This is true to not mix cables that aren’t designed as a system, and none really are except ICONOCLAST. Here we did design in the capability, and on purpose. Use the series I woofer and series II mid/tweeter in parallel as bi-wire. Of course your experience mis-matching various cables has failed, they aren’t designed to be used that way, so don’t. But your experience isn’t an across the board rule and definitely not in our case.
Best,
Galen
are you saying that, objectively speaking, the higher price is the primary if not sole benefit?
for the near future, likely all I will do is NOT first-hand compare a variety of cables
keep experimenting, please
An aspect of my comment was that sonic performance goes beyond established engineering calculations. There are aspects that define cable sound that are not addressed by textbook calculations. Examples abound, some are well implemented others may introduce compromises.
Iconoclast provides for a well designed and manufactured series of cables, especially when they discontinued the Cardas banana terminations on the speaker cable line. There is an art to matching up cables with components, thus a generous trial period is beneficial. I believe their performance stands on its own. Certainly there are better at a price.
Trying to understand and implement factors that improve sonic performance based on variables that go beyond textbook analysis is where the art kicks in. Limiting development to just the calculations opens the door to missed opportunities. The sonic differences between various conductor metallurgies is one such example.
The best example of conductor material making a significant difference are the Audioquest Storm power cables. From simple copper to silver conductors. Each Storm series cable sounds different. And the structure, the insulation, even the plugs from Tornado to Dragon are identical. Many people don’t have much confidence in the Furutech Dss-4.1 speaker cable’s construction. I compared it with Inakustik ls air 4004, Audioquest Thunderbird and Fierbird. In terms of sound, the Furutech was superior to the Inakustik and the Thunderbird. It was of a similar standard to the Fierbird which costs considerably more. Maybe it’s the Ducc copper or the ncf inside the Furutech that makes it compare so well. Greetings Andreas
Ears are the only measurement devices I trust.
(notice how few words I used)
You shall recover.
Yeah, it is better to trust your ears than to rely on what goes on between them.
Profundity abounds.
…An aspect of my comment was that sonic performance goes beyond established engineering calculations…
Be careful, the Aspects you seem to adulate are in the far minority of how cables really work. That’s also true of everything made with STEM sciences. At some point the approximation stop and you make something. Over the centuries we know how far to take things and they work to a good degree (there is the capsule stuck in space!). To make decisions on the minutia of a design as a starting point isn’t going to work on flawed fundamentals up to the point where we pull back from further perfection. The world and our stuff are BUILT on what we absolutely do know then on down to the “guesses”, not the other way around. Audio cable, to reach linearity as best possible, isn’t immune from that.
Galen
I guess what I really enjoy is substandard. Who knew?
Big smile. 
That all depends on how we buy things, from the base fundamentals on up to the unknowns or reverse of that. Sales and Marketing would rather you skip the fundamentals and go straight to the mysticism. It is far easier to make up stuff that can’t be proven one way or another. This is called appeals to the ignorance as there is never ever going to be the knowledge needed to really evaluate the claim(s) when the decisions are made as a consumer.
As we advance, more and more is answered. The number of answers is long and sometimes hard to keep track of, witness the Boeing space capsule issue. The reason it failed was a known answer, but it was folded into obscurity with all the other answers. Knowing and recording answers isn’t doing. The doing is where the rubber hits the road! What answers did you use and at what approximation level and across all the critical attributes of a design project? Did we missed an analysis vector? It isn’t that the answers weren’t there more than likely. Few paths are completely unknown.
We do have the rare Clint Eastwood, “do you feel lucky punk” projects that work with minimal proofs, and no one knows why. We record the process and make sure it isn’t changed! We can’t improve it because we don’t understand why it works. It is a frozen asset that times out in the market.
Best,
Galen
I don’t ask questions. I don’t look at marketing material. Someone says “you should try this”. If and when I try something, if I like the results and feel they justify the price I may very well buy it. If I don’t like what I hear I don’t study to find out why that might be. And no one can suggest a reason why I should accept something I don’t like to listen to and succeed.
If it sounds better, it wins. If my better isn’t the same as your better I accept and move on.
You don’t have to worry in the modern market as even speakers and somewhat cable are ferreted out if they don’t have proper base fundamentals. Speakers more than cables. The easier it is to make a device, the less people feel the fundamentals are important and move to abstract thought processes. It is just how we work.
Each approximation has a dgree to stay within and work, but that lattitude will alter the final result. Non linearity has to be accepted here and there, and each manufacturere will make those decisions based on what is called, house sound". Everything has a timber that is unique.
Cables have largely avoided proper fundamental spec definitions. Unlike pro cables, it is still the wild west on cable. No open-short impedance. No swept Rs, no impedance / phase graphs. These are all answers we know, and what better really is.
If your argument is to buy with nothing but your ears, I’m good with that. The manufacturers have your backside so that the variation from accepted practice are indeed smaller today than ever so a totally blind purchase can be acceptable to most people. The fundamentals are mostly knowns and designed to. We as audiophiles pick and choose the patina and timber to suit, true. We buy the “error” that suits us.
Best,
Galen
Our ears measure nothing. They just listen and that’s what they are designed to do. How ears listen is not linear at all, and changes with volume levels significantly. Nothing could ever be made repeatably across an audience with just ears. The product can’t vary unit to unit, but the ears doing the listening always do. I’m really glad manufacturers don’t trust ears. That’s really good for you.
Best,
Galen
So you are offering absolution?
the prevalent exercise
My ears are the only measurement tools that matter to me. If that wasn’t the case I could never enjoy a tube amp.
???. How our ears work may be punishment from God, but not from me. What we enjoy is hardly a punishment from ourselves or to anyone else. Accepting we all hear differently and enjoy the challenge to find that sound is forgivable, heck yes.
What is factual are real instruments without bias and beliefs that they are being “punished” in the way they work. My lab bench seldom asks forgiveness. Example, no one really enjoys a truly flat stereo system. Where’s the bass? A system tuned truly flat for everyone, without bias, will be soon tweaked differently by everyone’s ears to suit. I’ll be the first to hit the bass boost!
Our ears measure to our enjoyment, not accuracy. All ears are different, and we all experience the Fletcher Fletcher Munson curves differently…but “approximately” the same. Again our ears are far from accurate or repeatable. Ears are not “calibrated” and unbiased.
How you select stereo is entirely up to you. To say our ears are “accurate” is simply wrong. No one’s ears are really “accurate” but some are better than others at ferreting out what is most pleasing to hear. That isn’t accurate, but enjoyable. We are what we are as humans.
To be as consistent in the starting point as possible, we design to a repeatable reference and a set of standards. After that we, as a customer, can change it any way we want.
Best,
Galen