AUDIO ORIGAMI BLOG

budget priorities

Audiophiles often receive criticism and abuse for a variety of reasons, stemming from misunderstandings, perceived elitism, and the subjective nature of their hobby, but let's get back to basics...

If you're reading this, chances are you're an audiophile, and that's cool in our book! An audiophile is someone deeply passionate about high-fidelity sound. Like golfers or fishers who continually upgrade their gear, audiophiles strive for the best possible sound quality from their systems.

However, a common pitfall for audiophiles is misguided spending. Too often, significant money is spent on cables and power supplies when upgrading the source or speakers would yield far greater improvements within a given budget.

For example, we recently had a customer upgrade their tonearm and add £5,000 speaker cables. While their system was impressive—featuring a well-upgraded Linn LP12, Audio Origami PU7 tonearm, Ortofon MC Quintet Bronze cartridge, Accuphase E-650 integrated amp, and Harbeth M40.2 speakers—the weakest link wasn't the cables... it was the cartridge.

The Ortofon MC Quintet Bronze is a capable cartridge, but it didn't match the rest of the system's calibre. Instead of spending £5,000 on cables, a far more impactful upgrade would have been to replace the cartridge with something like a Hana Umami Red or Benz LP-S. Either of these options, costing just over £3,000, would have delivered a significant system improvement and saved him money.

While speaker cables do make a difference, their impact is far less significant than that of a cartridge upgrade. It's all about priorities: focus on optimizing your source and speakers first. Once all components perform at a similarly high level, then it's time to fine-tune with accessories like cables and power conditioners to extract that final 10% of performance.