Is this the biggest HT system ever?


Check this out...

http://blog.audiovideointeriors.com/208great/
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Kal,
I tried to look very hard, but couldn't see a single cable connected to power amps, and the speakers binding posts are clearly visible on the picture taken from above.
Maril555,

Interesting observation. Here is what the author of the article says about it: "all of the cabling is audiophile-grade wire". I however do not see any wires at all. Is the cabling so good it is invisible, including the RCA or XLR connectors?

Just for fun I did a back of the envelope calculation of what "audiophile-grade wire" for power cables, interconnects, and speaker cables would cost just to source the mono blocks and connect the speakers.

The system description reports 35(!) amps and 37(!!) speakers. I assume that you can buy the "audiophile-grade" interconnects and speaker cables in pairs, so we can halve the number of amps and speakers in terms of wire sets needed. I also assume that they are economizing somewhat (i.e. not using absolute top of the line stuff).

For interconnects, assume that the average run from the preamp is 30ft. (assuming an average run around the "amp circle" to the middle side wall from the sources in a room 26.5 feet wide and 33 feet long). A decent 30ft. interconnect would run about $2800 (for the Kimber Cable KS-1111 - the median priced cable in The Cable Company's catalog). So:

35 amps / 2 * $2800 = $49,000 for interconnects.

For Speaker Cable, assume that the average run from the distributed amps to each speaker is a conservative 8ft. A decent 8ft. speaker cable would run about $1400 (for the XLO's Reference 3-5.2 - the median priced cable in The Cable Company's catalog).

37 speakers / 2 * $1400 = $25,900 for speaker cable.

For Power Cables, assume that the average run from the distributed power strips/conditioners (price not included here) to each amp is a conservative 8ft. A decent 8ft. power cable would run about $816 (for Cardas Audio's Golden Reference - the median priced cable in The Cable Company's catalog).

35 amps * $816 = $28,560 for power cables.

This comes to a total of: $49,000 + $25,900 + $28,560 = $103,460 estimated wire cost for amps and speakers.

The overall cost of the system was estimated at $6,000,000, and 10% of that would be $600,000, so maybe I drastically underestimated the investment in "audiophile-grade wire", although the author describes some pretty elaborate power conditioning up stream of the amps, so maybe this estimate is about right.

In any case - I don't see any wires in the images - at least for the amps and speakers. And if I did, the investment in wires alone would be more than many of us have in our entire system.