[SundayNiagara]

Finally!

http://www.masterbuiltaudio.com/

At last, we now know why pricing was never discussed online. $18k for a 1m pair of Ultra interconnects?

[Speedskater]

Well I just read their technology page and electricity behaves differently in their world so maybe money also has a different value in their world.

[drummermitchell]

18 g's,there's a brand new Vac Sig MKIIA SE preamp .
Yrs ago I had to do 12 cables at a time with my gear and then it was Anaconda and python helixes,went with Bryston for cables and power is the older shunyata Tiapans as I bought them used as sold off the A's +P's and used the rst of the money for a JVC RS -600 projector......
Hellooooo .

[SundayNiagara]

And just think: They wouldn't be compatible with the $685k Wilson's, because they are wired with Transparent cabling.

[leif8660]

And just think: They wouldn't be compatible with the $685k Wilson's, because they are wired with Transparent cabling.
[/quote

You know MasterBuilt has other cables that cost much less lol.  Yes the Ultra is expensive, but I've seen cables costing 3 times as much.  Crazy isn't it.]

[leif8660]

And just think: They wouldn't be compatible with the $685k Wilson's, because they are wired with Transparent cabling.

The MasterBuilt cables work great with the Wilson speakers. 

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?21439-Master-Built-What-are-Owners-Hearing-That-They-Didn-t-Hear-With-Other-Cables/page35

Post #345

[oem-wheels]

18 g's....  crazy..  but you know what they say  " sucker born every minute" ... some of them rich .... you'd think the sellers feel guilty ?  NASA did all the research, paid by tax payers  ??? now someone else is making the cables from their research  ??? the copper wire you find in the $18g cable you can find in a $1200 cable..

[Mountainjoe]

NASA did all the research, paid by tax payers  ??? now someone else is making the cables from their research  ???

Delco Aerospace did the research, not NASA, and there are many instances of technology developed for space or defense applications that end up in the commercial arena. Not only is there nothing wrong with that, but this trickle down process enables consumers access to technologies and advancements that would otherwise be prohibitive for consumer electronics companies to develop on their own.

18 g's....  crazy..  but you know what they say  " sucker born every minute" ... some of them rich .... you'd think the sellers feel guilty ?

I honestly don't understand this line of thinking - just because something is out of your budget doesn't mean it's a rip off. There are certainly more expensive cables than MB out there and people choose to buy them. If you have the budget for such things and hear a difference, why shouldn't you be able to spend your money in any way you think will improve your system?

I can't afford a Ferrari but I don't begrudge those who can, nor do I begrudge Ferrari for building and selling their cars. Quite the contrary, I appreciate the beauty and technology of their designs and am thankful that enough people do buy these cars so that Ferrari can continue to operate and elevate the art of automotive design. What a boring world it would be if all cars were like Hondas...

Also, just because I'm not skilled enough to appreciate the performance and handling of a Ferrari doesn't mean they are not worth the additional cost or that they don't actually perform better than a car one tenth of their cost.

the copper wire you find in the $18g cable you can find in a $1200 cable..

I would love to get the same performance in a $1,200 cable but I doubt you will find it - your statement about the metallurgy is misinformed as the Ultra line uses a formulation of rare earth metals that you will not find in any other cable much less one at one tenth the cost. There is also more to the cost of a product than the materials cost - there is the test and development cost which must be amortized and you will be hard pressed to find private companies with access to the same type of test equipment that MB has access to.

I won't argue about the cost/value tradeoff for such expensive gear as that is a matter of personal judgment and budget. Clearly these cables are not for everyone - and neither are lines of $50k cables (yes there are several out there), yet people do buy them. But arguing that these cables don't sound better than a pair of $1,200 cables without even auditioning them in a system that is capable of revealing their full potential is simply ignorant.

I'm an electrical engineer and have been very skeptical of the benefits of expensive cable formulations, especially power cords so I'm not one to be easily sold on such things. But having heard the Ultra cables in a very revealing system, I can't deny what I hear. And discussing the technical details with Albert (to the degree he was able to discuss with me), I can appreciate the engineering, instrumentation, and science that went into these designs - perhaps you should try the same before passing summary judgment on something which you clearly haven't even heard...

[Factorz]

 

Well said.

[BigSwede]

There are two versions of the speaker cable I use. The only difference between them is at some point the manufacturer made a change in the dielectric - the copper conductor used is the same, in the same configuration. I have compared the two versions on two separate occasions. There are clear and repeatable sonic differences between them.

So much more goes into this than the ingredients.

[Big Red Machine]

There are two versions of the speaker cable I use. The only difference between them is at some point the manufacturer made a change in the dielectric - the copper conductor used is the same, in the same configuration. I have compared the two versions on two separate occasions. There are clear and repeatable sonic differences between them.

So much more goes into this than the ingredients.

Yes, correct. I would love to understand this more. I had a phone call with Jeff Smith of Silversmith 2 years ago and the dielectric was more important than the cable itself. Something about how the waves travel down the dielectric and the rate they travel has to be in synch. There are things us mere mortals will never understand about great cable design.

I, for one, will keep my eye on MB's entry level cables over the next few years and may strike if funds allow.

[Mountainjoe]

Something about how the waves travel down the dielectric and the rate they travel has to be in synch. There are things us mere mortals will never understand about great cable design.

EM (electromagnetic) waves travel at a constant (speed of light) in a vacuum regardless of frequency, however in the presence of a dielectric, they will not only travel at reduced speed but the speed of travel can become frequency dependent. The effect of this is that different frequencies will arrive at different times on the other end of the transmission medium. I've used air dielectric cables for this reason (before converting over to MB), as air is the next closest thing to vacuum in regards to dispersion.

This effect is called dispersion and is one way cables can distort the sound passing through them. So yes, there are a number of important factors in cable design - not just the conductor itself, but its thickness, shape, arrangement (when multiple strands are used), geometry with respect to the dielectric and ground reference, the dielectric properties, etc..

There are near infinite possible combinations of these factors which is why you see so many cables out there making all kinds of claims about their superiority of design. And granted there are some folks peddling pseudoscience and charging ridiculous markups for their cables so as always with this hobby, caveat emptor!

[Hugh]

EM (electromagnetic) waves travel at a constant (speed of light) in a vacuum regardless of frequency, however in the presence of a dielectric, they will not only travel at reduced speed but the speed of travel can become frequency dependent. The effect of this is that different frequencies will arrive at different times on the other end of the transmission medium. I've used air dielectric cables for this reason (before converting over to MB), as air is the next closest thing to vacuum in regards to dispersion.

This is called dispersion and is one way cables can distort the sound passing through them. So yes, there are a number of important factors in cable design - not just the conductor itself, but its thickness, shape, arrangement (when multiple strands are used), geometry with respect to the dielectric and ground reference, the dielectric properties, etc..

There are near infinite possible combinations of these factors which is why you see so many cables out there making all kinds of claims about their superiority of design. And granted there are some folks peddling pseudoscience and charging ridiculous markups for their cables so as always with this hobby, caveat emptor!

I concur with this.

As a former Boeing & Lockheed engineer, I'd worked with (indirectly) Delco and others in my former life so I DO know a little about cables.
Research is still being done on this subject to this date.

I also happen to know a few cable companies who charged outrageously priced cables who got no business in making cables.
And yet, some well-known 'reviewers' bought into these high-priced cables (NOT directed to MB).

I can only shake my head. 

[oem-wheels]

Mountainjoe .... I think you misunderstood... maybe I said it wrong...  if a wire cost $1000 dollars to make then should it be sold for $1300 ??? most likely not... there was a lot of research and testing and more research and more testing and buying gobs of material so you can try different ways to incorporate the materials together and see what works best plus all the time and effort that it took.. and so on .... that needs to be factored in too...... from what I understand (and it looks like you see the same way ) is an aerospace company did all the work and someone else took the results and made the cable from the results... the results that another company spent the time and money for research and testing... so now the company making the cable can pretty much go into production right of way and make great cables... so does that mean they should factor in the time and research someone else did into the price of the cable ? hope this made my previous post more clear...  and lets not compare a Lamborghini to a speaker cable...  that is all

[Wig]

Does Masterbuilt Cables have a sound signature and has anyone compared them to High Fidelity Magnetic Wires?

Wig

[maxima95]

Mountainjoe .... I think you misunderstood... maybe I said it wrong...  if a wire cost $1000 dollars to make then should it be sold for $1300 ??? most likely not... there was a lot of research and testing and more research and more testing and buying gobs of material so you can try different ways to incorporate the materials together and see what works best plus all the time and effort that it took.. and so on .... that needs to be factored in too...... from what I understand (and it looks like you see the same way ) is an aerospace company did all the work and someone else took the results and made the cable from the results... the results that another company spent the time and money for research and testing... so now the company making the cable can pretty much go into production right of way and make great cables... so does that mean they should factor in the time and research someone else did into the price of the cable ? hope this made my previous post more clear...  and lets not compare a Lamborghini to a speaker cable...  that is all

The above post does not "clarify" your post of 26 Dec 2016, 10:40 pm.  It is simply a different post.

Mountainjoe comprehensively addressed the plain meaning of the words you used in your 26 Dec 2016, 10:40 pm post. 

Further, Mountainjoe addressed a Ferrari in his post; not a Lamborghini.  And he didn't compare a car to a speaker cable either.

[oem-wheels]

whatever maxima95... you miss the whole point ! Lamborghini, Ferrari,  who cares ! same thing !

[Mountainjoe]

Mountainjoe .... I think you misunderstood... maybe I said it wrong...  if a wire cost $1000 dollars to make then should it be sold for $1300 ??? most likely not... there was a lot of research and testing and more research and more testing and buying gobs of material so you can try different ways to incorporate the materials together and see what works best plus all the time and effort that it took.. and so on .... that needs to be factored in too...... from what I understand (and it looks like you see the same way ) is an aerospace company did all the work and someone else took the results and made the cable from the results... the results that another company spent the time and money for research and testing... so now the company making the cable can pretty much go into production right of way and make great cables... so does that mean they should factor in the time and research someone else did into the price of the cable ? hope this made my previous post more clear...  and lets not compare a Lamborghini to a speaker cable...  that is all

ah ok - in regards to this point, it's my understanding that MB spent eight or so years developing the wire formulations specifically for audio applications. Certainly they benefited from their experience developing conductors for aerospace and scientific applications and from the test equipment they had in hand, but they still had to invest in developing solutions for audio. In fact if you've followed their history, you'll note that their products have evolved since first release as they've continued to invest and learn what attributes of their cable designs had to be improved for audio. ie they didn't just slap RCA connectors on existing cables and mark them up for the audio market.

That said, I'm not going to defend their pricing as I have no direct knowledge of their costs. I will say that through conversations with Albert about the development process they went through, I do believe there's real and substantial engineering work as well as materials cost involved with these cable designs.

Regarding my point about the Ferrari, it seems I wasn't very clear as it was intended to be an analogy and not meant to literally compare audio cables to sports cars...

[leif8660]

Mountainjoe .... I think you misunderstood... maybe I said it wrong...  if a wire cost $1000 dollars to make then should it be sold for $1300 ??? most likely not... there was a lot of research and testing and more research and more testing and buying gobs of material so you can try different ways to incorporate the materials together and see what works best plus all the time and effort that it took.. and so on .... that needs to be factored in too...... from what I understand (and it looks like you see the same way ) is an aerospace company did all the work and someone else took the results and made the cable from the results... the results that another company spent the time and money for research and testing... so now the company making the cable can pretty much go into production right of way and make great cables... so does that mean they should factor in the time and research someone else did into the price of the cable ? hope this made my previous post more clear...  and lets not compare a Lamborghini to a speaker cable...  that is all

Hello oem-wheels,

Mountainjoe is absolutely correct.  In the very beginning, MasterBuilt engineers originally fabricated some prototype cables from left over materials from one of their projects and they were still pretty good for audio use.  Over the next few years MB developed new formulations for each of the product lines using the same manufacturing techniques as the previous materials.  This wire is made 100% from scratch here in the U.S. and many of the techniques in which these wires are made is proprietary and only available through MB.  The cost of these materials and the quantity required in order to manufacture this wire is very expensive.  MasterBuilt has testing equipment I seriously doubt any other cable company has which was also very expensive.

I see many people focusing on MB's most expensive cable(Ultra).  There are 3 other product lines under Ultra that in not just my opinion out perform other manufacturers cables anywhere near that price point.  The Reference line is incredible performance for a quarter of the price of the Ultra line.  And the Performance line which is MB's least expensive cables cost much less than the Reference.

Many Ultra owners already had expensive cables and some of those cables cost more than the Ultras.

In the end, it all boils down to what the listener's preferences are, and the same goes for speakers and electronics.  I run Signature speaker cables and interconnects, Reference USB and power cords in my system at home.  I would love Ultra myself except they are too expensive for me.

I'm not a very politically correct person and I have no problem in identifying what is happening in the cable industry.  We have cable companies popping up everywhere that are purchasing bulk wire from over seas or maybe even here in the U.S.,  slap some terminations on them, then market them for ridiculous prices.  Then when some people compare those cables with cables that cost just a fraction of the cost, the performance isn't any better than the cheaper cable.  Over the years of being a speaker manufacturer, we have tried so many different cables before we met the engineers of MB, and the MB cables delivered something no other cables have.

There will be people that love the MB cables, and there will be people who don't, just like speakers and electronics.  But without hearing them in your system...

You will never know lol

Leif

[jbr]

Just adding my two cents to this discussion, I recently upgraded my speakers to the Unifield 2 Signature model. I figured, what the heck, as long as I'm getting new speakers, let's upgrade some of my system cabling to MasterBuilt.
I purchased MasterBuilt bi-wire speaker cable and two sets of interconnects. They are all from the Signature series, as the Ultra series was way, way, way out of my price range. The Signature series was only way, way out of my price range, which I'm reminded of every time I look at the bill of sale, lol.
However, when I listen to my system, as crazy as this may sound to some, the money spent is not an issue, because the musical results are worth the many dollars that I spent.
I have no regrets, whatsoever, in this regard.