I was an audio technician, repairing all brands of stereos, long before I sold and installed them. As such, I was pretty skeptical of "high end" speaker wire. To a technician, wire is wire.

Later, we sold gear, and our sales rep for the speakers we sold gave me some monster speaker wire to try out.

I used one receiver, one CD, two identical pairs of speakers; the only difference was that one pair of speakers was fed by 18 gauge wire, the other by Monster cable.

There *WAS* a difference, and not subtle, but distinct. Definitely a better bottom end, which, since it is the high current part of the signal, I could have guessed. What surprised me THOROUGHLY is that the sound stage cleared up with the better cable -I could pick out where instruments were on the stage very distinctly, while the 18gauge was very muddy and indistinct. So I believe in BETTER cable but not necessarily $10/ft. cables. Remember, this is the extremely suspicious skeptic talking.

Next I tried interconnects. I honestly could not tell the difference in interconnects. However, I believe that anyone can benefit from better interconnects. The "emergency" cables that come in the box are prone to intermittents at the point the wire enters the plug, and they also oxidize over time.

Keep in mind, not everyone has the same level of discernment in sound. I think I have a pretty good ear. But, I also think there are a lot of people who have BETTER hearing than me.

My son is shopping for violins. He has played violins from $500 to $8500. I can tell differences in them, some are clearly not very good, but when I get to the good ones, I can't tell which is best. He takes them to his violin instructor who plays in about four different symphony orchestras, and she is ready to buy one and burn another, and it only takes a half a minute of playing in some cases to tell the difference. She has that better ear.

So, don't blow off the audio nut - I believe he hears things the rest of us don't. But don't be foolish enough to think a CAT5 can carry the current needed for good sound that a good grade speaker cable can.

=Tom