home made speaker cable vs. the big boys

Trelja....Actually, Gateway and Skywalker are mastering/recording studios that do indeed get caught up in cable "paranoia", and use $6000 interconnects....not that they actually have to pay full retail for them, of course!

I know a lot of people(musicians and recording personnel) who work at a few VERY high profile recording studios. Two of the more famous ones are RuffHouse Records(a truckload of Grammys in the past five years) and Riversound Studios(owned by Donald Fagan and Gary Katz - have recorded the BIGGEST names in the business). Both handle the lion's share of recording/mixing/producing of music made on the East Coast. Neither of them use anything more esoteric than Radio Shack quality stuff. You are quite correct about certain studios using exotic cable, but it is by far the exception, as opposed to the norm. I almost NEVER come across a person in this field who has heard of even AudioQuest(they all know Monster, some know Phoenix ala car stereo).

Listen to what most of the studios put out! Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't Mr. Ludwig have some of the best quality recordings out there? I was told this, so I am quoting. To say that some studios have never heard the names of cables such as AudioQuest doesn't surprise me a bit, I have heard their recordings.

Bob Ludwig is THE Moses of record production. Most of the others are the of Norm Peterson ilk. It would be nice if musicians and record producers were also audiophiles, but it usually doesn't happen. I have converted many a music person(usually on a steady diet of Jolida, Rogue, and Manley StingRays), but it has been a long and steep uphill road.

No_money - you're missing the boat. Digital bits and bytes are just that. Digital. Which means that it doesn't matter what cable, interconnect, patch cord was used in the process. I can take those bits and bytes and run them through some pretty sophisticated algorithms and make them sound like anything I want, regardless of what type of link was in the chain. Monster is often mentioned by recording studio people. Yes, you can polish a turd, in your vernacular, because the ultimate quality of the recording as presented on the CD (let's exclude vinyl right now) is a reflection of the talent and quality of the recording engineer and the producer of the recording. Plus how much money is allocated for post-recording production. So if something is "colored" in the recording process (not) then the producer and engineer can take care of it during the final mixing process. Fagan and Katz are recording gods, to be sure, and the Grammys mentioned by Trelja are testament that too many of us put our (misplaced) faith in exotica when it is the talent of the producers and engineers that make your recording sound as good (or bad) as it does. Can your playback gear truly reproduce what the producer really heard as his final mix? Ludwig could make anyone sound good, bad, or neutral REGARDLESS of what wire is in the chain - it's called talent. These people have great ears and passion for music. Plus they are able to pull performances out of musicians that sometimes the musicians thought they were incapable of. Go take a totally blind "taste test" some time. It's embarassing to see Monster and Belden (not to mention Radio Shack and DIY'ers) cables place as high or higher than the mega bucks stuff being shoved down our throats by clever marketing playing on our ego. Finally, speaking of producers, look at the variety of artists and studios used by Mutt Lange - cables never compromised his talent or quality of his production.