Hundreds, Even Thousands Of Dollars For Speaker, Power, And Other Cables...Really?

Phishphan said:
I’ve always been a power cord denier. Have a couple Wireworld PCs I got with my mono blocks. I never had them hooked up with any stock cord, so I guess I didn’t have a chance to notice a change.

On a whim I picked up a Level 2 PC from anti cable. Plugged it into my pre/processor, and I can hear a difference. Not quite sure why, but it’s noticeable.


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Quite simply; even a Level 2 anti cable has much lower distortion than the stock power cord. The cleaner the signal you can feed your system, the greater the rewards.

You have an extremely high resolving and fantastic speaker with the KEF Ref 5. So, you'll hear every change for better or worse.
 
I wonder if the OP will be disappointed from what he heard at Mike's shop with the respective amplifier he purcased? or is purchasing?

Compared to when he brings it home and using a system of stock power cords.

Regarding the fact that I highly doubt Suncoast was using a stock power cord during the demo.

Perception can suddenly change.

In all seriousness though; power cords regardless of what you buy or what it cost. There is going to be an improvement over the stock cord.

Especially on a high current product like an integrated amp. Even more critical because it combines the pre in one box.

Happy Thanksgiving
 
bluegrassphile said:
Mike, I don't have even the slightest doubt the cables and connects I purchased from you will do a superb job. I have great trust in you and your recommendations. My post is simply about how surprised I was at the prices of cables, interconnects, power supplies, and power conditioners, upon my return to high end home audio. That's all. Nothing more.

I shouldn't be that surprised. As I've mentioned before, the last time I owned a high end audio system was in the mid '70s. You could reasonably expect a lot of changes in the high end home audio industry since then. Heck, cables and interconnects is now an industry unto itself. Used to be when you bought a stereo system you got these spindly, thin, little, speaker cables and interconnects and didn't even give it a thought. Very cheaply made. Then they started increasing in size (gauge) and price and the rest is history.

You were right in saying I could have purchased higher quality cables but was limited by my budget. That's likely one of the first upgrades I'll do. But until then what you recommended I'm sure will be more than adequate. I'm so pumped about my system. Coming up on four more weeks.
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We need to focus on power cords next.


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mdp632 said:
I wonder if the OP will be disappointed from what he heard at Mike's shop with the respective amplifier he purcased? or is purchasing?

Compared to when he brings it home and using a system of stock power cords.
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More likely to be disappointed because Mike has properly set up and well treated listening rooms. This will have a far greater impact than the power cables. This is coming from someone who has a major investment in power cables. This investment happened after my room was set up and treated.
 
Don’t worry guys, he won’t be disappointed, I’ll see to that. I was working with a strict budget. We can always focus on power cables and treatments down the road, but really, Harbeth’s are VERY room friendly.


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MPW said:
More likely to be disappointed because Mike has properly set up and well treated listening rooms. This will have a far greater impact than the power cables. This is coming from someone who has a major investment in power cables. This investment happened after my room was set up and treated.
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Understood and very true.
 
That's all a matter of opinion and available budget, but the most expensive is not always the best. You can in fact buy a quality after market power cord for as little as $79 though you will certainly be told otherwise.
 
bluegrassphile said:
Ah, I see. What kind of money for a high quality power cord?
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Anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand or more. Don’t sweat it for now. Let’s get the system up and running and broken in before we start with the rest.


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interesting responses to the OP -- cable threads are always lively with a wide variety solutions, products, preferences, etc...

one thing i notice is that cabling tends to be treated as one large generic category. however, i find it useful to further segment cabling into distinct categories with each having a distinct purpose:

analog signal cables: these are the interconnect and speaker cables which cary the analog signal between components. as i think @mike stated, these cables are effectively tone controls reflecting the audio qualities of the conductor metal and AWG used as well as myriad other design characteristics. these cables should also carry the signal with as little EMI/RFI as possible which is determined by the design and quality of any necessary shielding.

digital signal cables: these are the cables carrying the digital signal between the various components of a digital source -- basically, everything upstream from the DAC including the network all the way to the street. the sole purpose of digital cables is to deliver the intended stream of 0s and 1s (square wave) with as little electrical noise as is absolutely possible. [ i think optical fiber cabling is dispositive on this issue... but i repeat myself! ]

power cables: i think PCs can be thought of one component of the overall power system including everything upstream to the street and ground. the sole purpose here is to simply deliver the purest possible raw material to the factory: electricity free of noise, fluctuations, etc.

perhaps, this is an obvious classification scheme well know to all here -- i just find it useful to make the explicit distinction of purpose when trying out different cables in the various parts of my system.

as always, YMMV
 
Mike said:
Anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand or more. Don’t sweat it for now. Let’s get the system up and running and broken in before we start with the rest.


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Sounds like a good plan to me, Mike. It's been so long since I owned a great sounding high end audio system a Walmart boom box
with a speaker missing would sound good to me now.....LOL!!
 
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