Cables - one of the most taboo subjects in audio

[mindhead1]

It has been a little more this year, but realistically I normally only change 1-2 things a year. Normally in Q1 after we've planned for the year and bonuses come in.

But I haven't changed any actual components in almost 5 years.

Cables at the price points you operate in qualify as gear IMO.

I recently tried using an I2S connection on a PS Audio DAC I recently acquired and it sounded awful compared to the USB connection. I used a random HDMI cable I had in my closet. I have a higher quality cable on order. I hope the cable is the issue because I2S is supposed to be the superior connection on the unit.

 

[displayname]

Cables at the price points you operate in qualify as gear IMO.

That’s fair, lol.

The way I look at is the existing gear + cable is still less than the next level equipment upgrade, so it’s more of a tweak. It’s also a foundation piece that can remain with me for future upgrades. But overall, much easier for me to justify because everything I would actually want to upgrade to is a larger financial leap.

 

[ngower]

If anyone wants to try Canare 4S11, put up my stock for sale in the sale thread. I like you guys better than SHF so if it's a matter of a few bucks talk to me and we can work something out.

 

[MikeH]

If anyone wants to try Canare 4S11, put up my stock for sale in the sale thread. I like you guys better than SHF so if it's a matter of a few bucks talk to me and we can work something out.

You only want a few bucks for them? Nice deal!

 

[tomheo]

Quick cable experiment update, going deeper into the speculative world of power cables. I currently have an Audioquest hurricane on my dac, and I decided I should try it on my Sutherland 20/20 LPS.
This was a good news/bad news outcome, speaking from terms of my wallet.

The bad news is this swap did make a difference. The biggest difference was everything was a little bigger and instrument separation was a little better.

The good news is that this was very close. More so than other cable swaps I've made, and certainly closer than adding the LPS. I will likely still make the cable upgrade at some point, but I'll be chasing other dragons. This will require the stars to align with a solid deal, money in the audio account, and having no other equipment that I'm honed in on adding. It's really getting to the point of squeezing out the last drop of existing equipment, and it only makes sense in my mind specific case when the jump up to the next level is a larger jump than I'm willing to make.

As a matter of fact, that's been a lot of this cable journey. Next level up in amp might be $4-5k+, so a cable upgrade for far less helps me sit pretty for awhile.

But in the mean time, I've got a new cartridge on deck, a new rack in the plans, probably a new streamer/DAC in there, and then I could start making the climb to new analog components.

That's funny, I just went through something similar. I've been thinking about upgrading the linear power supply (LPS) for my streamer (Sonore opticalRendu)...Sonore said you're pretty much hearing the LPS for their streamers. While researching power supplies, it dawned on me I need to buy a power cord as well. So just for fun, I took the Audioquest Monsoon from my phono preamp and plugged it into my existing LPS (the basic Small Green Computer LPS they used to provide). Holy #$%@, it was a dramatic difference! I always thought the digital part of my system sounded thin in the mids...but after the cable swap, it sounds very close to my analog.

I ended up ordering another Monsoon cable to power my streamer (and also ordered a DC cable from Ghent Audio to see how much that changes things)...I'm not sure how much better it can get if I swap out the LPS, but I was really surprised. It was a similar experience when I put on an AQ Tornado on my PrimaLuna...I keep thinking the power cords won't make a difference but in my experience, it's been drastic.