ASUS Xonar Essence One Review(s)

[AliG]

Subjectively speaking no one won the competition to be able to provide a decent scientific explanation in a double blind test to explain the audible difference(s) between uber expensive cables and cheap ones. I think the guy was offering up to the tune of $1 Million to prove such differences.

I agree that super expensive cables are a waste of money; I use the cheapest off brand stuff I could find for my own speakers - just got the appropriate gauges and conductivity. However he started talking about power, and whether or not you can detect the difference, different conductances would result in different wattages

[antiacid]

Advertising? You must still be in the 70s if you still see ads on webpages.

the entire website looks like a giant advertisement for overpriced items... It's not because it doesn't come to you through a pop-up that it is not considered advertisement.

And as far as the cables go, while it might not be needed but you're not going to hook up a pair of Sony cables or the like when you are trying to achieve the best possible sound even if you cannot hear it (hence what most audiophiles do; they waste lots of money to achieve sound nirvana).

If you have several thousand invested in audio equipment, whats another $1600 for a cable? Even if it is subjective, a perceived difference in sound just from getting a "expensive cable" will make it all worth it in the end to an Audiophile.

EDIT: http://www.doublehelixcables.com/ is the site, read through some of the stuff on there.

I simply don't care what's the brand on the cable. What I care about is the gauge of the cable (cross-section area), its resistance per unit of length, and I also care about the length of the cable. Past a certain size for any given length, you have no added benefits. If you can disprove this statement using science, then by all means educate us. In the meantime, I'll take my 15$ 12ga copper wire (monoprice.com) and put the remaining 1585$ elsewhere, perhaps on speakers or room treatment or high quality media source and get an actual measurable benefit for my hard earned money.

By your standard, an audiophile is someone with more money than common sense. I disagree strongly with that view. Knowledge is power, educate yourself and question your sources instead of blindly following marketing hype.

EDIT: if you have two grands to drop on ridiculous cables, perhaps I could interest you in this Flabbergastingly Good CD/DVD Demagnetizer? It's 2500$ so it ought to be good, amirite?