Cables - Rip off or Essential

Had one girl at school that we used to call the electrician. She was an expert on wires.

Point taken, and Colin has been kind enough to share some of his cable designs so folk can DIY. It still runs relatively expensive so you can see where his costs come from.


Speaking of expensive cables in general, the buyer has to take some of the blame for the crazily priced wires, fuses and other accessories being sold too. It’s that whole thing of wanting to feel (and be seen as) “superior” with some folk.

I like to use the word “accessories” because it puts the bits back in context. It also puts those spending many thousands in the same camp as ladies forking out big bucks on designer handbags and shoes: Most likely made in the same sweatshops which churn out fakes for a tenner. Or those knob chavs who buy ridiculous looking Nike’s for £200 to accessories a shell suit that’s never seen a washing machine in its entire life. Now there’s an image to ponder over breakfast!

Coming back to the Q20 and Q20-P amps. They ain’t expensive by any modern atandards.

www.hifianswers.com/2017/10/ewa-q-20-p-preamp-and-q-20-power-amp-test-review/

The guy who wrote to Colin is clearly not one of the “oneupmanship” types either. He’s built his own Open Baffles. To me, that makes his review far more valuable.

For me there are two aspects to cable pricing. Up to a (fairly low) point, you are paying for a 'nicer' cable with nicer plugs, nicer wire, better finished etc. It will probably last longer if you regularly swap kit around and there is a bit of pride of ownership. Having seen how much time they take to make up properly, I'd say a hundred on a decent pair of interconnects falls into the "expensive but fair" bracket.

Beyond that point I think you are wholly into the 'designer label' bracket. There is no performance improvement, the quality is marginally if at all better, but you have the right name on them or they look the part. As part of a £100K+ system, £2-3K on cables barely merits an argument in terms of cost.

I've made some of my own up (with much online coaching from Paul Coupe of RFC) and it's a fiddly old job but there is pride from doing it and I now have purple and orange cables which obviously sound better than boring black ones Most importantly they are the exact lengths I wanted with the plugs I needed for my system, so no adaptors.

If you can DIY, you are free to try any cable under the sun. Thats how i started. Brian on AoS, tutored me through building a pair of Klotz and i was hooked. 

A Little anecdote:

I had a guy try my cables against his Interconnects. I loaned him 2 pairs. I won't say publicly what they were or reveal his identity because i agreed not too.

He left a glowing but somewhat contradictory write-up in my inbox. I asked him if he could clarify a few points and he said "I can't explain what i heard"

I probed further and after a lengthy phone convo, it basically resulted in the fact he "couldn't" prefer my cables because he had invested so much in his. He couldn't accept this big, marquee name could be beaten/equalled/competed with for 20% of the price.

There is definitely an attraction to prestige brands, which is not a good thing. I like the little guys and even better, DIY.

Now hows about a Grounding Box thread.

Im building one lol

honest. Just waiting for the dog to dig up the garden. Chuck some bricks in and see what happens 

In all honesty, i find it highly unlikely it will do anything but i am open minded and willing to try it out. If it works, i'll share the recipe. If it doesn't, i'll them for £££££'s lol

Its not just the cable. There are gold plated clay (or some other Sh#t) moulded plugs out there mate. Believe me. I ordered a set of plugs and they were advertised as XYZ, i had doubts instantly when they arrived. I filed down the contact and it was a plated porous material, clay like. They were horrendous.

Anyway, the conductor is not the only important factor. Dialectic can make or break the cable IME. 

You dont need to spend thouands, but you need to spend wisely. As you did!

Flog the bags full of cables. If you have any with good RCAs on, i am always interested.

Never know what gems lurk in those bags mate lol

I fall into the not bothered category, my balanced cables are off the reel neutrik plugged shielded microphone cable and my one set of se to balanced wires are similarly cheap.

I have solid silver foil speaker cable though, for no reason other than I can't be arsed to swap it for a nice thick flexi copper set.

My power cables are all kettle leads.

Haha I didn’t read your post fully and was about to say the very same thing, it’s sounded ok in some systems but as soon as I have found decent cables and plugs, it’s been relegated to “cooking cable” status afaic.

Edit.Just ignore me. Not sure what happened but I was laughing at Oliver’s joke about Klotz. I seem to have quoted the wrong post.

Agreed, there's a pride in ownership of some brands. They do garner loyalty which is understandable.

I can get Krell pride of ownership. I can easily get Linn and Naim pride of ownership for their older gear. I’m beggared if I can see anything worthy of such pride in their current stuff. Linn stuff in particular looks tat and Naim stuff is now soundbars and streamers.....cack by definition afaic.