What every cable review should be like! This guy does a fantastic job. And no, you don’t need $1000 plus signal cables.
To update on this thread since it’s been bumped, I decided to move up again to nordost frey 2 speaker and ic in my living room and it was a nice performance bump, still using ps audio ac12 power cables, now using transparent premium overall the cost is still sitting around 1% of my living room cost so to me it ended up being worthwhile going to 1k+ cables somehow lol.
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Um… 1% um 1k+… Um I’m doing math here and my head hurts. When are you going to host an open house?
So if I calculate all cable costs for that system (power, ic, speaker, digital) by retail it should be around 15k (of course I didn’t pay near that and I actually got the power cables for basically free), and the total system cost for the living room is more around 155-160k (again retail, no room treatment costs), so like 1% ish well I guess that would be less than 1 but lets say 1 percent to keep things simple.
The only reason I upgraded to begin with was because a dealer had some store demo cables for a system, and he was willing to mail them to me for a demo and if I wanted to trade up my purple flare he would take them off me. I ended up having them in the system and they gave a nice performance bump enough to where it ended up being in my mind worth the cost because of the trade in and the deal that he was giving me because they were demo. I did end up having to buy a new but discounted extra set of xlr to run to the subs but it still wasn’t that bad of a hit. If I had never heard them I would still be absolutely happy as that living room system is really everything I could ask for for the time being and I have no plans to change really anything component wise within the next 10 years. I did recently add a streamer because I finally gave into convenience (but it actually gave a nice sound quality boost as well, much more than any cable ever could), but other than that I really have 0 plans of changing or upgrading it as imo to make the next step forward I would personally feel the need to build a specific room or building for dedicated listening and the cost of going higher is more than I am willing to spend at the current moment.
Would I ever really recommend getting high end cables to anyone? Not really no, there are much better places to put your money. Perhaps if you have an extremely high end setup it might be worth experimenting but if you are at that point you probably have done that already lol. To me this ended up being barely worthwhile for this upgrade in cables, but I guess I can also think of it as fully solidifying my living room setup, getting the most out of it I possibly can perhaps. Cables are also always the last step, once you have everything else right in your system perhaps it’s worthwhile to consider some nicer cables, which I felt that I was at that point. But for mostly everything else just quality bang for the buck ic’s and cables are all you will really ever need, my main desk rocks mogami gold and it does me just fine
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This is the important part, if you’re in this sweet spot, regardless of the budget I think the journey has paid off. I feel the same way and thankfully I’ve laid out less than 10% or your expenditure. I’m more convinced than ever now that there’s ways to feel the exact same way spending 10% of what I’ve spent.
I know it’s a weirdly bumped thread but I think the review goes a long way towards explaining what you get for your money. Given that even at the level of cables he tested there are sonic differences but they were all 10% of one db of each other.
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Evaluating the difference cables can make is somewhat hard as it depends entirely on a specific system, and the amount of difference depends as well. It could be a noticeable difference in one setup, and really insubstantial in the other. At that point it’s just something you have to try for your own system if you are interested, and go from there.
I really don’t like discussing cables all that much (ironic coming from the person who made this thread in the first place, but I was wishing it wasn’t bumped as well lol), as it’s kinda ends up becoming a useless argument that won’t really lead anywhere, the best way to address it is to just let people do what they want to do, if they want to get higher end cables and have the budget and system to justify it, no problem, and if others want to stick with cheap but quality cables, no problem either. It’s just one of those things where it’s really not worth spending energy complaining over imo.
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Well said.
I think the punch in the face lesson between an Amazon Basics and a pro quality Mogami is hard to argue even from the staunchest of cable deniers.
What streamer did you go with?
Auralic aries g2.1 with a leo gx.1
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I agree that you just have to hear it to make your own opinion. Again, as mentioned, too many people have gotten into fights and wasted breath arguing about cables.
I went through the same experience at the beginning. I had a shop that tried to get me to buy some expensive Synergistic Research and allowed me to demo them for a week. I heard zero audible differences in my first speaker setup. I agreed that I thought the whole thing was snake oil.
As I started to upgrade my speakers and electronics, I certainly hear differences now. Quite impressionable ones too. Needlessly to say, I still buy my cables used at a heavy discount and certainly don’t prioritize or throw money at it.
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Oh yes we went over the master clock thing in another thread. Im still waiting for a Nativ Vita to pop up and have the seller actually respond.
Ok back to cables.
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My crack dealer, umm i meant audio dealer, 
loves to send me things to “audition”…Hehehe, congratulations as always on all M0N.
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