Cabling Cost VS System Cost

[El Hefe]

Hi all, Just curious...how much do you spend on cabling compared to the cost of your system? Cabling here includes interconnects (RCA, XLR, Coax, optical, HDMI), power cable and speaker cable. I did a little exercise here while waiting for the Bayern Munich VS real Madrid game tonight and this is what I got for my system.

 

[relocated]

El Hefe,

I have spent 0% on cabling on my current system.

Almost unbelievable until you realise I purchased a pair of AVI ADM9T active speakers. They came with the power leads, rca to rca connecting lead and a 1.5 metre optical interconnect for inputting digits from my cd transport.

No need for anything else, dac and amps in the boxes, beautiful sound and really not a lot of money.

Job done. :dance:

 

[idc]

Mains and conditioners about £100. I made one headphone cable, parts were about £15, the rest are stock. I have an interconnect which retails at $300 or £188, which I was given. The one before was DIY and cost about £15. THe USB cable is stock.

My set up is about £1180 with the AKG K271MkII (a bit more with some headphones and a bit less with others). So with the cheaper cables it is 11% and with the expensive IC an astounding 24% of the sytem cost :O

WTF, I don't think cables matter and I have a system where they are 1/4 of the system cost 😳

 

[mpapo]

HK990 : € 1200

ATC SCM 11: € 1100

Pro-Ject Debut III : € 269

Musical Fidelity V-link : € 80 ( second hand )

total equipment : € 2649

speaker cable : standard copper cable € 20; cheap optical cable € 5 (?); standard usb cable € 5 (?)

So that's 1,5% of total system cost... I might invest in some decent cable ..

 

[El Hefe]

El Hefe,

I have spent 0% on cabling on my current system.

Almost unbelievable until you realise I purchased a pair of AVI ADM9T active speakers. They came with the power leads, rca to rca connecting lead and a 1.5 metre optical interconnect for inputting digits from my cd transport.

No need for anything else, dac and amps in the boxes, beautiful sound and really not a lot of money.

Job done. :dance:

Aaaahhh the beauty of active speakers. And you only focus on one source which is CD. For multiple sources like mine, I tend to spend more on the source I use most.

 

[El Hefe]

Mains and conditioners about £100. I made one headphone cable, parts were about £15, the rest are stock. I have an interconnect which retails at $300 or £188, which I was given. The one before was DIY and cost about £15. THe USB cable is stock.

My set up is about £1180 with the AKG K271MkII (a bit more with some headphones and a bit less with others). So with the cheaper cables it is 11% and with the expensive IC an astounding 24% of the sytem cost :O

WTF, I don't think cables matter and I have a system where they are 1/4 of the system cost 😳

Yes idc, not until we do the maths on this that we will realise in which group of `believers` are we in. For me I think its quite clear that I do believe in cable makes a different 🙂

 

[Ryan92]

Personally, I think all this cables stuff is a little silly. I don't deny that they can make a difference in the right system, but nowhere near as much as the components. Say you had £1000 to spend on a system, then you spent another £150 on cables. I peronally think you'd do a lot better spending £1125 on the components and the last £25 on cables in terms of sound per pound if you like. I realise if you are building a system over years then upgrading an interconnect here and a speaker cable there can be a cheap upgrade, but personally I'd always hold out and instead of getting some new speaker cable and interconnects, just upgrade amp/source. Obviously if you're one of the few around with a 'full seperates system' ie. Tuner, CD, Cassete? Turntable, linking all these to an amp can drive the price up. But for me an £X component with a £Y worth of cables attached to it rarely sounds as good as a component worth £(X+Y) and a nice cheap cable bundle. The only thing I'd ever reccomend as a good value for money cable upgrade would be from bell wire to a brandless OFC cable. IMO of course 🙂

Incidentally also have the ADMs, so 0% for me too 🙂

 

[El Hefe]

Personally, I think all this cables stuff is a little silly. I don't deny that they can make a difference in the right system, but nowhere near as much as the components. Say you had £1000 to spend on a system, then you spent another £150 on cables. I peronally think you'd do a lot better spending £1125 on the components and the last £25 on cables in terms of sound per pound if you like. I realise if you are building a system over years then upgrading an interconnect here and a speaker cable there can be a cheap upgrade, but personally I'd always hold out and instead of getting some new speaker cable and interconnects, just upgrade amp/source. Obviously if you're one of the few around with a 'full seperates system' ie. Tuner, CD, Cassete? Turntable, linking all these to an amp can drive the price up. But for me an £X component with a £Y worth of cables attached to it rarely sounds as good as a component worth £(X+Y) and a nice cheap cable bundle. The only thing I'd ever reccomend as a good value for money cable upgrade would be from bell wire to a brandless OFC cable. IMO of course 🙂

Incidentally also have the ADMs, so 0% for me too 🙂

Or spend 850 on the equipment and 150 on cable 🙂

Yes I do agree cable change over the years is more satisfying rather than upfront purchase with the system. Thats what I went through over 15 years. From freebies cables to cambridge audio to Ixos to QED and now to Siltech which is the final destination for cabling.

 

[Ryan92]

Personally, I think all this cables stuff is a little silly. I don't deny that they can make a difference in the right system, but nowhere near as much as the components. Say you had £1000 to spend on a system, then you spent another £150 on cables. I peronally think you'd do a lot better spending £1125 on the components and the last £25 on cables in terms of sound per pound if you like. I realise if you are building a system over years then upgrading an interconnect here and a speaker cable there can be a cheap upgrade, but personally I'd always hold out and instead of getting some new speaker cable and interconnects, just upgrade amp/source. Obviously if you're one of the few around with a 'full seperates system' ie. Tuner, CD, Cassete? Turntable, linking all these to an amp can drive the price up. But for me an £X component with a £Y worth of cables attached to it rarely sounds as good as a component worth £(X+Y) and a nice cheap cable bundle. The only thing I'd ever reccomend as a good value for money cable upgrade would be from bell wire to a brandless OFC cable. IMO of course 🙂

Incidentally also have the ADMs, so 0% for me too 🙂

Or spend 850 on the equipment and 150 on cable 🙂 Yes I do agree cable change over the years is more satisfying rather than upfront purchase with the system. Thats what I went through over 15 years. From freebies cables to cambridge audio to Ixos to QED and now to Siltech which is the final destination for cabling.

What I was trying to get across, that pretty sure in my own head, if you had £1000 to spend on a CD player, speakers, amp, cables. The system would benefit more from spending £25 on cables, (if that) and £975 on the (IMO) parts that make the most difference. I mean, that spare £125 going toward an amp could take you from something like the a £250 PM6004 (nothing against it) to almost a Rega Brio-R. Which is (again IMO) going to do a lot more for a system than some fancier cables 🙂

 

[El Hefe]

Personally, I think all this cables stuff is a little silly. I don't deny that they can make a difference in the right system, but nowhere near as much as the components. Say you had £1000 to spend on a system, then you spent another £150 on cables. I peronally think you'd do a lot better spending £1125 on the components and the last £25 on cables in terms of sound per pound if you like. I realise if you are building a system over years then upgrading an interconnect here and a speaker cable there can be a cheap upgrade, but personally I'd always hold out and instead of getting some new speaker cable and interconnects, just upgrade amp/source. Obviously if you're one of the few around with a 'full seperates system' ie. Tuner, CD, Cassete? Turntable, linking all these to an amp can drive the price up. But for me an £X component with a £Y worth of cables attached to it rarely sounds as good as a component worth £(X+Y) and a nice cheap cable bundle. The only thing I'd ever reccomend as a good value for money cable upgrade would be from bell wire to a brandless OFC cable. IMO of course 🙂

Incidentally also have the ADMs, so 0% for me too 🙂

Or spend 850 on the equipment and 150 on cable 🙂 Yes I do agree cable change over the years is more satisfying rather than upfront purchase with the system. Thats what I went through over 15 years. From freebies cables to cambridge audio to Ixos to QED and now to Siltech which is the final destination for cabling.

What I was trying to get across, that pretty sure in my own head, if you had £1000 to spend on a CD player, speakers, amp, cables. The system would benefit more from spending £25 on cables, (if that) and £975 on the (IMO) parts that make the most difference. I mean, that spare £125 going toward an amp could take you from something like the a £250 PM6004 (nothing against it) to almost a Rega Brio-R. Which is (again IMO) going to do a lot more for a system than some fancier cables 🙂

Ahhhh yes. I agree on that note too. But it becomes more difficult when you start looking between a £3000 amp and £3100 amp. I doubt we can get much different between these 2 amps unless you are then comparing with a £3500 to £4000 amp. In this case, a £125 cable may give a better result.

 

[Ryan92]

For me anyway, I'd only start spending what I'd describe as "silly money" on cables when I had the perfect system in terms of components.

Having said that, I'll probably never go back to passives anyway 🙂

 

[acalex]

Personally, I think all this cables stuff is a little silly. I don't deny that they can make a difference in the right system, but nowhere near as much as the components. Say you had £1000 to spend on a system, then you spent another £150 on cables. I peronally think you'd do a lot better spending £1125 on the components and the last £25 on cables in terms of sound per pound if you like. I realise if you are building a system over years then upgrading an interconnect here and a speaker cable there can be a cheap upgrade, but personally I'd always hold out and instead of getting some new speaker cable and interconnects, just upgrade amp/source. Obviously if you're one of the few around with a 'full seperates system' ie. Tuner, CD, Cassete? Turntable, linking all these to an amp can drive the price up. But for me an £X component with a £Y worth of cables attached to it rarely sounds as good as a component worth £(X+Y) and a nice cheap cable bundle. The only thing I'd ever reccomend as a good value for money cable upgrade would be from bell wire to a brandless OFC cable. IMO of course 🙂

Incidentally also have the ADMs, so 0% for me too 🙂

Personally...I was puzzled when I heard what cables can do when I was listening to the Lavardin IS reference and the dealer swapped cables for some expensive Lavardin cables. It was around 2k eur speaker cables but the difference was bigger than swapping speakers (from 3.6k euro to 9k euro speakers).

 

[the record spot]

Right, so all those who've saved a fortune on cables by spending £1100 on ADM9.1s won't mind me pointing that out for the benefit of anyone else looking in then. Just for clarity, etc. Or, nearer £2k if you buy the matching subwoofer.

EDIT: As for me, £18 for speaker cable, £8 for one interconnect, £80 for another (Atlas Navigators) £25 for an HDMI cable (bought it in Comet when I bought my Panny BR player) and £8 for an optical cable to connect the TV to the Onkyo. Oh and £3 for a Fisual coax. £142 all in.

 

[matthewpiano]

£25 for amp jumpers, less than £3/m for the Audioquest G2 speaker cable, and £25 for the Audioquest Evergreen interconnect. I've had more expensive cables, and still own them, but I'm extremely happy with the performance of the Audioquest ones and don't think I'll spend more than this sort of money on cables again, unless I win the lottery and can afford a truly high end set-up.

As a percentage of total system cost it is pretty low although I did spend on a very good Blok 300 hi-fi stand a couple of years ago, so that would put the percentage spent on accessories up quite a bit.

 

[Ryan92]

Right, so all those who've saved a fortune on cables by spending £1100 on ADM9.1s won't mind me pointing that out for the benefit of anyone else looking in then. Just for clarity, etc. Or, nearer £2k if you buy the matching subwoofer.

EDIT: As for me, £18 for speaker cable, £8 for one interconnect, £80 for another (Atlas Navigators) £25 for an HDMI cable (bought it in Comet when I bought my Panny BR player) and £8 for an optical cable to connect the TV to the Onkyo. Oh and £3 for a Fisual coax. £142 all in.

Well, of course a fraction of the price of the speakers will go on wiring, though I doubt AVI will pay the mark up charged on the more premium cable ranges. I think the word overkill here is pretty apt, each consumer must find a synergy with between cable price and component price, I just trust a professional speaker manufacturer to do a better job than me (not to say another person couldn't get it bang on). I never mentioned it to say I saved, merely pointing out that I had spent nothing. Having said that, it's the best £2000 system I've heard. All my own opinion of course.

 

[Overdose]

£7 for a pair of balanced mic leads, all other cabling is standard.

Assuming new prices, this is around 0.5% of my total system cost.

 

[lindsayt]

For my main system I've spent 0.2% on cables. Cables are as per manufacturers recommendations. System sounds fine. System isn't cable fussy. You might find that cables are more important in your systems than mine.

 

[John Duncan]

Mains and conditioners about £100. I made one headphone cable, parts were about £15, the rest are stock. I have an interconnect which retails at $300 or £188, which I was given. The one before was DIY and cost about £15. THe USB cable is stock.

My set up is about £1180 with the AKG K271MkII (a bit more with some headphones and a bit less with others). So with the cheaper cables it is 11% and with the expensive IC an astounding 24% of the sytem cost :O

WTF, I don't think cables matter and I have a system where they are 1/4 of the system cost 😳

Busted!

 

[relocated]

Right, so all those who've saved a fortune on cables by spending £1100 on ADM9.1s won't mind me pointing that out for the benefit of anyone else looking in then. Just for clarity, etc. Or, nearer £2k if you buy the matching subwoofer.

EDIT: As for me, £18 for speaker cable, £8 for one interconnect, £80 for another (Atlas Navigators) £25 for an HDMI cable (bought it in Comet when I bought my Panny BR player) and £8 for an optical cable to connect the TV to the Onkyo. Oh and £3 for a Fisual coax. £142 all in.

I'm not sure I fully understand what you are saying in your first paragraph, so forgive me if I am cutting across your post.

Cables are not the only thing ADM9 owners have saved money on though [and certainly are not a driver for purchase].

We have saved money on a DAC and somewhere to put it [unless in an amp] and an amplifier and somewhere to put that. Add to the mix an incredible sound quality and that is, in my case, £1075 incredibly well spent. I do not feel the need for a sub in a quite reasonably sized and well behaved room.

In addition, don't get me wrong, I don't dismiss the benefit of cabling. I have been very pleased with cabling choices in the past, particularly mains cables for sources. [Shelters behind large rock for having the audacity to state that cabling has made a difference to ME]. AND yes, thank you, I am fully aware that my subjective findings are worthless to others.

I have cables that I could use it's just that I can't be bothered to fart about because I am enjoying my music afresh since getting the speakers.

One final thing for the OP, I haven't forgotten you. I seem to remember reading once that 10% 'should' be set aside for cabling but then I didn't agree with their assesment of spending proportion between source, amp and speakers.

Enjoy what you have, experiment if you want to and never let anyone tell you your experience is invalid.

 

[Roby]

35% :O

personaly I never tought cabeles could make a big difference....

Any way for my system I bought good midle class RCA cables IMO (wich are already expensive I think AQ golden gate), an I admid there was a difference But it's the kind of upgrade you get so easely used to....

(for my home theater I bought a sub cable costing 50€ auw, an rear speakercable considering I needed 2x15M at 3€/M it was Expensive if you consider my rears only cost 450€ al the rest was genourisly offered by my dealer ;-) 2x hdmi, an optical from real cable an 12m of jensen cable for the front's an center + 8 banana pug's I never used an cant recall the brand... I stil have theme somwere)

The rest of ma cables are fine (real cable) an really cheap if you consider I recieved theme from my deaeler 🙂

But for me the cable fight should come at the end when you're happy about all your componant's

What you have to spent on theme well it's for you to determine, what ever make's you happy.... I'm not going to say spending money on cables is crazy considering what som of us (including my self) are prepared to spend for a slight upgrade...on all rest (amp, speakers , TT.....etc) even if this is way more important to me.

Any way I was in the demo with Acalec where we listened to the Lavardin is, an I didn't enjoy the sound until he changed the cable, true... but comon if you pend arround 3600€ for an amp an you have to spend 2400€ on 2x2m cable to enjoy the sound (I would have needed 2x4m) well that just ... IMO. Considering you'r spending 6000€ well personaly I would by a Sugden IA-4 wich I preferd an have still 500€ for cables wich is already a lot IMO

Hey again it's personal....

 

[Anonymous]

Two analogue cables cost me serious money, the other cables are mainly digital coax/optical which are beer money in comparison

- Transparent Ultra balanced i/c cost me thick end of £1k IIRC off Ebay, new its around £2k

- Speaker cables are two runs of Townshend ISOLDA, cost me £800 new

The Wadia, amp and speakers cost me £9k second hand, new their RRP would be around £17k

So that's around 16% of total system price spent on cables which ever way you look at it :O

 

[El Hefe]

relocated et al,

I started the thread is not to debate on the rule of cabling nor whether its right or wrong. Its just I wanted to see what is the general expenditure of others when it comes to cabling. The numbers I did was based on my system which the details I have not enclosed eg. purchased price VS RRP and which component I used to calculate the numbers.

In general, I believe people would only take ONE source, the amp and the speakers (single wired). In my case, the number you see there is based on the entirety of my system.

If I just take the CLiC, M6i and D18s - its actually sums up to only 17%.

My cabling quest has actually ended by the purchase of the Siltech 330L speaker cable. I dont foresee myself changing cables in the near future.

 

[Roby]

just for the info game:

taking just speakers amp an CDP using catalogue price....

speakers:1400 B&W 683

CDP: 650 Cambridge aodio azure 650

AMP: 750 nad 356

total 2800€

Cable:

speaker cable: jensen 6€/M -> 6M = 36€ (alltrough everything I explained befor I'm also convinced doing a litle effort her will bring some bennefit)

RCA AQ= 75€

total of 111€ so thats less than 4% 😳

I might consider a speaker upgrade in the future 😉 (can you imagine its not even 1% on par example an AMS )

 

[shafesk]

Hi all, Just curious...how much do you spend on cabling compared to the cost of your system? Cabling here includes interconnects (RCA, XLR, Coax, optical, HDMI), power cable and speaker cable. I did a little exercise here while waiting for the Bayern Munich VS real Madrid game tonight and this is what I got for my system.

Hey El Hefe, been a while, hope you are doing good. Well the rule of thumb is to spend 10% of your system's total cost on your hi-fi. I've been naughty and spent a bit more, as I am now a convert to the 'power add-ons make a difference' camp. To be honest I think the best rule is to let the heart decide. If someone genuinely thinks cable changes make a difference then they should by all means spend all they can. If they don't then whats the point?