Background, a year ago or so, I finished building out and putting in a dedicated home theater room in a new space in my house. I went through a big box place, and have been generally happy, though had to fend off the expected silly add-ons, and still got got with a wasted $1000 for a u-remote that amounts to two source selector buttons and a volume control, and I allowed them to sell me a power conditioner that was maybe 1% of the total cost, not bad. That took 6 months of searching, considering, choosing, etc. I am 90% happy with that, I’ll call it a win.
After that, my former movie watching space was available for reconsideration as a hifi setup. I have been researching that now for a month or so, working with a local small guy with good reputation, etc, and I was nearing the point of just saying “yep, I trust this guy, love the speakers I’m listening to, and also the amp, pre-amp, streamer,” and moving ahead.
Then, guy scopes things out for a total package price for my reference, and on it are 4 pairs of 4-figure cables, and a fancy pants power conditioner. The brand is easily one of the most chastized on here. I smiled and kept talking about some other stuff, but I’m thinking “cmon bro, I thought we were buds, dont make me do this to you.” Sigh. Now I probably have to ghost the guy, I cant justify dropping $15K+ with someone I can’t trust.
I thought purchasing an amp and 2 great speakers would be simple. Tired of the fact that I can’t find anyone to trust in this field. Maybe it’s time for just a great pair of headphones.
You don’t need 4-figure cables for your gears to sound good. If your setup does not sound good with cheap and affordable Canare, Mogami, Belden, and Supra cables/cords then investing in 4-figure cables are not going to alleviate the situation. Just tell your dealer you don’t need any cables now and you are going to source them yourselves.
BUT, and this is speaking for my own experience, 4-figure cables do provide very noticeable improvements if your speakers and gears are reasonably high end and resolving. I used to use Furutech’s affordable finished cables that cost around 100-150$ each (they are cheap if you buy them direct from Japan) along with Belden and Supra cables. Moving up to cables that are around $800-$1000, the differences are not subtle. Soundstage, imaging, bass quality are two traits that really benefit from cables and cord upgrade. I have since upgraded all my cables/cords to 4-figure ones, BUT I did not actually spend 4-figures on any of them. I bought them all save for one either used or old stock. And I replaced the cables one at a time, carefully auditioning them to ensure the improvements and tonal changes were what I wanted.
Once you are used to the sound your new setup with cheap cables, you can ask the dealer to allow you home audition a premium cable to let you form your own judgement, or you can try a cable that has a return policy like Synergistic. If you don’t like what you hear, then don’t buy it, as simple as that.