What cables do you use?

[jsound]

Still building the system, so the cable issue is an important one to me. I have a Cambridge Audio 640C v2 CD player, & I'm
looking at the Harmon-Kardon HK3390, Cambridge 640A, or the NAD 326BEE driving Polk Audio RTiA1's. I don't think that I need
the real high-end cabling, as it would probably not make that much of a difference, but I think this system is good enough for decent cables. Someone suggested Blue Jeans Cables - good sound at a budget price... going by the equation that cabling should cost about 1/10th of the total system, these fit right in.
Any other ideas, comments, suggestions?

[GrtGrfx]

Originally Posted by jsound

Still building the system, so the cable issue is an important one to me. I have a Cambridge Audio 640C v2 CD player, & I'm looking at the Harmon-Kardon HK3390, Cambridge 640A, or the NAD 326BEE driving Polk Audio RTiA1's. I don't think that I need the real high-end cabling, as it would probably not make that much of a difference, but I think this system is good enough for decent cables. Someone suggested Blue Jeans Cables - good sound at a budget price... going by the equation that cabling should cost about 1/10th of the total system, these fit right in. Any other ideas, comments, suggestions?

I. for one, don't believe you need to spend 10% of the cost of your system to buy good cables. I especially don't think that's true if you're spending $5,000+ on your gear. I kinda feel that your cable budget should be $200-400 max, depending on the number of peripherals. Heck, consider used wire. Let someone else's misfortune (or stupidity) save you money!

And the best cable advice I could give anyone...don't buy a 10' cable if a 2' cable would do. Costs skyrocket as cable length gets longer, and sound quality goes down (eventually) as resistance increases.

Good luck!

[DaveLadely]

Originally Posted by jsound

Still building the system, so the cable issue is an important one to me. I have a Cambridge Audio 640C v2 CD player, & I'm
looking at the Harmon-Kardon HK3390, Cambridge 640A, or the NAD 326BEE driving Polk Audio RTiA1's. I don't think that I need
the real high-end cabling, as it would probably not make that much of a difference, but I think this system is good enough for decent cables. Someone suggested Blue Jeans Cables - good sound at a budget price... going by the equation that cabling should cost about 1/10th of the total system, these fit right in.
Any other ideas, comments, suggestions?

Anyone who asserts that cabling should cost about 10% of the system cost is simply providing a false reference that they figure will encourage a customer to spend money on expensive cables that have a high profit margin. When you buy a car, do you use such an arbitrary figure based on the price of the car? If tire dealer could, they would love such a reference, and sell $4000.00 worth of tires for a $40,000.00 car, and the tires would likely be in very pretty colors, with impressive, esthetic names. The main difference being that the $4,000.00 tires would probably be noticeably better quality than the $400.00 tires.

In the case of cables, NO one has been reliably able to tell the difference in double blind testing between super expensive cables and even inexpensive cables of decent quality, try as they might. Pretty embarrassing for those who INSIST they can hear the difference, yet, whenever they had the opportunity for a true double blind test, they simply could not differentiate between any of the cables in a reliable way. All of this becomes an expose of the power of subjective thinking, especially when adulterated by the power of suggestion, a VERY powerful and underestimated influence, and proves that the only known way to really find the truth is to undergo proper double blind testing.
Such rigorous double blind testing, which removes bias, hope, fear, anxiety, choice, prejudice, power of suggestion, from the equation, so the listener has no choice but to make his/her choice. Sad to say for those who are stubbornly biased, they seldom pick the most expensive cable, or even expensive cable, and if by chance they do, a second round will undo them, showing the pick was by chance. Sometimes the person we can fool most easily is ourselves, especially when there is someone to provide suggestions to insert bias for profit. Given more chances to pick, all that has happened in such tests is that the picks average out so show that no one could really pick any favorite cable reliably.
In fact, a double blind test was made using a number of speaker wires, from super expensive all the way down to coat hangers welded together. After the tests were done, no one picked any cable, including the coat hangers, with any reliability, all sounded the same, even the coat hangers. Reality can be ugly, and cheap.
The result is proof that simply buying decent quality cable at a sane price is fine. A website called monocable does have as good a cable as the most expensive on earth, as does Blue Jeans Cable. I do buy some Blue Jeans Cables because they are fairly reasonable, do have quality products without insane greed prevailing, have been honest enough with me to acknowledge the truth of the foregoing, will provide custom length cables so I don't have cables drooping all over, and also provide colored cables so that I don't have to trace a cable using "braille", which is important to me as I have separate components in a 9.1 system.
As I have done before, I dare and double dare anyone to take ah honest and proper double blind test and truthfully say that they could actually tell any difference between any interconnects or speaker wire as long as the tested wires are not actually defective. And that includes "oxygen free" cables. I dare ya! Dave Ladely email: DaveLadely@aol.com

[jsound]

OK - without joining either side of the obviously hotly-debated issue of expensive vs.budget cabling, given the components
that I listed, how do the Blue Jeans cables sound? Please understand: I can't afford expensive interconnects or speaker wires, so my issue is more of a "which cable in that price range" issue. Thanx for your time.

[DaveLadely]

Originally Posted by jsound

OK - without joining either side of the obviously hotly-debated issue of expensive vs.budget cabling, given the components
that I listed, how do the Blue Jeans cables sound? Please understand: I can't afford expensive interconnects or speaker wires, so my issue is more of a "which cable in that price range" issue. Thanx for your time.

The only reason the cable issue is hotly debated is the persistence of the centuries long battle between Dark Ages subjective thinking and the objective methodology which ushered in the Age of Enlightenment, some similar to the "Mythbusters" show demonstrations, use of placebos, and double blind testing. Double blind testing pretty much takes care of the BS spread about cables that has been encouraged by the power of suggestion motivated by profit and oneupmanship and other support of Dark Ages mentality.
Blue Jeans cable does not have a "sound", just as no cable has a "sound", which double blind testing results have already proven.
I like them because they are honest, they agree about the cable hype (very refreshing!), use quality materials, will provide custom length cables, offer colored cables (so you can more easily trace cabling), and are reasonable in price. They are not out to con naive, gullible audiophiles, not profiteers. Otherwise, I have heard that www.monocable.com has cables which will perform just as well as the super expensive cable, and this has been proven in honest double blind testing, much to the consternation of those who are emotionally devoted to subjective opinion building, i.e. self deluded or misled.
Dave Ladey

[GrtGrfx]

Originally Posted by jsound

OK - without joining either side of the obviously hotly-debated issue of expensive vs.budget cabling, given the components
that I listed, how do the Blue Jeans cables sound? Please understand: I can't afford expensive interconnects or speaker wires, so my issue is more of a "which cable in that price range" issue. Thanx for your time.

There are no sides to the expensive vs. budget cable debate, because that's not the debate. There ARE sides to the cables make a difference / cables make no difference debate, and that's the one we are on. If you stand on the cables make no difference side, you look for quality of construction instead of discrete sonic characteristics. if you are on the cables make a difference side, you (obviously) takes someone else's word that one set of cables sound "better" than another, usually with big dollar signs trailing behind.

We in the makes no difference camp posit that, barring defects in physical contact between the connections, with two different sets of cables and two identical sets of speakers and amplifiers, you should hear the same thing. Feel free to acquire several different cable sets and try this yourself. If one sounds better, buy it. If neither one sounds better than the other, buy the cheaper one. It's that simple. The cool thing about reviewing cabling is that there's no pesky volume changes or complex setup like when demoing audio components or speakers. Same signal, same output. Do the cables make any difference?

I suggest you make two trips. One to your local Radio Shack and the other to the local high-end emporium, or for that matter, any Best Buy supplier of Monster cabling. Buy one pair of whichever cable you need (speakers, component interconnect, HDMI cable) from both. Keep the receipts! Now try one, then the other, in your audio system. Invite friends over for a beer and let them listen. Then follow the paragraph above. Once you can see whether there's a difference, you can choose to buy inexpensive cable or expensive cable from other vendors, or just keep what you bought for the initial test.

Good luck!