More Cable Confessions.

My last post chronicled my audio cable journey. I went from a cable skeptic to one whom wouldn't mind spending some money on the subject matter. I am still keeping an open mind about things. Our state of mind over hifi as anything else in life, changes along with time and stages of our journey thus far.

Two most frequently asked questions about high end audio cables are invariably:

1) How much does one need to spend on cables?

My opinion to this is that, there is no clear cut answer to this question. However, there's a general consensus that feel spending anything between 10% - 20% of your total audio system budget is appropriate. I would certainly endorse this consensus, if your total system cost does not exceed RM$30K, i.e., an entry to mid level budget system.

Once your system budget crosses that threshold, I would prefer to say that perhaps, a less restrictive budget guideline could be set for cabling. In this case any, amount up to 80% or so is still acceptable, provided the person spending the $$$ feels the sonic returns are truly worth while.

At the other end of the high end spectrum, I personally know many audiophiles whom cables spending exceed their total system budget!

I can quite possibly explain why this is happening in the higher end of audio dome. In the last 20 years or so, the average hifi equipment inflation is about 5X, i.e. say if you take the very successful Marantz CD63 KI back then which retails for RM$2.4K. I recently spotted the latest Marantz SA-KI Pearl, now retailing for about RM$11K+. Cable inflation, on the other hand have increased by more than 10X, at least! RM$10K cables were almost unheard of during the late 80's early 90's. Today, the Siltech Emperor speaker cable retails at a cool RM$120K!

Reason for that is that, like PLC products, cable art is still evolving at an astonishing rate. Purer, better materials, construction methods, newer contact plug designs, all contributed to today's high end cable sound. They are more transparent, have wider frequency response band width and lower noise floor.

2) Do I really need high end cables?

I am in the opinion that high end cables are auxiliary equipments. They are just as important as any other hifi component in your audio system, but yet, I feel you still need to get your overall system synergy right, before embarking on a high end cable search. That means you can use any decent quality(need not be expensive) cables to hook up your system, tweak your system with the aim towards maximum optimization, i.e., look in to your power supply(PLC and decent power cords, with that I do not mean super expensive stuff!), equipment isolation, room acoustic treatment(if required) and many others. It is after all these is taken care of and you're relatively satisfied, then you can truly appreciate what high end cables brings to the system in terms of performance.

I know many whom feel that cables don't make much of a difference, compared to upgrading components. I agree with that too. But what I am trying to say is that, cables should be the last thing to be looked in to, after you've settled for all your other component choice. One more thing that I am strongly against of is that many audiophiles use cables to cover up or hoping to use cables as tone controls to balance an audio system!

And lastly, I strongly advocate this belief, " Cables cannot make a poorly optimized/synergistic system sound better, but in the correctly optimized system, the cables will take the overall good performance to another level"

In summary, having been thru the audio cable journey, I now know that depending on our audio cable journey, we may view others as audiophools, and those audiophools will see us as el cheapos. There's always two sides to a coin. So I wouldn't be too judgemental about things as they are now.

Here's wishing everyone a rewarding audio cable journey, a hifi sub journey, if there ever was one!