As some of you know I am a cable believer and have got into lively discussions about them. Recently I warned someone about buying 'the £10 dream' cheap professional cables. I had bought a set of Maplins specials in fetching blue and red and tried them in my McIntosh set up and they were not good...but they did have the positive of an even frequency response. So I decided to try them with my 'summer' amps the Nuforce 9s. And what do you know...they were the best? :D I put in the Virtual Dynamics (£750), they are an explicit cable and with explicit amps it all got too much. Then in goes the Audionote silvers (£300) and everything got messy and out of focus. OK now the balanced cables..in goes the Transparent Music (£290) and it was all flat with no high frequency but still the best sounding so far. Then the Maplins specials: There is that flat overall response, the bass is evenly balanced and powerful and the top end was present but not over-stated. With the MC2275 valves the bass was flabby and slow, the top end disappeared and it was dynamically flat. With the Nuforces the bass can become over tight and the top end over-stated with ill matched cables. Is it the case the NFs are actually flat and the Maplins cable is an honest cable or is this an example of horses for courses?? BUT...this result surprised me a lot...