From AliExpress fakes to Transparent Reference

My cable list has Transparent Reference on it. It also has Chinese fake AudioQuest from AliExpress and plain 10-gauge copper wire bought online that was never even terminated.

I list the cheap ones on purpose. More than 100 cables across every category and connection type have been through my systems, from $20 to several thousand dollars per cable. Every one was compared, some were sold and some were kept, and all of them were paid for with my own money, the fakes included.

And you know what? The bottom of the market taught me as much as the top. Up to about $200 the improvements I heard were significant, and beyond $1,500 they only made sense in a high-end system. You can only draw that curve if you have stood at both ends of it.

That is my problem with most cable arguments online. The sceptic who has only ever bought basic wire has heard the floor and nothing else, and the believer who started at the expensive end never heard the floor at all. Each of them describes half a curve and calls it the whole truth.

I paid for both ends, so I can tell you where the curve bends. That is the only reason my cable opinion deserves your time.