wnat to downgrade my cables

YES. Not all cheap cable can do top job.
Congrads Stuartbranson! You have a decent enough system that you can tell the difference.
There is a certain limitation with what money can buy. If you're looking for something that is same level as the YAM5000 then I would expect you to pay $250 to $300 regardless used or new. The other alternative is to build the cable yourself with quality materials and the right method.
Don't even bother with home grown audio because it is not the same class.
Therefore, how much can you really save by switching to the cheaper alternatives?
Same price range apply to speaker cablest too.

S23...liked your first post a lot...but not the knee-jerk assessment of tight correlation between price and quality of reproduction of the cable market your second supports. Have you ever tried the cheap Canare starquad cables all the pro recording engineers use? I suggest Stuart spend $20 for a pair of these while rescaling his system. Remember, he wants a slightly warmish cable...probably not the Nordost SPM I use nor another $$$ rare-metal snakeset....

Subaruguru, I know you can make a good cables yourself fore relatively cheap in material cost (I can too.) However, for the same quality as what he already had doesn't come cheap for finished product. He just want to downgrade in price not performance. Btw, I'm only referring to signal cables and speaker cables and not power cords. If it power cord, I would only recommend the Volex 14-3 computer cord which is $7 for the 6ft cord. And that my friend, money doesn't buy you much more in terms of performance increase. You don't need to mention your own Canare Starquad either because there are a lot of better cables out there than that.

I've now been switching between the Sonorans and the Yamamuras, the Cary amp and a Vaic 300B SET. Basically I want a good quality less expensive cable but I'm inclined to agree with S23chang to some degree that I will likely be sacrificing quality with the money saved. It's also such a synergy thing that it's really gonna be alot of trial and evaluation and in this respect Ernie has a very valid point. Merci bien and thanks for all your thoughts. I've never had the luxury of two nice amps to show how the cheaper can have strengths the more expensive lacks and vice-versa. The Sonorans don't even sound that bad with the Cary SLI-80. OF course the Vaic with the 302B's is quite revealing but it's bass is less defined than the Cary with the quad of KT-88's. Again anyone familiar with any of my gear, I'd like to hear what you're using and thanks. BTW it is mainly the speaker cables and IC's(to a lesser extent) that I am talking about and not power cables at all.

You can get a sonically good cable for less money but you still have to audition them in your system. Try some of the smaller more creative companies like Pure Note, RS, Bogdan, etc.