Hello new here,

A few years ago my friend was buying hifi in around 800 per unit range (arcam alpha 9, 10 int and power amp, ruark crusaders) ICs were £100 audioquests', and similar to the quad the 9 had 2 outputs, so just to prove the difference bettween the audioquests and the freebee red and blacks both were plugged in and tried by swapping sources. Easy test, difference wasnt going to be hard to tell.......my god, we flicked bvetween inputs, tried different tracks, the most indepth listening resulted in wondering why £100 was paid. Astonished that no audible differnce could be heard. As a full believer in quality connectors, I felt like I had been BS'ing myself, I still cant believe there was no real difference. Even listinening with the his Grado reference cans, I couldnt hear a difference - most dissapointed. Sure a contentious issue, but my own experince says not to go over board with i/c's; nice ic's look well, nice. Are they really offerring me anything extra - now I doubt it, but by the nature of their construction they're certainly not taking anything away either.

Rich