Hi Fred- Well there are many many fine cables out there. Do you have a local retailer that carries stuff you could take home and try, just to get a feel for the possibilities? I would borrow interconnects and speaker cables at the same time to try.

On the low-to-midrange price range, people like Audience AU24's, which are also thin and easy to negotiatie around tight bends. I had a set for a long time, and they are a VERY good value. I also owned Cardas Golden reference and Golden cross, Nordost Valhalla and several others, and auditioned Kubala-Sosna Emotion, and so far nothing beats my current reference stereovox cables, which of course cost a butt-load of $$. Of all these, the Audience AU24 is a nice start, and very affordable.

However, BY NO MEANS amd I a cable guru, as there is so much out there I've never heard (Kimber, Tara, Transparent, MIT, Ridge Street, Synergistic Research, Analysis Plus, Purist, Acoustic Zen, Stealth, Wireworld, and so on ....the list is seemingly endless), so get to a local retailer or hook up with a local audiophile and TRY whatever they got.

Good luck and above all, HAVE FUN! Art

artg November 26, 2005 16:27

Listening space looks nice. I can't say I have any personal experience with th speakers you have on your 'short list,' but have read nice things about them. I will say that if you are ready/willing/able to spend $10K, you can get a HELL of a lot of speaker.

I have owned Dynaudio (contour 3.3), Sonus Faber (Guarneri Homage + REL sub), and others from Thiel, KEF, and maybe a few others I can't recall - and for me, BY FAR the nicest sounding overall aremy current Verity Audio Parsifal Encores, which are easily in your $ range. They are very articulate (ton of info), yet also very smooth and fatigue-free, which is very important to me. And they look lovely as well.

Nothing against Signal, but you can definitely improve on that... Perhaps you should budget $10K for speakers and cables, since that will still get you VERY nice performance (i.e., $8K speakers + $2K in cables might outperform $10K in speakers alone)

artg November 26, 2005 00:20

Welcome to the audiophilia nervosa support group! I also have had very good expereinces with isoclean fuses, and use them everywhere (as well as their 80A3 power conditioner), and also have some of their very fine superfocus power cords.

As for speakers, how much you looking to spend? You have a very very fine amp to drive just about anything. Also, what kind of cables you got?

artg November 24, 2005 15:04