audio board trying to learn and improve their sound. All I did was shake my head whilst reading. Do yourself a favor D&B. Look up James Randi, read about his challenge, believe it and believe those over at Audioholics and never get any advances in your audio setup.....or, head the advice from seasoned veterans on this forum who have invested time, research and actually experimented with things to achieve incredible sounding systems.

Tom

BlueFox

DonnerUndBlitzen wrote: »

F1nut wrote: »

DonnerUndBlitzen wrote: »

I found a table for recommended gauge and speaker wire lengths at the Audioholics website. There are several interesting articles on speaker wire and other connects at this website and they have a forum that deals with such questions. A ton of stuff to read and I have only got my toes wet.

http://www.audioholics.com/audio-video-cables/speaker-cable-gauge

Do yourself a favor and forget you ever read anything on that site. They are the kings of the naysayers.

So, I asked how much I should spend on speaker wire and cables for a 3K, 5.1 home theater set-up and BlueFox recommended spending nearly $600 per speaker wire. I would end up spending $3,000 for speaker wire plus additional for the other cables! I would end up spending more for wire and cables than all the other components in in my home theater set-up combined.

Better work on those reading skills, Rudolph. The price is per pair, and I said it was laying the foundation for future gear upgrades. Clean power, power cables, speaker cables, interconnect cables, and vibration control is the foundation for any stereo and HT. Get the foundation correct and you can get the most out of any piece of gear.

tonyb

DonnerUndBlitzen wrote: »

F1nut wrote: »

DonnerUndBlitzen wrote: »

I found a table for recommended gauge and speaker wire lengths at the Audioholics website. There are several interesting articles on speaker wire and other connects at this website and they have a forum that deals with such questions. A ton of stuff to read and I have only got my toes wet.

http://www.audioholics.com/audio-video-cables/speaker-cable-gauge

Do yourself a favor and forget you ever read anything on that site. They are the kings of the naysayers.

So, I asked how much I should spend on speaker wire and cables for a 3K, 5.1 home theater set-up and BlueFox recommended spending nearly $600 per speaker wire. I would end up spending $3,000 for speaker wire plus additional for the other cables! I would end up spending more for wire and cables than all the other components in in my home theater set-up combined.

And then F1nut recommends ignoring Adioholics. Audioholics actually investigates the claims made by "exotic" wire and cable mfg companies. I certainly cannot afford to drop more than 3K on wire and cables only to discover the marketing hype by these companies is a bunch of hooey. Please forgive me for being prudent and heeding the ancient proverb: "Caveat emptor."

If you know of other consumer watchdog groups that have done what Audioholics has done, please let me know. Our "Food and Drug" administration monitors the claims of the food and drug industries for safety and accuracy purposes and helps protect the public. Too bad they also do not make sure the speaker and wire companies are not putting their thumbs on the scale.

lol....I hear ya man, but being sound is a subjective journey, your going to get opinions far to one side or the other. Your an older dude, much like myself, and spending tons on audio gear isn't in the cards for you....I get it, we all get it.

Most of us here are "bang for your buck" types, we promote and try to find products that offer significant jumps in sound without putting the nest egg at risk.

Like I said, read up all you want, but the bottom line is you have to try different things yourself and then judge. You don't have to spend a fortune either, and most of us can guide you in what to look for on the cheap....and where.

Your not the first, nor will you be the last, to throw a suspicious eye at better cabling. Many of us have been on this forum for close to 20 years, and the cable naysayers have been plenty. I can tell you this though, in all that time, not one person who had tried better cabling ever came back and said it didn't matter and they were keeping their lamp cord home depot cable. Not a single person to my recollection.

The only problem is, many simply refuse to try, read things like you did, and said screw it. You'll discover nothing in audio if you keep refusing to try things.

Nbrowser, ken.....the poster above me, was pretty much the same as you. Didn't have a lot to spend, but was curious, not sure if this audio stuff we talked about would make a difference worth the money spent. We pointed him towards some deals, and to his credit, he tried.....and now is a monster. His musical enjoyment increased, and that's the name of the game.

Many here too play on different audio playgrounds, but we always believe better audio can be achieved with any budget/wallet size. All I ask is, just entertain the thought, and try a few things for yourself.

mantis

F1nut wrote: »

mantis wrote: »

VSAT88 wrote: »

mrloren wrote: »

Yes if you can re-pull it. I bet the wire they used probably says CCA on it too. Some decent Monoprice 14 or 12 AWG 100% pure copper wire will do much better. I will add more depth and bass to your sound. https://www.monoprice.com/category?c_id=102&cp_id=10239

My house came pre wired for in-ceiling speakers. The builder used 16AWG copper wire but stapled it down, I can't re-pull it either.

Installer for 15 years, staple a wire inside a wall ?? Absurd.

Really? 15 years of experience and thats your comment?

Why Dan, what more do you think he should say?

Wasn't sure if he was being sarcastic or not but Installers always staple their wire during new construction. During a Retro job, it's not due to the fact the walls are up and it's basically impossible to do so.

ROHfan

After actually hearing the difference between different cables I became a believer. The only cable I don't think matters, sonically, is the digital fiber cable. Since it only transmitts 1's and 0's it is pure digital until it gets to the DAC. I make my decisions on that type of cable based on durability because the fiber is fragile. But, IMO, attenuation will only cause bit errors. We actually have a test device at my job (I'm a field engineer) that tests for chromatic dispersion and and polarization mode dispersion. We use that device to test fiber cables that are miles long and, so far, I have yet to see one of our cables fail those two particular tests.

[Deleted User]

@ROHfan I've been wondering about this as well.
Glass or plastic fiber?
Ceramic or Steel?
The terminations matter on long runs but this short?

Cables don't matter till they do.

mhardy6647

So -- I should know better than to offer my two cents in a thread like this -- but, obviously, I don't!
So, I just want to share a few thoughts.

The transmission of AC signals from a source to a load through a wire pretty much depends on a few properties.

Impedance of the source
Impedance of the load
(which vary as a function of frequency)

and properties of the wire (and terminations)
resistance
capacitance
indcuctance
(the latter two are also frequency dependent; the former is not)

There's also the issue of appropriate shielding of wires carrying low-level signals.

I don't mean to trivialize any of the above, but -- wires aren't magic.

That doesn't mean they're unimportant.
That also doesn't mean that there can't be added value in expensive and/or esoteric cable geometries, materials of construction, etc.

It does mean that the interplay of source, load and "interconnecting" wire is difficult to predict -- at least at the level of sonic effects (or, more to the point, in terms of the listener's sonic satisfaction with the effects!).

Also, in the memorable words of a wino I met one beautiful Bermudian day on the bus near Hamilton:

The largest room in the world is the room for improvement

In other words, I don't think that one can beat good old empiricism.
I dont' think that even the recommendation of another listener with the same equipment is necessarily valuable (except as a reference point), because we all have different subjective preferences for how things sound.

Ideally, I'd say "try before you buy".
Otherwise, I'd say "buy used, try, and repeat as needed until satisfied".

I'd also say, "Invest in wires at a level proportionate to one's budget and overall 'comfort level'." E.g., if one feels that $1500 cables are outrageously expensive -- dont spend $1500 for cables. Can one get "close enough" with, say, $300 cables? Possibly. Again, this is something that can only be determined empirically.

DIY is also a terrific opportunity to add value -- there is fine quality wire available from companies like Belden, Mogami and Canare. There are also fine quality terminations of various flavors available from many vendors. Perfectly good cabling may be fabricated by anyone with even my level of dexterity for very reasonable cash outlay.

None of which is meant to denigrate any manufacturer or supplier of "boutique" cabling for hifi applications. There's obviously a market, and I am in no place to question the tastes or the motives of that market (or the companies that cater to the market's desires)!

I am always a little perplexed by those who feel the need, a priori, to attack a particular product on the basis of its price without ever having seen or heard the product in operation.


OK, I think I've made my peace with this subject
Thanks for your patience.

ROHfan

rednedtugent wrote: »

@ROHfan I've been wondering about this as well.
Glass or plastic fiber?
Ceramic or Steel?
The terminations matter on long runs but this short?

Cables don't matter till they do.

Glass or plastic, doesn't matter as long as the signal arrives at the DAC in the same bit order. On all transit jobs I've worked on we've only used Corning glass fiber cable which is 9 microns thickness. Steel encased ferrules are good for home audio/video for durability but not necessary unless you plan on unplugging/replugging several times over. Different ferrules are rated for different amounts of insertions. Every time you unplug a fiber connector you're increasing the possibility of mating failure. I know, exciting stuff, isn't it?

mhardy6647

I'll save Lightman1 the trouble and just quote him here

lightman1 wrote: »

Too many words, Doc.

tonyb

mhardy6647 wrote: »

So -- I should know better than to offer my two cents in a thread like this -- but, obviously, I don't!
So, I just want to share a few thoughts.

The transmission of AC signals from a source to a load through a wire pretty much depends on a few properties.

Impedance of the source
Impedance of the load
(which vary as a function of frequency)

and properties of the wire (and terminations)
resistance
capacitance
indcuctance
(the latter two are also frequency dependent; the former is not)

There's also the issue of appropriate shielding of wires carrying low-level signals.

I don't mean to trivialize any of the above, but -- wires aren't magic.

That doesn't mean they're unimportant.
That also doesn't mean that there can't be added value in expensive and/or esoteric cable geometries, materials of construction, etc.

It does mean that the interplay of source, load and "interconnecting" wire is difficult to predict -- at least at the level of sonic effects (or, more to the point, in terms of the listener's sonic satisfaction with the effects!).

Also, in the memorable words of a wino I met one beautiful Bermudian day on the bus near Hamilton:

The largest room in the world is the room for improvement

In other words, I don't think that one can beat good old empiricism.
I dont' think that even the recommendation of another listener with the same equipment is necessarily valuable (except as a reference point), because we all have different subjective preferences for how things sound.

Ideally, I'd say "try before you buy".
Otherwise, I'd say "buy used, try, and repeat as needed until satisfied".

I'd also say, "Invest in wires at a level proportionate to one's budget and overall 'comfort level'." E.g., if one feels that $1500 cables are outrageously expensive -- dont spend $1500 for cables. Can one get "close enough" with, say, $300 cables? Possibly. Again, this is something that can only be determined empirically.

DIY is also a terrific opportunity to add value -- there is fine quality wire available from companies like Belden, Mogami and Canare. There are also fine quality terminations of various flavors available from many vendors. Perfectly good cabling may be fabricated by anyone with even my level of dexterity for very reasonable cash outlay.

None of which is meant to denigrate any manufacturer or supplier of "boutique" cabling for hifi applications. There's obviously a market, and I am in no place to question the tastes or the motives of that market (or the companies that cater to the market's desires)!

I am always a little perplexed by those who feel the need, a priori, to attack a particular product on the basis of its price without ever having seen or heard the product in operation.


OK, I think I've made my peace with this subject
Thanks for your patience.

Bravo Professor, though I might argue the DIY cables from the likes of Mogami/Canare/Belden.....don't hold a candle to more higher end brands....even mid-fi brands.

In my experiences, the cheaper brands, if build quality is up to snuff, are fairly sufficient for some digital transmissions. They seem to lose their luster on the analog side of cables though. Digital coax seems to have a greater disparity between them than toslink does, or USB/Ethernet.

Your right though, spend what you can afford, much like you do when buying a cdp/tv or any other piece of gear. Cables are a part of your system, and should be treated as such. When your assessing your sound quality, you always look at the perceived weakest link in the chain. You have to consider cables as a link in the chain, after all, that is what they do right ?.....link pieces of gear together.

Putting together a system is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. You try different pieces to see what fits. Obviously guided by your own preferences.

Unknown

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mantis

It's not this difficult to wire ones system.
I can easily sum up all this madness and make easy affordable recommendations.

Use audioquest cables for everything in your system. Go with whatever level you can afford. Audioquest cables are IMO the best built in the business and I have been in the business for over 20 years.
Everyone on this forum has their favorite brand of wire for their reasons. I am a Professional and have used and Installed just about everything made.
There is no reason at all to over spend on any wire in your system. They don't make as much of a difference as most claim they do and for those who say cables don't matter have no real experience in the topic. Cables like everything in your system need to be of proper quality to perform the job they are asked to do. Once that job is done, there is nothing more any cable made on this god's green earth can do to make anything better then what is and what it's supposed to be.

You will go in circles for the rest of your life trying to figure out the topic of wire. No one and I mean NO ONE on this forum or any other forum knows everything about wire that that includes myself. I however have learned from the industries best and learned one common thing coming from engineers who make wire and who make the equipment that needs to be connected to that wire. Once you achieve the goal of passing along the signal from A to B there is nothing more you can do to make anything better. You can certainly harm the signal with poor designed wire, in proper gauge and a ton of other factors like EMI and RF interference.
The very design of many cables on the market today try to "tune" your system. All that means is they block out certain frequencies and pass others. This is what makes one cable sound different then another. It's resistance.
So if you want a full list of what cables I would recommend for your system, list the entire system, length of wire needed for each speaker and component and I will put together a Master Shopping list for you to work with.
At least this way you can get a straight answer from a Professional who is not here to make any money from you or honestly steer you in any direction that your not comfortable with. I will give you a list of Audioquest cables and you go buy anything you want. But this way you can see what I feel each cable should be and you can figure out if you want to spend that much or not.

It's your system you do whatever you want to do with it.

mhardy6647

As an amusing sidebar -- here it comes --

I can pretty much assure the readers of this thread that we all share the same "weakest link" in our hifis -- at least from a quantifiable standpoint.

Loudspeakers.

The levels of (harmonic) distortion from even the lowest distortion loudspeakers is (at least) an order of magnitude higher than any other component most of us would own and use. Col. Paul W. Klipsch (bless his heart) was fixated on that; it's the raison d'être for his obsession with horn loaded drivers

Then there's frequency response and the (aforementioned) impedance curve anomalies of any loudspeaker in a real-world environment. From a a strictly quantifiable standpoint, the nonlinearites, irregularities, and non-ideality of loudspeaker performance dwarfs the things we talk about in terms of signal transduction, amplification, and transfer. And, yes, I do realize that currently-measureable differences aren't the be-all and end-all!

None of the above, fortunately, is incompatible with the notion that there should be a best choice for every one of us in terms of every component (including wires).

Just something else to ponder


PS The blanket recommendation for Audioquest (edit) in the penultimate post above is interesting. My sense is that they've done a good job at providing quality products at a broad range of price points (perhaps theirs is the broadest range of product lines in the business???), but does that make them the go-to "one-size-fits-all" solution?

(note: that's a rhetorical question! I honestly don't know!)

tonyb

Seriously Dan ?, in all due respect, NOBODY here is out to make money on the dude by our recommendations, or steer him towards purchasing anything he's uncomfortable with.

Many have their favorite brands they like, including you, but I would never suggest those brands to anyone who couldn't afford them or I thought would produce bad synergy....and certainly don't make money off of anyone or get kick backs from any brand.

If anything, we use our collective knowledge on cable brands, places to buy them, to SAVE people money. To suggest any of us are here to profit from our recommendations, or steer people in a direction they are uncomfortable with is mighty offensive not only to me but the forum in general.

mhardy6647

oops, sorry
I feel the need to drop one more piece of drivel on this thread.

So -- I've made a career out of quantitative analysis. I am a scientist, not an engineer. I don't think like an engineer I'm not obsessed with measurements in hifi -- hifi is my hobby; the last thing I want to do is approach my hobby like I approach my vocation!

With that caveat, philosophically I do tend to concur with Daniel von Recklingshausen, the legendary chief engineer of HH Scott in their glory days (in Maynard, MA!)

Quoth he:

"If it measures good and sounds bad, -- it is bad. If it sounds good and measures bad, -- you've measured the wrong thing."

http://hhscott.com/vonrecklinghausen.htm

Unknown

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tonyb

Excellent quote Mark....and probably the shortest post from you in a while. lol

mhardy6647

tonyb wrote: »

Excellent quote Mark....and probably the shortest post from you in a while. lol

I do go on, don't I?

tonyb

mhardy6647 wrote: »

tonyb wrote: »

Excellent quote Mark....and probably the shortest post from you in a while. lol

I do go on, don't I?

I think I also share your desire to run at the mouth from time to time. No fun being a mute now is it.

mhardy6647

nope.

F1nut

DonnerUndBlitzen wrote: »

A healthy dose of skepticism can go a very long way. That includes the audio industry, and yes, even speaker wire and interconnect manufacturers. I have found this anecdotally true.

I heard my first Polk speakers last summer. I discovered them on the internet. I was looking to upgrade my living room speakers, receiver and DAC. One of the “professional” reviews I read gave high marks to the RTI A3s for being very balanced and detailed (Stereophile). What made me skeptical about this review was a possible conflict of interest. According to this review, the A3s opened up after the reviewer switched speaker wires to a pair of $299 AudioQuest Rocket 33 speaker wires. It is a curious thing that these online magazines will praise the Yamaha A-S 500 one year and then knock the A-S 501 the next year and instead praise the brand that happens to be giving them advertising dollars. So, does AudioQuest advertise at Stereophile, or did they give Stereophile’s reviewer money under the table to name drop? I don’t know. I don’t have a basis to make such a charge, but I do have basis for a healthy dose of skepticism.

Apparently, I need to buy $300 speaker wires in order to make my $250 “open box” A3s sound right. But, when the UPS man successfully delivered them and I set them up, they opened up just fine without the $300 speaker wires. They performed as the Stereophile review described minus the AudioQuest speaker wires.

Get the lamp cord and be happy in your safe space.

FYI, I don't drink, do drugs or smoke anything.

treitz3

DonnerUndBlitzen wrote: »

I would need to test and investigate before forming an informed opinion.

THAT. That right there is all we ask. Your post from earlier on made it seem as if you had already made up your mind. If you follow your own advice, you'll have a pleasant and also rewarding audio journey if done right.

F1nut could pass that test with flying colors. The man doesn't even drink.

Yes, most all of us have been through the mid-fi stuff. Some of us still have mid-fi stuff (and lower) in secondary systems, kid's systems, offices, etc... Some of the responses will obviously vary from one person to another.

Case in point - There was a time for me that a $100 cable was incredibly expensive to me and not worth it. Until a good friend of mine let me try it out in my system and that if I wanted it after that, I'd have to pay him $100. Heck, at that point in my life, I probably had *maybe* all of $500 invested in my rig at the time. $100 was an "unreasonable" cost for one IC pair. In fact, that same exact cable is up for sale on this forum at this very moment. Saw it this morning.

Until I hooked it up. I immediately called him up and told him that he wasn't gettin' the cable back and I'd gladly pay him the hundred....even though at the time, I couldn't really afford it. I just made it happen somehow, someway.

Fast forward 20-30 years, I still have that same cable. Just for chits and giggles, I hooked it up a couple of years back just to see (or hear) what I used to use.....you know, with the cable that started it all. That same cable sounded like.....well, let's just say that it did not sound good at all. BUT, this was going up against a pair that cost 2.4K. and on a rig that was nowhere near the same caliber of the ol' $500 rig. At the time, the difference in sound quality and what I could hear was phenomenal.

Trust me when I state that members of this forum are very familiar with cables of ALL costs, size, materials, connections, network boxes, battery packs and metalurgies. One person may not be intimately familiar with all types and flavors but collectively? We have heard just about everything out there from Rat shack to Transparent, MIT Kimber Cable, Schnerzinger and beyond to the ultra uber cables that cost more than the typical family vehicle(s).

So long as you stay true to your statement quoted above, you will get many suggestions to try. Just keep in mind, folks come from very different walks of life on this forum and what may be expensive or "unreasonable" to you may be the exact opposite for someone else.

Just food for thought. Happy testing and don't forget to have fun along the way! That's the whole point of this hobby (besides great sound).

Tom

F1nut

mantis wrote: »

I however have learned from the industries best and learned one common thing coming from engineers who make wire and who make the equipment that needs to be connected to that wire. Once you achieve the goal of passing along the signal from A to B there is nothing more you can do to make anything better. You can certainly harm the signal with poor designed wire, in proper gauge and a ton of other factors like EMI and RF interference.

And yet your current flavor of the month cable company makes a multitude of versions from inexpensive entry to expensive TOTL, so if what you learned from the engineers at AudioQuest is that once you achieve the goal of passing along the signal from A to B there is nothing more you can do to make anything better then why do you think they make all those versions?

Unknown

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mhardy6647

I tend to agree vis-à-vis the razor blade thing -- but (in keeping with one of the subtexts of this thread) I may not be in the best position to comment, since I have a beard.

motorstereo

Maybe I missed this but what sort of electronics are you using? Reason I ask is I was also a skeptic at one time to. Then this winter my rig finally got to a point where I can actually hear the differences in wiring and cables. I'm thinking perhaps you should stay with zip cord, monster cable and your double edge razor blades.

pitdogg2

treitz3 wrote: »

DonnerUndBlitzen wrote: »

I would need to test and investigate before forming an informed opinion.

THAT. That right there is all we ask. Your post from earlier on made it seem as if you had already made up your mind. If you follow your own advice, you'll have a pleasant and also rewarding audio journey if done right.

F1nut could pass that test with flying colors. The man doesn't even drink.

Yes, most all of us have been through the mid-fi stuff. Some of us still have mid-fi stuff (and lower) in secondary systems, kid's systems, offices, etc... Some of the responses will obviously vary from one person to another.

Case in point - There was a time for me that a $100 cable was incredibly expensive to me and not worth it. Until a good friend of mine let me try it out in my system and that if I wanted it after that, I'd have to pay him $100. Heck, at that point in my life, I probably had *maybe* all of $500 invested in my rig at the time. $100 was an "unreasonable" cost for one IC pair. In fact, that same exact cable is up for sale on this forum at this very moment. Saw it this morning.

Until I hooked it up. I immediately called him up and told him that he wasn't gettin' the cable back and I'd gladly pay him the hundred....even though at the time, I couldn't really afford it. I just made it happen somehow, someway.

Fast forward 20-30 years, I still have that same cable. Just for chits and giggles, I hooked it up a couple of years back just to see (or hear) what I used to use.....you know, with the cable that started it all. That same cable sounded like.....well, let's just say that it did not sound good at all. BUT, this was going up against a pair that cost 2.4K. and on a rig that was nowhere near the same caliber of the ol' $500 rig. At the time, the difference in sound quality and what I could hear was phenomenal.

Trust me when I state that members of this forum are very familiar with cables of ALL costs, size, materials, connections, network boxes, battery packs and metalurgies. One person may not be intimately familiar with all types and flavors but collectively? We have heard just about everything out there from Rat shack to Transparent, MIT Kimber Cable, Schnerzinger and beyond to the ultra uber cables that cost more than the typical family vehicle(s).

So long as you stay true to your statement quoted above, you will get many suggestions to try. Just keep in mind, folks come from very different walks of life on this forum and what may be expensive or "unreasonable" to you may be the exact opposite for someone else.

Just food for thought. Happy testing and don't forget to have fun along the way! That's the whole point of this hobby (besides great sound).

Tom

To add to Tom's above^^^^ what sounds incredible in mine or Tom's might sound like total poo poo in yours. It is a total synergy thing between components plain and simple.

BlueFox

LOL. Love these threads. You give somebody some good advice, and rather than saying 'Thank you.' they show their true colors, which is almost always, close-minded ignorance. LOL.

Hermitism

DonnerUndBlitzen wrote: »

Do you remember the single edge razor blade? Then they came out with two edges on top, and so forth. What are they up to, razor blades with 5 blades on top to give you the latest, greatest shave? Lets add another, audiophile razor blade and have the 6 blade audio quest Shavemaster Razor. LOL!

I still use my double edge razor from the 70s and it works fine.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm no expert when it comes to audio, but I can speak to my own personal experience with razors. I can say without doubt that upgrading the cable to my beard trimmer resulted in a smoother shave, higher revving motor resulting in a faster moving blade, and a quicker recharge rate. I even started a thread about in 2014.

pitdogg2

DonnerUndBlitzen wrote: »

The reason they make all those different versions is that they want to separate you from the money in your wallet. It is called marketing.

Do you remember the single edge razor blade? Then they came out with two edges on top, and so forth. What are they up to, razor blades with 5 blades on top to give you the latest, greatest shave? Lets add another, audiophile razor blade and have the 6 blade audio quest Shavemaster Razor. LOL!

I still use my double edge razor from the 70s and it works fine.

Here is a link to the Cable Company. You can actually by a pair of $55,000 speaker cables from them. They are way past the 6 blade audio quest Shavemaster Razor.

https://www.thecableco.com/Catalog/Speaker-Cables

WHO CARES that they sell cables that expensive. Nobody is advocating you buy those. If you're too cheap to even try a new razor to see how well they work then explain why you are even asking any questions about better anything? After ALL you have already found the best razor on earth and have got to have the best wire or interconnects all ready so why once again why are you still here?

Did it ever even occur to you that all the super expensive cable, Cars, Blenders, razors you name over time trickles down to more affordable products? It's not about separating you from your money. It's about R&D more than anything. There are people out there who make stupid amounts of money you or I most likely will never see in our entire lifetime, they spend stupid amounts on crazy stuff.

I'm in the market for a new TV I'm worried about spending 1000-1500 dollars but yet my buddy just bought a $40,000 projector for his theater. Should I go tell him how much of an idiot he is? Of course not!! That projector R&D will come down to stuff you and I can afford someday.

By the way I find it somewhat skeptical that you can still find blades for that razor, My best razor from the late 80's I sure can't......