All cables are Neuteral?

Please note: the original topic was the neutrality of cables and the possibility of smoothing an edgy high end. Carl, I know that you are experienced and have a lot of knowledge to share, but your answer pretty much missed the point. I didn't mean to offend you. Redkiwi, you also have some valuable opinions and seem somewhat more objective than most here. But let's not burden the poor person with a lot of technical crap when all they want is to dampen some kind of high frequency ringing. A pair of stodgy Monsters will do just that, and for not much money or trouble, and without seriously compromising the performance of the system. Band-aid approach? You bet! Solve the problem quick and cheap? Probably. If that doesn't work, buy a nice Indian bedspread or a Native American rug and hang it on the wall opposite your speakers, behind your listening position.

With all due respect to you "ears", it's not for you to say whether I missed the point, or not. I was merely discussing the idea of "cable neutrality", the title of the thread. I can't help it if perhaps the wrong question was asked in the first place. That said, quick solutions are generally the wrong ones, and just throwing a rug somewhere is hardly the correct approach to acoustically treating a listening room. Only very high frequency reflections will be absorbed by a rug, and it's just an incomplete and false "solution" to damping the first reflection points in a room, anyhow.

Madisonears, pardon my testy reply, my only excuse is I just lost a bomb (pardon the pun) in Fiji, and it hurts. Anyway if the budget only allows for some cables then I see your point. But I can just see Korn remaining dissatisfied with the result and in a few months having to get at the cause of the problem and finding he wants to ditch the Monster Cables (not my favourite cable I must say) as well.

Redkiwi, an interesting thing about Monster Cable (not that this has anything to do with what we're talking about, but...): Did you know that Monster Cable supposedly makes the most expensive speaker cable in the world (according to that "final" Oct. '99 Audio Buyer's Guide)? It costs $100,000... I doubt you'd go thru a dealer to get it, though. Also doubt they'd let anyone audition it, without some sort of non-refundable deposit. I even doubt that they've even sold any of it. Can you imagine someone paying that kind of money for Monster Cable?

I had to laugh Carl. "No" is the simple answer. I have to admit to a high degree of bias and cynicism with respect to this $100,000 cable I have never heard. (By the way, do you realise what kind of a house that kind of money can buy you in Fiji right now?) A head of a local bank (NZ this time) once said to me that when it came to getting a loan, there were no disadvantaged groups - they all got the reputation they deserved - there were only disadvantaged individuals who deserved to be treated better than the group they belong to. I don't think I am wrong about the group of cables called Monster, but I accept I could be wrong about this $100,000 cable. But Monster's success is built on its mass market branding and distribution, and I ask myself how a $100,000 cable can fit strategically with that fact. One of the things that the masses really go for is to buy a brand which can be associated with the "best". I theorise that just having a $100,000 cable and making sure nobody ever reviews it (honestly) might enable you to convince the masses that this outrageously expensive cable must be the best. Therefore this cable would probably serve its intended purpose by just being the most expensive there is - even if in reality it was made of fencing wire.