When I had Pass gear, these are the speaker cables that worked best for me: Zu Libtec, Clear Day Double Shotgun and Supra Ply 3.4, all are available for under $1,000.
speaker cable prices
I read plenty of articles on the demise of high end audio and have been an enthusiast for 40 years and worked at a high end retail chain for ten years back in the 90's. I still own several systems and buy and sell gear to keep tweaking my systems. Nonetheless I'm pretty shocked at the prices of cables in particular- I look for a decent pair of speaker cables to run from a Pass amp to a good pair of speakers and can hardly find a pair of 8 ft cables for less than $1000- most are commonly 2-3k for a pair of cables.
Is it me or is this ludicrous?
What are people buying for an average pair of cables ? Can a pair be had for $300?
Is it me or is this ludicrous?
What are people buying for an average pair of cables ? Can a pair be had for $300?
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- 59 posts total
I separate cable pricing into: Entry level - a step up from stock cables but noticeably better Value - probably up to limited hundreds of dollars. Bang for the buck. Quality - this is a wide range but where most audiophiles getting serious play. Maybe up to a few thousand dollars. Hard to truthfully get better than these. Status - there are legit offerings here mostly seen at audio shows, but this category and the prior is where the biggest growth has occurred over the years relative to the "early days" of hi-fi. Clearly bigger profit margins. I’ve participated in all but the last category including stock/consumer cables for many early years. My cables today are a mix of value and quality. My gear doesn’t justify spending into the status level.
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Is it me or is this ludicrous? It's not you. The high price is justified however as cable marketers put some real innovative work into the design of these cables. What's ludicrous is that there's no audible benefits; they do not "disappear" more than any other simple 12 awg cable made of pure copper and PE insulation. The upgrade path proposed by exotic cable manufacturers is always more copper... entry-level is 16 awg or smaller, going larger as you move up the line. Double the copper... LOW R,L,C is KING over everything else; that's where the real differences are; the key is to not screw it up with bad connectors... choose pure copper / silver terminations also. |
https://www.bluejeanscable.com/store/speaker/index.htm Canare 4S11 A 10 foot pair with high quality terminations about $ 100 plus shipping Mogami W3104 https://www.redco.com/Mogami-W3104.html Above a bit more Good Listening Peter |
- 59 posts total