Old thread, but felt the need to comment. I was always skeptical over the years about high cost cables. I don’t think back when, that my hears were sophisticated to hear subtle differences, as I didn’t consider myself an audiophile. Guess I thought you had to apply and have a special certification to be a part of the club, lol. I used decent, meaning not Walmart, but not expensive cables. I recently tried Synergistic Research top of the line power conditioner with their top power cord. This was listening to. McIntosh MC352 with Higher end Sonus Faber standmount speakers, and Klipsch Heresy speakers. With it in line I noticed the lack of a hiss in the quiet moments and between notes that I had not noticed up until it was no longer there. There was more impact in the bass, mids and highs, the bass being most noteable. I play the guitar and could easily tell there was more attack on the leading edge of the notes played on the guitar. Same for all instruments. The sound was more dynamic throughout. I had honestly expected not to hear any difference at all, in a way I was trying to prove to myself that it was true that it made no difference, despite many reviews etc saying different and describing what they heard. Now, all those reviews make it sound like the difference is like a car radio from the 1950s, to a burmeister system in a Mercedes today. It was no where near that drastic, no frying pan hit me on the head to make the light go on. But it was a difference, and it was noticeable. We had been listening what I consider to be low volume, and I usually listen pretty loud. The difference increased as the volume did. Now the difference was pretty significant. I Then removed their high end power cord and ran the power conditioner with a standard mac cord. Again, I could hear a difference, and it diminished the improvements that I heard with it. Then I plugged in just their power cord and took out the power conditioner. The sound was not as good as the conditioner alone, but better than with the standard cord. I did not have time to try any other cables, but I will be back to try interconnects and speaker cables later. As with all audio products, after reading and trying to learn as much as I can, I let my ears be the final judge. Measurements are great, but if it dosnt sound good to me, that’s all that matters in the end. I left with the new power conditioner and cable in hand, they proved to me that there is indeed a difference, and a worthwhile one. Everyone has their own budget and some of us spend huge money for small improvements. So why not cables if we can indeed hear a difference, and more so if the difference is greater than what we might spend for a lesser improvement in other ways. I don’t know at what level the differences become noticeable and to what level they do. I can’t speak for all cables, but in this one case, I was wrong and cables do make a difference. If I had to chose the difference between what I spent on the power cord and the difference I heard in a 5k upgrade on a DAC, for the money, I’d do the power cord first. The difference was more noticeable, in a good way.
