How much are you willing to pay for interconnect cable?

DaveyF

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Jul 31, 2010
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Yup.

However, the correlation people make with MSRP being related to quality is unassailable. Even if people agree that higher price doesn't always mean better performance there is no doubt that their ingrained belief system still clings to this axiom. It may be unconscious and/or purely emotional but it's the truth for a huge majority of people regardless of intelligence or how adamantly they may claim otherwise.

And as far as sales via dealers, they are all used to cables being the "gravy train". It's like car dealers and their add-on accessories. Those $150 wheel locks cost $25 at the local auto parts store.

My cables cost about 1/3rd to 1/5th vs other companies who sell cables using wire and plugs from the exact same companies I do, yet it's very difficult to convince people to even give them a try with a 30 day free demo. Even with excellent reviews and many, many claims that they are even better vs my "competition"... even after 6 years of being in business without a bad word being said anywhere, and AFAIK every single one of my customers being happy. Maybe it's the lack of fancy packaging, glossy color brochures and 6-figure ad placements in stereophile?

IME, people lament the "unfair" markups but then they buy those same products anyways, even given an alternative with fair markups. ;) Given this very interesting phenomenon, I wouldn't expect to see a change anytime soon! It make me want to shift to a dealer-sale model to be honest, or at least start another brand that sells via distributors and dealers.


Dave,

I really respect that you are trying to keep away from the typical marketing strategy that so many of your cable competitor's buy into.
Probably if you were to triple or quadruple ( more??) your pricing structure, you would gain more traction with those folks who equate price with value. However, I do think that that path ultimately leads to a failing business plan. Instead of acquiring loyal customers, I believe you would get long term dissatisfaction along with some negative push-back. OTOH, there are companies in your field who have made this a successful business plan, ( can we say Nordost and MIT and particularly, Transparent) --question becomes for how long? Plus, all of these companies have their 'entry level' product at considerably lower pricing. ( they all deal through dealers).
Question becomes whether you want to seek out the consumer who listens with their eyes, and not their ears, and buys based on price; or whether you want to continue to look for the consumer who is a little more discriminating...and buys based on sheer performance and value...and who will be there for you in the future! IMHO.
 
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Tango

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Yup.

However, the correlation people make with MSRP being related to quality is unassailable. Even if people agree that higher price doesn't always mean better performance there is no doubt that their ingrained belief system still clings to this axiom. It may be unconscious and/or purely emotional but it's the truth for a huge majority of people regardless of intelligence or how adamantly they may claim otherwise.

And as far as sales via dealers, they are all used to cables being the "gravy train". It's like car dealers and their add-on accessories. Those $150 wheel locks cost $25 at the local auto parts store.

My cables cost about 1/3rd to 1/5th vs other companies who sell cables using wire and plugs from the exact same companies I do, yet it's very difficult to convince people to even give them a try with a 30 day free demo. Even with excellent reviews and many, many claims that they are even better vs my "competition"... even after 6 years of being in business without a bad word being said anywhere, and AFAIK every single one of my customers being happy. Maybe it's the lack of fancy packaging, glossy color brochures and 6-figure ad placements in stereophile?

IME, people lament the "unfair" markups but then they buy those same products anyways, even given an alternative with fair markups. ;) Given this very interesting phenomenon, I wouldn't expect to see a change anytime soon! It make me want to shift to a dealer-sale model to be honest, or at least start another brand that sells via distributors and dealers.

I have never tried your cables but from what I have been following comments from people who are using them I think your cables are excellent sounding at a most logical price. I bought my Kuro direct. There seem to be many similarities to your cables but yours offer greater practicality at a more attractive price. I am tired of and fed up with cable spending. The extraordinary price is rediculous. I bought them...a lot of them. Therefore I was rediculous and senseless too. If I were in the market for interconnect and speaker cables, I would really want to try your cables.

Kind regards,
Tang
 
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microstrip

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Yup.

However, the correlation people make with MSRP being related to quality is unassailable. Even if people agree that higher price doesn't always mean better performance there is no doubt that their ingrained belief system still clings to this axiom. It may be unconscious and/or purely emotional but it's the truth for a huge majority of people regardless of intelligence or how adamantly they may claim otherwise.

And as far as sales via dealers, they are all used to cables being the "gravy train". It's like car dealers and their add-on accessories. Those $150 wheel locks cost $25 at the local auto parts store.

My cables cost about 1/3rd to 1/5th vs other companies who sell cables using wire and plugs from the exact same companies I do, yet it's very difficult to convince people to even give them a try with a 30 day free demo. Even with excellent reviews and many, many claims that they are even better vs my "competition"... even after 6 years of being in business without a bad word being said anywhere, and AFAIK every single one of my customers being happy. Maybe it's the lack of fancy packaging, glossy color brochures and 6-figure ad placements in stereophile?

IME, people lament the "unfair" markups but then they buy those same products anyways, even given an alternative with fair markups. ;) Given this very interesting phenomenon, I wouldn't expect to see a change anytime soon! It make me want to shift to a dealer-sale model to be honest, or at least start another brand that sells via distributors and dealers.

DaveC,

Everything has two sides, and IMHO we must look at both to understand why thinks happen.

I have no experience with your cables, but here in Europe I know about a few of similarly home based cable makers with similar policies as yours. They produce cables that are sometimes nice sounding but do not have any consistency between types, and are developed without any purpose of complementing existing top electronics brands. Dealers have no experience with them an no one except the manufacturer can advise on them. I have listened to a few from friends and local dealers who had to get them in part-exchange to sell their distributed brands and they sounded poor in my system.

IMHO if we, the audiophiles, go on buying those same products anyways it is because there are good valid reasons for it, not because of audiophiles are impressed by the fancy packing, want to empty their wallets or poorly informed buyers with no ears.

Anyway, the knowledgeable people who get information from internet and specialized audio forums usually manage to get cables from the large top brands at a very large discount, reducing the apparent excellent value of the smaller direct distribution manufacturers.
 

microstrip

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I have never tried your cables but from what I have been following comments from people who are using them I think your cables are excellent sounding at a most logical price. I bought my Kuro direct. There seem to be many similarities to your cables but yours offer greater practicality at a more attractive price. I am tired of and fed up with cable spending. The extraordinary price is rediculous. I bought them...a lot of them. Therefore I was rediculous and senseless too. If I were in the market for interconnect and speaker cables, I would really want to try your cables.

Kind regards,
Tang

Dear Tang,

I respect your buying decisions and will never carry judgments on them, but I can't see any reason on your comments concerning cable prices - this is a subjective hobby and we go through many phases and ways of living it. IMHO if we enjoyed them we should have pride in all of them.
Expensive cables allowed me to listen with great pleasure to music during decades. If I ever change my mind - something I can't exclude - my respect and admiration for them will not be changed.
 
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DaveC

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DaveC,

Everything has two sides, and IMHO we must look at both to understand why thinks happen.

I have no experience with your cables, but here in Europe I know about a few of similarly home based cable makers with similar policies as yours. They produce cables that are sometimes nice sounding but do not have any consistency between types, and are developed without any purpose of complementing existing top electronics brands. Dealers have no experience with them an no one except the manufacturer can advise on them. I have listened to a few from friends and local dealers who had to get them in part-exchange to sell their distributed brands and they sounded poor in my system.

IMHO if we, the audiophiles, go on buying those same products anyways it is because there are good valid reasons for it, not because of audiophiles are impressed by the fancy packing, want to empty their wallets or poorly informed buyers with no ears.

Anyway, the knowledgeable people who get information from internet and specialized audio forums usually manage to get cables from the large top brands at a very large discount, reducing the apparent excellent value of the smaller direct distribution manufacturers.


1st a paragraph equating my cables with others that always sounded poor to you. Next, you put words in my mouth and frame what I said in one of the worst ways possible, speaking for all audiophiles no less! Impressive! And finally, the last statement about how "knowledgeable" people will buy big brands at massively reduced prices somehow (and obviously NOT buy from direct-sale companies).

Sorry you seem personally offended by what I wrote. I didn't mean it to be offensive, it's just how things are.

However, to be clear the part of your post where you claim I say "audiophiles" buy X because they "want to empty their wallets or poorly informed buyers with no ears." Or that "audiophiles buy only because they are "impressed by the fancy packing" You're framing that as something I said, and I want to be clear this absolutely isn't the case, isn't what I believe, and the fact you wrote that is uncalled for. It's a thinly disguised attack that frames me against all audiophiles and makes it seem like I'm belittling everyone and also selling an inferior product vs "top brands". You can keep going but I'll just call you out for what you are and make plain what you're saying. Thinly veiled attacks are still attacks, and just as offensive if you'd come out and say what you really mean instead of crafting a tale of true BS like you did.

Have a good night micro and enjoy what ever you like without my judgement, I promise it's ok. :)
 
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DaveC

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Dear Tang,

I respect your buying decisions and will never carry judgments on them, but I can't see any reason on your comments concerning cable prices - this is a subjective hobby and we go through many phases and ways of living it. IMHO if we enjoyed them we should have pride in all of them.
Expensive cables allowed me to listen with great pleasure to music during decades. If I ever change my mind - something I can't exclude - my respect and admiration for them will not be changed.


I agree with this.

Tang, I appreciate the sentiment and appreciate the frustration of spending a lot for what seems like it should be less... but I also know you spent the money because you enjoy the result. I appreciate you supported an artisan that was making what he thought was the best with no constraints on cost, this is like a patron supporting an artist. So I think you should be proud of what you have, the cost is not intended to be reasonable for something like that, and it's fine. I truly appreciate folks willing to support the cutting edge, and I don't think at this level you're too worried about value... just about having the best possible end result and also having something special.

My product is more like a commodity vs a true work of art. My intention is to bring folks a product that allows top performance at a cost that is more reasonable. There are LOTS of folks out there making UPOCC copper and silver cables, lots of subtle variations on the same thing like when gas companies all buy gasoline from the same refinery but add their own additive package. Some have really nice additive packages and charge a premium but it's not clear this will really make your car run better.

So anyways, I do see a difference between what I do and a team of craftsmen spending a week of time building a pair of cables out of unobtainium. :) I think it's a substantially different product and market vs most well known high-end cable brands who simply spec a machine made cable from one of several large cable manufacturers.
 

thomask

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I had 3 years of period that I had done home auditions of many expensive cables including Audio Note, Purist Audio Design, Crystal Audio, MIT, Synergistic and Transparent about 18 years ago.

At that time I had more budget on audio since I had been working actively.

Also I had 3 audio dealers around me who were willing to let me do home audition their cables.

They knew if I like it, I would buy it.


My conclusion is that cable is dependent on system and personal taste so there is no best cable for everyone.

Thus it would be nice if you have dealers who let you do home audition of cables within your budget.

The other way is to find cable makers who offer unconditional return.
 
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timztunz

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Tango

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Dear Tang,

but I can't see any reason on your comments concerning cable prices - this is a subjective hobby and we go through many phases and ways of living it. IMHO if we enjoyed them we should have pride in all of them.

Yes I had pride in them when I was using them. But in reality those prides collapse like sand castle when you hear something "better" not "different" in almost every parameters at a much less expensive price. You would not be honest to your feeling if you say you dont feel any regret buying them or at least finding the better ones sooner. $26,000 for one half meter Siltech Tripple Crown interconnect is crazy money. The best you can prep talk yourself is to say you had a wonderful time with them and you learned a lot from them. My recent changes of equipments were not about a change in listening philosophy, they were simply because my system sounded "better" with those changes. I go for result as DaveC said. Trust me, to throw away the much more expensive old ones is a much harder dicision than to buy the much less expensive new ones. So it cant be about other things beside simply better result. My point is that there are superb cables or equipments out there that cost a lot less. We have to find them. Info from real users in this forum are great data points because we cant test them all. People who read them just have to study the person who gives info and decide how much weight could be put on these datapoints. System dependent should already be a godgiven truth in blood stream of people reading it and no need to mentioned any further.

Kind regards,
Tang ;)
 
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tima

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Yes that is quite believable. Cables are a highly competitive segment and some manufacturers include as much as a 75% dealer sales margin to incentivise dealers into pushing their product line ahead of competing brands. Even with 50% discount, both dealer and customer feel like they have had a good deal.

At 18% of list, the dealer likely obtained a further discount for demo goods. That said, it is pretty much implicit that the original list price was at a BS level and you didn’t exactly handover loose change.

Along with other perks such as vacation trips to resort locations. Dealers get hooked on the margins and come to depend on them. Then again, if there is market someone will fill the niche.

I looked at the $24k interconnect referenced in the opening post Never heard of them before. My first thought was: Audiogon? Then I wondered what will the fellow do if no one shows interest - where does it go from there? It will be surprising if any credible reviewers take up the liability of a full coverage article - though stranger things have happened.
 

Folsom

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I will say from a technical perspective, I have yet to see the cost to price ratio equal the high end prices. I can however say that we all know that you can’t necessarily expect price to cost relationships in this hobby.
 

microstrip

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1st a paragraph equating my cables with others that always sounded poor to you. Next, you put words in my mouth and frame what I said in one of the worst ways possible, speaking for all audiophiles no less! Impressive! And finally, the last statement about how "knowledgeable" people will buy big brands at massively reduced prices somehow (and obviously NOT buy from direct-sale companies).

Sorry you seem personally offended by what I wrote. I didn't mean it to be offensive, it's just how things are.

However, to be clear the part of your post where you claim I say "audiophiles" buy X because they "want to empty their wallets or poorly informed buyers with no ears." Or that "audiophiles buy only because they are "impressed by the fancy packing" You're framing that as something I said, and I want to be clear this absolutely isn't the case, isn't what I believe, and the fact you wrote that is uncalled for. It's a thinly disguised attack that frames me against all audiophiles and makes it seem like I'm belittling everyone and also selling an inferior product vs "top brands". You can keep going but I'll just call you out for what you are and make plain what you're saying. Thinly veiled attacks are still attacks, and just as offensive if you'd come out and say what you really mean instead of crafting a tale of true BS like you did.

Have a good night micro and enjoy what ever you like without my judgement, I promise it's ok. :)

I thought I was careful enough saying that I had no experience at all with your cables and I was describing in general the situation of small brands of one person made cables with distribution rules similar to yours in other countries I know about.

It was a general answer answering to many statements that are made by other people in WBF debates on expensive cables. They are not veiled attacks on you, they are just my opinions in WBF in a thread entitled How much are you willing to pay for interconnect cable.

They were triggered by your questioning post , but no way a direct comment to your specific cables or activity. My apologies if it was not clear.
 

Salectric

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https://www.audiogon.com/listings/l...og-reference-interconnect-cable-interconnects

I saw 24K$ interconnect cable offered by Tara.

No return No return!



This is my favorite song.

If he had offered 2 weeks return, I may want to order just one to find out how good it is compared with Audio Note cable that I paid mere 2K$ 18 years ago.

Which Audio Note cables did you buy 18 years ago and have enjoyed all this time? I am a more recent convert to AN cables having moved gradually to an all-AN cable system during the last couple of years. I now have AN Silver and copper interconnects (Sogon, Vx and ISIS) and silver and copper speaker cables (SPx and ISIS). They each have their strengths. I also have ISIS power cables throughout.

The Audio Note cables have been one of the best moves I have ever made, and it isn’t a case of one-brand synergy. I don’t own any AN electronics.
 

Bodhi

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I currently use Jorma Prime xlr's which are $10.5kUS msrp for a 1.0 mtr pair. That is the upper limit of what i'm prepared to spend on interconnects, as above that the gains are too small to justify the outlay imho. Or to put it another way, your moolah could be better spent elsewhere in your system.
 
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thomask

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Which Audio Note cables did you buy 18 years ago and have enjoyed all this time? I am a more recent convert to AN cables having moved gradually to an all-AN cable system during the last couple of years. I now have AN Silver and copper interconnects (Sogon, Vx and ISIS) and silver and copper speaker cables (SPx and ISIS). They each have their strengths. I also have ISIS power cables throughout.

The Audio Note cables have been one of the best moves I have ever made, and it isn’t a case of one-brand synergy. I don’t own any AN electronics.

I paid around 2k for audio note cables which is silver plated.

But I do not know or remember the model no.

Nevertheless I am sure that you will enjoy AN cables.

They are transparent with lot of details and balanced sound.
 

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