Affordable cables

@millercarbon - re:...

Wait, I got a better one: how is this even slightly controversial? Just assume, for the sake of argument, it really is possible to assemble some off the shelf parts and get truly outstanding performance. Your DIY cable, (sorry, laughing, hard to type) so secret you found it on the interweb (right?) anyone can do it, and its so awesomely better than anything else, and for cheap, and yet there’s all these guys making obscene profits too dumb to figure out they can make even more building your DIY, slapping a fancy sticker with a name on it? There’s a ton of em Would they not be doing this?

You "appear" to make a valid case. But let’s break it down...

and yet there’s all these guys making obscene profits too dumb to figure out they can make even more building your DIY, slapping a fancy sticker with a name on it?

Well - the "high performance" DIY cables that I am aware of...
1. are made from specialist (expensive) parts that I DO NOT consider "off the shelf"
2. they use very high quality wires in their construction
3. they are not easy to fabricate because they use an unconventional cable geometry
4. resulting in an expensive & time consuming build process.

This makes it difficult to scale up to a cost-effective manufacturing process, which in turn makes it unprofitable, even for the smaller cable fabricators.

That’s why "these guys" - Would NOT be doing this with the more advanced designs.

Regarding your statement...

Just assume, for the sake of argument, it really is possible to assemble some off the shelf parts and get truly outstanding performance.

Like you, I have been there and found the cables I built that used conventional cable geometries (i.e. bulk cable) to be disappointing. So that part of your post I do agree with - in some part.

But you do seem to be generalizing and "tarring" ALL DIY cables with the "same brush", which I have found is not the case.

I do believe my DIY cables are actually competing with the very best commercially available brands for a fraction of the cost and that belief has been substantiated by the many DIY’er across the globe that have taken the time to pass on their positive observations.

Just thought I would share a differing point of view, so other readers can form their own beliefs/opinions.

May you ALL have an excellent holiday season - Steve :-)

Thanks jetter
I purchased some magomi 2534 cables. I hope it is not a sideways matchup with tha LC-1 from bj but it's a start.
 Thanks to all.

It's too bad that Cabledyne went out of business. Their engineer worked for Belden Cable & Wire for 20 years and he came up with a cable that was better than what he used to design for Belden. It involved a type of shielding and had a different cable geometry and dielectric than what you'd find on a "standard" cable.

The best part was it was not an expensive cable, relatively speaking. You could get interconnects for about $150 and speaker cables that cost me about $350 for a 6' pair. 

The ICs weren't as good as my Darwin ICs so I asked for a RA to return them. Puzzled by that, Ed Bowman asked why I was returning them since no one had ever done that. He asked for my take on them so I obliged him. Once they were returned, he asked if I would try out a new set of ICs and give some more feedback. I did. And the new ones came scary close to the sound of Darwin's entry level line at 1/3 the cost.

All they did was to swap out the standard terminations for some Cardas Silver brand of terminations and if I'd heard only that, I would have thought I'd hit the cable lottery. I let him know that when I returned them and for the life of me, I don't know why they didn't change to those ICs as it wouldn't have been that big a price increase. They would've had an eternal backorder to deal with.

As for their speaker cables, they smoked any pair I used before them. Zu Mission, Zu Event, Music Metre, Mapleshade Double Helix, and a few more that I can't remember. When they had a Holiday Sale on their top of the line Virtuoso Speaker Cables, I jumped on them without hesitation since they were 50% off. Never looked back. No intention of looking further.

The whole point of this is that I don't believe that one has to settle for something because someone else holds forth on the belief that what they say is good enough because, engineering. The world is full of engineers and no two will decide on what's good enough for others, let alone themselves. There are shills on both sides of this equation and somewhere, in the middle, are some great finds, depending on your budget. Like Williwonka said, some cables require a lot of work to complete and use better than average design and construction, which is reflected in the cost. One must not assume that all of that cost is some very high markup. 

If I were in the market for a new set of cables, I'd look into some of the smaller, cottage industry types who don't have the market exposure and need to factor all of those ads into their pricing.

All the best,
Nonoise

 @millercarbon
"  Wait, I got a better one: how is this even slightly controversial? Just assume, for the sake of argument, it really is possible to assemble some off the shelf parts and get truly outstanding performance. Your DIY cable, (sorry, laughing, hard to type) so secret you found it on the interweb (right?) anyone can do it, and its so awesomely better than anything else, and for cheap, and yet there's all these guys making obscene profits too dumb to figure out they can make even more building your DIY, slapping a fancy sticker with a name on it? There's a ton of em Would they not be doing this? So where are they? Oh and also at the same time the pro's would be testing and tweaking and finding trick ways to take all those same parts up a whole level, just so they can sell for even more. Leaving your regular old DIY in the dust.

Its one, or its the other. Notice nowhere in there is the scenario where the DIY really is good. Because they never are. Sorry. You got to at least pick a semi-defensible position to have any chance at all here. And this ain't it. "
------------------

You`re a bit of an arrogant yerk millercarbon and I kind if like that as long as you are talented as well. Are you? 

Tell me what ic`s you`re using and I`ll send you a set. 

..and yeah, they are guaranteed 100% off the shelf cheap stuff