tnr Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 (edited) This is one of those highly debated subjects, but interesting and educational to hear opinions. Definitely a point of highly diminishing returns. When I bought my reference HT system in 2003, I ordered two 100' spools of 12 gauge Sound King speaker wire from Parts Express at a price of $35.90 per spool. One spool was not quit enough for my system. I bought it at the time based of great reviews. I was told the company went out of business due to Hurricane Katrina, although there are other Sound King companies. A couple months ago someone in the vintage audio repair industry told me anything larger than 16 gauge wire was putting my system at risk. Although I am fairly technical, he was flapping some deep technical rationale, and my mind blah blah'd him, partly because I didn't buy into what he was saying, and partly because I was too distracted looking over the vintage gear he had in his small showroom. Probably should have paid closer attention, but I am happy to this day with my 12 gauge Sound King speaker wire, There is absolutely no signs of any green corrosion. Edited October 2, 2014 by tnr Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tube fanatic Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 Found an article that I was looking for! It will take a while to read through, but it provides quite an interesting insight on this issue: http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm Maynard Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tigerwoodKhorns Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 See that's where it gets sticky. As an example, you might get 95% of the performance you are looking for (insert any sport, hobby, pastime) for XXX dollars. However, that last 5% is going to cost you dearly. Now it's up to the consumer to decide if that elusive 5% is worth the cash outlay, or if he is completely happy with the 95% he has already achieved. I have heard preamps up to 8K that didn't sound as good as mine. But I did hear one at 8K that was better than mine, but the margin was so small as to make me unwilling to spend the money for that marginal performance. Another listener would just have to have that little extra and be willing to shell out the $$ for it. So bottom line is, it's only worth what you are willing to pay. What we perceive as minute differences still exist as a difference. You would spend no more than 65.00 to wire your system. My limit is probably 500-1000 dollars for speaker cables. I once heard a power cord that cost 300.00 (mid-90s) that sounded so good that I immediately ordered one the next day for my power amp. Ten years later I heard a different power cord that made an even bigger improvement. This time the cost was 2K. I had to say no to that one. Shakey More expensive does not necessairily mean better. I was lent a pair of $10,000 MIT cables that sounded worse than a pair of regular copper wires (I think I had KImbers at the time, but they sounded the same as a decent pair of coper wires). I also bought a $11,000 preamp thinking that it was going to be the end all. I sold it and went back to a $3000 preamp that sounded just as good. My 2 cents. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tigerwoodKhorns Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 A couple months ago someone in the vintage audio repair industry told me anything larger than 16 gauge wire was putting my system at risk. Uh oh. We are in deep trouble. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shakeydeal Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 Oh I agree completely. Sometimes the cheaper component wins the day. Shakey Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joessportster Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 Debated ad nausea-um..............................................If you have spent a mint building a revealing enough system cables are a final means of tuning and to some well worth the expense Most (99.9%) of the public would not even think about spending more than a few hundred dollars on a whole system and would think alot of us crazy for having 5 -10,000.00 dollars in our systems I have had more crazy looks from people when they hear I had 5000.00 in my turntable, and nearly 25,000.00 in my system..................of course for them spending 30 to 50,000.00 on a car was ok with them point is we can all come up with something crazy about someone elses spending.....................My thoughts if it makes you happy then just do it I have tried expensive and cheap cables and frankly never had good enough ears to hear a difference on open air systems.............now that I use Headphones I can hear differences in cable but frankly dont feel they warrant the cost Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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