Cable survey
What factors and information play a part in your cable purchasing decisions?
Response: Cost/value, material used (e.g., copper vs. silver), construction quality (e.g., conductor purity with proper shielding and insulation), termination quality (e.g., gold- vs. brass- vs. Rhodium-plated), wire guage, and the manufacturer's reputation.
What do you want to know that the manufacturers aren't telling you? I don't have any expectation that any profit-minded cable manufacturer might actually address my responses, but here they are nonethelss: Why do "reference" (i.e., high-end/"boutique") cables have to cost an arm and a leg? Put another way, can reference performance be "affordable" or does the cost mark-up of qualilty cables have to be so high? Also, why is "snake oil" salesmanship and over-blown advertised expectations too often introduced into cable marketing (read propaganda)? Likewise, why can't cable marketing place more emphasis on science-based education -- but put in lay terms -- to justify the all-too-prevalent outlandish costs of quality cables? Why can't more cable manufactureres take the time to describe in greater detail the quality, performance, or craftmanship of what they make? The common bare-bones cable descriptions would make most non-audiophiles question not only whether cables as a category ought to be treated as a fundamental system component but also their sanity to actually pay a king's ransom for the high-end offerings -- for which they often still can't see or hear any noticable differences without the benefit of having "golden" eyes or ears!
