Pure Note Paragon vs. Kimber Select

Redkiwi wrote: "Raquel, if there were only two cables in the world, your advice makes some sense."

In fact, the poster of this thread was asking about exactly that -- two specific cables, not "hundreds".

As for the rest of your admonishment, Kimber Select and Pure Note are high-end cables that are very revealing of the subtle differences brought about by changes in components, whether the components are being used with isolation products and after-market power cords, the room that the system is in and whether the room is treated, whether the speakers (and turntable, arm and cartridge) are set up properly, the quality of the electric supply, and on and on, and it is very easy to attribute a characteristic to the cable that is actually the result of an upstream component or speaker or room problem. For example, a person who complains that Kimber Select's silver cabling sounds bright and grainy in his system is probably blaming the cable in error -- what he is likely hearing is grain and other problems in mediocre upstream components that are laid bare by the Black Pearl conductor in Kimber Select's silver IC's and speaker cables, which is very transparent from the midrange up. In addition, different cables have different resistive and capacitive qualities that interact greatly with the other components, making a cable that sounds perfect in one system sound totally wrong in another system (I have heard Quatroffil make a $50k system sound like an AM radio). For the record, I run Kimber Select 1030 interconnects and 3038 speaker cables in my main system.

In short, I stand by my comment.

PS - Your horse analogy here escapes me. How about, "[G]o to the stable, ride some horses and keep the one that suits you best."

I have used Pure Note cables for many years and am a happy customer. I did own Kimber Black Pearls once which were OK but costly. I currently own the PN Cerulean which is very neutral in my system. I will most likely upgrade to the Paragons at a later date.

No admonishment was intended Raquel. I was just making the point that advising someone that you have no advice other than 'buy them both and listen for yourself' seems to defeat the reason why people come here to ask the advice of others in the first place, don't you think?

You're absolutely right. Don't know why we bother posting opinions on anything here, since everything is system and room dependent, and perhaps even taste dependent. Hence it is only right and proper that Audiogon closes these forums forthwith. All requests for advice should receive a standard comment of 'go listen for yourself'.

Pardon the flippancy. I found it hard to accept that your response to the question Raquel, more or less said to the poster - 'Don't ask', and therefore did not strike me as appropriate. I can now see you genuinely mean that any advice given here about the relative sound of cables and equipment will just be misleading and we should not bother. But now that I see that you really believe that, the question strikes me - why do you you visit these forums at all? And this time I am not being flippant. I just don't get it. What do you get out of it if the opinions expressed here are of no value?