Dealers suggestions

[icehockeyboy]

One dealer put together a system at around 4k, and then replaced all the cabling with stuff costing as much as the original outlay, hitting the 8k mark, and remarking how much better the whole system sounded, now, is it only me that thinks the money might have been better spent on higher priced kit in the first place, or did they do it the right way round?

 

[Umberto]

I reckon they did it the wrong way round. Cabling can make a difference but unlikely to make a 4K system sound like an 8K one.

 

[meninblack]

This dealer is taking the piss! :lmao:

They make very good margins on cables - which cost very little to make, however exotic - so £4k of boxes and £4k of cables is an excellent system - for the dealer!

£8k of boxes and £2.50 of cables would, of course, murder it.

 

[Papa Lazarou]

Thats just ridiculous! Better boxes plus cables from a forum vendor like Frank or Mr C would be my call on this one. Big-brand cables are horrifically overpriced at the best of times. £4k worth of cabling will not outperform another £3k spent on boxes instead.

 

[TIU]

Ridiculous! I think the price you pay for cables should be relative, i.e. you have an uncle in the cable business, er... no, four grand's worth of components deserves £500 spent on wires to connect it. Any more and the dealer is havin a larf at your expense.

 

[Sheva]

So what is the rule of thumb, there seems to be this golden figure of 10% quoted of the overall budget allocation for all cabling, but get the impression that most people here go quite a bit above that.

For IC from CDP tomyintegrated, i'm at about 15%, and would suggest that 10% is the minimum here. If i had a pre/power combo i would probably look at the same target area for the lead from pre to power.

As for speaker cables, probably more variable because depends on the length used. I'm at about 25-30% (if you include speaker + stand),and frankly think that's a bit on the high side.

 

[Dannish]

icehockeyboy wrote:

One dealer put together a system at around 4k, and then replaced all the cabling with stuff costing as much as the original outlay, hitting the 8k mark, and remarking how much better the whole system sounded, now, is it only me that thinks the money might have been better spent on higher priced kit in the first place, or did they do it the right way round?

What do YOU think!

 

[Papa Lazarou]

I would say 10-15% of spend on cabling. But50% - no feckin' way.

 

[meninblack]

IMO the whole "rule of thumb" business is nonsense, based on the manufacturers/dealers "big lie" that more money spent always means better sound.

This is not even slightly true for cables IME. Some high-priced ones I've heard have been awful, some ultra-budget ones have been more than adequate.

 

[icehockeyboy]

andi wrote:

icehockeyboy wrote:

One dealer put together a system at around 4k, and then replaced all the cabling with stuff costing as much as the original outlay, hitting the 8k mark, and remarking how much better the whole system sounded, now, is it only me that thinks the money might have been better spent on higher priced kit in the first place, or did they do it the right way round?

What do YOU think!

I think spending a larger portion of the additional 4k on boxes would be the way id do it.....but, i was asking others opinions, wasnt i!

 

[mosfet]

meninblack wrote:

IMO the whole "rule of thumb" business is nonsense, based on the manufacturers/dealers "big lie" that more money spent always means better sound.This is not even slightly true for cables IME. Some high-priced ones I've heard have been awful, some ultra-budget ones have been more than adequate.

WHF? first against the wall for starting the 10% joke.

 

[Guest]

I've ended up with 10% but i didn't plan it that way. Honest

 

[Guest]

icehockeyboy wrote:

One dealer put together a system at around 4k, and then replaced all the cabling with stuff costing as much as the original outlay, hitting the 8k mark, and remarking how much better the whole system sounded, now, is it only me that thinks the money might have been better spent on higher priced kit in the first place, or did they do it the right way round?

ice dealer margin (gross on boxes) 30-40%, dealer margin on cables up to 300% is common, does that explain it a bit better.

 

[JamPal]

Were the cables made of solid gold? How can cables cost £4k? And who on earth would be stupid enough to buy them?

 

[Jezzer]

What dealer was that? What a cnut!

 

[Guest]

hifiwigwam wrote:

Were the cables made of solid gold? How can cables cost £4k? And who on earth would be stupid enough to buy them?

More than you think mate

http://www.hifiwigwam.com/forum1/6530.html

 

[Sony6million]

mosfet wrote:

WHF? first against the wall for starting the 10% joke.

Out of curiousity:

if someone came to you for advice, they were interested in buying their first hifi and hadno knowledge of the ins and outs of separates, if you could give them some pointersto direct them while they went off and researched buying this hifi whatwould you sayaboutspending on cables?Without knowing how much the system could potentially cost would you give a monetary figure or a percentage or let the dealer dictate to them?

 

[Guest]

i'd say buy the boxes you can afford now, and worry about cables later

look on eBay for cheap cables that do the job, but get the boxes sorted allways!!!

My Mullet system using £1m 79 strand, and £8.99 ixos I/Cask umbro what it sounds like with sugden and dvd?

 

[Sony6million]

I take it, it was rather good?