Price Isn't Always Indicitive of Quality or Performance


I had spent over $1000 on a Synergistic Research Cable.  The Atmosphere Level 1 level, to be exact. I was using this as my main source cable to my powered speakers. It was absolutely DE-MOL-ISHED by Lavricables' Grand line for a mere $500. It isn't that the SR cable wasn't good.  I was impressed with it and it was a major upgrade over their Foundation line and a phenomenal upgrade over Audioquest's Yosemite cable. 

SR and Lavricables use similar tech, but only Lavricables uses pure silver practically throughout.

Here is the over all make up of the $1000 SR Atmosphere cable:

4 conductors.
Conductor: Silver/Copper matrix.  Or....silver and copper wire twirled together. Purity unknown. Actual wire gauge unknown.
Dielectric: Teflon
Source Connector: gold plated copper, cryo treated and has graphene applied.
Speaker Connector: Silver plated silver, cryo treated and has graphene applied.
Has a silver-plated copper mesh as a floating shield.
Uses a Tesla Coil to burn the cable in (quantum tunneling) prior to shipping out.

Now...Lavricables' $500 cable:

4 conductors.
Conductor: 20 awg 6N pure silver. Each group is laminated separately in Teflon before being encased in Teflon dielectric insulation. Graphene is applied at key points through out the cable.  The cable was cryo treated.
Dielectric: Teflon
Source Connector: Trillium Copper plated with gold. Cryo treated and has graphene applied.
Speaker Connector: AECO ARP-4055 Pure Silver RCA Connectors. Cryo treated and has graphene applied.

The unbelievable sound quality from pure silver was so immense and powerful.  It was no longer like listening to music as it was more like experiencing the music.  The music was pushing into you.  Similar to going to a concert and having the music beat and play in your chest. There were songs that had distortion at either loud, high pitched, or at peak cacophony that I attributed to being part of the recording. The Lavricables proved that it was simply that the SR cable was incapable of reproducing those notes.  WHAT!?! I mean, how do you engineer a cable to fail at $1000? I guess so it doesn't out perform or come too close to your $10,000+ cables. In Lavricables, the Grand line is tops; there is nothing higher.  They pour *ALL* their knowledge, best materials and techniques in the Grand line.

I thought long about this and I think I figured it out. It isn't that Synergistic Research is necessarily trying to rip anyone off.  It's the cost of doing business in the United States.  Lavricables are located in Latvia. Synergistic Research and Audioquest are based out of California.  The average MSRP markup on goods in CA is 3000%. To compare, Texas's MSRP markup is 300%. So the cost of materials will be higher to make the same product in CA than it would in TX. Synergistic Research and respectively Audioquest, has to charge what they do to maintain living and operating out of CA. But in Latvia?  It is clear to me that the materials, tech and know how isn't that expensive there.  So it can be surmised that the cost of living and operating out of Latvia is less expensive, which means they can offer the highest grade product at a much lower cost than if the same cable were made here in the United States.

I am thinking of replacing *ALL* my cables. O_O

128x128guakus

@P05129

Regardless
of the color of the sound, a cable should be able to replicate all notes. In this system I have had a very wide upgrade path:

AudioQuest Victoria
AudioQuest Yosemite
Synergistic Research Foundation
Synergistic Research Atmosphere Level 1
Lavricables Grand

Each upgrade presented changes to the quality of the sound for the better.  Be it holography, clarity, musicality and even color. These have been Copper and Silver and both together. In this system, the all silver wins. It is very clinical, but there is no loss of "warmth" that I can tell. In fact, this latest cable upgrades out of those descriptors. Music sounds real. Not live, just real. 

Let me give you an example.

On The Dave Brubeck Quartet's album "Time Out." Track Two 'Strange Meadow Lark'. All previous cables were unable to replicate the C8 "tink" at the end of the piano riff. It would distort, as if the mic's sensitivity was set too high. Now, it isn't just that this note now plays, it plays realistically with the expected attack and decay of piano.

 

@juanmanuelfangioii 

I may not be completely accurate with the precise numbers of MSRP for 2022, but I know I am not wrong that markup percentage on goods is different state by state. California and New York being the highest in the nation.
 

Whether you agree or not, you can keep your thinly veiled Ad Hominems to yourself.

@erik_squires 

No one is ever going to agree with what I am doing on this system, because there appears to be a propogandic rule that one cannot purchase cables worth more than the system they are attached to.  As if speakers and systems have some built-in feature where it actively reduces performance past a certain point. 🙄 This entire theory is based solely on the notion of monetary returns.  I would hasten to say that if one is more worried about how much each song costs rather than how good each song sounds, then I would accuse that person of not truly enjoying music.

That said, I am also not putting this system in an ideal room.  Although, I have made quite a few room treatments, mostly echo absorption, vibration control and the mitigation of EMI and RFI in the room.

This all started with making my workstation have good sound, since that is where I will be 9 hours a day into the foreseeable future.

I had the expendable cash and credit line...so....why not answer all my unanswerable audio questions.  All I am doing is providing testimony on how it worked out for me and my system.  You're welcome to see all the equipment in my Virtual System.

Absolutely true. You can make the argument that from mass low fi to mid fi the extra expenditure makes a big difference. But, with savvy research and shopping, and/or will to buy used, you can get GREAT sounding gear. After that it’s just your sound preferences or how showy you want to be.