First Off: mtrycrafts said: "What will these expensive cables accomplish that a $30 cable will not?" Surely you didn't pay #30.00 for "ZIPCORD" from Lowes, right? you didn't, did you? OH, but surely you must have, your statement clearly implies that "more expensive" cables will not out perform cheaper ones... Do tell, what exactly will your $30.00 cables accomplish that $5 cable will not? Romex, Barbwire, Mechanics Wire, to name a few will conduct current/signal, and can all surely do the job for less than the INSANE $30 you apparently would spend!
Let's see if I can explain this acceptably. I come from a very deep background of RACING. In that world, tweaks are life too, and its very well accepted that it is much easier to find something that does not work, than it is to find something that does. One way we'd put it is, you have to go thru 99 things that don't work, to find the one that does. Unfortunately, that makes MOST wandering endlessly looking for something they will never find. That makes most of us, looking for the infinitely small things, and wondering if THAT is "IT". But, if/when you do have something tangible that does work, and works in an IN YOUR FACE sort of way, it makes an absolute and perfect reference point to test other thngs from, and it becomes extremely clear when you found something that louses it up.
I told you there was much more than what was posted. I will give you a snippet of one part of it. Back in '88 when I got the Vandersteen's, I also purchased Audioquest Brown speaker cable, with the Vandersteens being built to be bi-wire, I bought enough to make 2 pairs, and each cable was 15' long. Over the years, after I had finally settled on speaker placement, I'd always wanted to prune the length of the cables. Leaving out a big part of the story, and trying to get to the meat of the matter, these cables were used the new B&K amp and sounded GREAT, however... the leads to the left speakers needed reterminated. I used this as an oppotuity to also and finally shorten the leads. I took one of the 15' leads, and cut it in half. The Audioquest Brown cable has 6 leads per cable, 3 red, 3 black, spiraling under the outer sheath, red, black, red, black, red, black... I thought I'd be smart and use one red/black pair for the mid/tweeter, and the other 2 pairs for the bass, effectively STILL biwiring, but within the same cable. I used Audioquest compression spades for the amp, and banana's for the speaker ends. The RESULTS???? HORRID! I may as well have been listening to a transitor radio! I transfered the 2 pairs used on the bass to the tweeter/mid, left the 1 pair that was used for the tweeter/mid dangling in mid air, and then added on a pair of the 15 footers to the bass. It sound GREAT again! I then went off to our local HIGH END *MUSIC* Store, guitars, PA amps, etc. NOT High End Audio, and asked the 30 year owner of the store for the BEST banana connectors he had. He spent 15 min telling me how great these gold plated connectors were, I bought'm. I took the 2nd (of 4 total) 15 foot speaker cable, cut it in half, and ran the set screw as hard as possible against the bare leads, then complimented the connection with a good, hot, fully saturated solder. Then being so proud of the very sexy NEW banana plugs that I so meticulously terminated my speaker wire with, I decided to use that pair on the tweeter/mid, and move the audioquest terminated pair to the bass. The RESULTS???? HORRID!!!! Now at that point I was legitimately bi-wired and confused as H! I swapped the pairs from tweeter/mid and bass. The RESULTS???? I sounded GREAT!!!!! So, now you have 2 pairs of IDENTICAL speaker cable (off of the same spool, same date, in service the same time, on the same speakers, amps, you name it) with only the speaker cable termination being the ONLY difference, and the audible difference is mind blowing.
Now look, you obviously don't buy off on cable sounding different, or you'd not have commented like you did. but I am here to tell you, it does NOT take much of a system to hear the difference. Back in '88 when I bought my MIT MI-500 interconnects I used to have my buddies (skeptics, like you) come out, and even bring their own interconnects. I stood behind the rack, and swapped out interconnects, each and everyone of them swore I Was throwing switches on the back of the equipment somehow... it was that dramatic. Well... having had that experience, I knew that audible differences were in what seems to be minor things, but NOW I had heard an EXTREME difference in CONNECTORS. I was not going to spend the next 5 years of my life auditioning CONNECTORS, so I had no choice but to recontact my High End Audio store of the late 80's, and ASK for their advice. After a long song and dance they told me they were clearing out a lot of the high-end audio stuff and offered me the INSANE priced speaker cables for 1/2 price. I took them only on the condition that if I'd rather hang myself with them than listen to them, that they'd come back, CLEARANCE price or not, they agreed. I can only tell you what I HEAR, with not one sheard of WHY, but the image, the detail, the DELICACY of this system as it is now is AWESOME!!!
So, you go and tell me all you like, that this that and the other can make no difference, and argue THEORY all you want, cause obviously you have not HEARD it, and its FICTION to you. I have HEARD it, its as REAL as this oversized posting I am about to make. If you want to be forever stuck as one of the masses in search of the holy grail that can't find it, FINE! I have offered a real life experince that is almost, (well, acutally, to me it is...) incomprehendible.
My system happens to be performing at a incomprehendible level, where it will be VERY EASY to tell if I have made an component MISTAKE. YOU obviously don't have yours working that well.... So continue your hunt BLINDFOLDED, and ignore the people COAXING you down the right path, its your choice.
have FUN!
