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

Oh, my.

Your posts are beginning to resemble those of a certain member who was banned not too long ago...

Before this well-intentioned post goes off the rails, let’s just take the positive thoughts for what they are. Someone found relatively little-known cables to sound much better for them in their system than much pricier cables from more well-known manufacturers. That’s really all this is and maybe gives some other audiophiles the ability to explore a new option and a chance for one of the “little guys” we pretty much all root for to try to make their mark. Let’s not let that potential opportunity get caught up in percentages or other side hoopla. Either explore LavriCables or don’t, but at least there’s another intriguing option at a fairly high quality/price ratio for the materials. What’s wrong with that, especially in the world of cables? And yes, I also own several LavriCables in my HeadFi system and they all provided significant improvements over stock cables that they should given their price, but in the next few months I’m going to put them up against my much-beloved Acoustic Zen Silver Reference ICs in my home system and will forward my impressions in case anyone’s interested. But, my initial impressions concur with @guakus that they offer a lot of performance and silver for the $$$.

@soix

Beautifully and maturely said. Come on gentlemen, let’s resist the insults and keep this thread off the too frequent (These days) thread deletion pathway.

Charles

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

 

I disagree completely with the way this is framed.  Propaganda?  Really?  Like there's a deep seated dark state entities which are keeping us from getting the most from our systems.   Hahahaha, the only propaganda I know of is from the cable makers.

Personally, if you get excited or satisfied spending a million dollars on anything, well so long as it is your money honestly earned do whatever you want to do. 

But to convince me that there's any proportionate value of cables at the most expensive levels vs. a lot of electronics and speakers at the medium levels of price points is a tall order indeed.

But to convince me that there's any proportionate value of cables at the most expensive levels vs. a lot of electronics and speakers at the medium levels of price points is a tall order indeed.

But that’s not what he’s saying here.  In fact, the OP is saying the opposite that he’s found cables at less than half the price of his current cables that significantly outperformed his much pricier cables.  That’s pretty much the main point here, but if you want to expand it into how much one should spend on cables that’s a bigger subject that transcends what is really being discussed here.