I have been in conversation with some one recently who comes from a very tradditional hi-fi background and has been trying to explain the importance of cables to me and how much of a visual and audio difference they can make. Obviously Bang & Olufsen products come with cables in the boxes and because of B&O's pedigree you would think that those cables were of a high-standard even though they might not look it!!

I have been told to look into getting the following:

Mains Power Conditioners,

New Mains Cables,

Chord Co Supersheild HDMI Cables

QED Anniversary Scart Leads

QED SPDIF Cables

and look into having new PowerLink cables made up by somebody like Chord to make sure the integrity is there on the transport from TV/Hi-Fi to Speakers

The system in question is a BeoVision 7-40 with BeoLab 9's, BeoSound 9000 and Projector and then video/audio is distributed to link rooms.

Is this something that any of you guys use? I know there are lots of arguments for and against this stuff but apparently it really does make a noticable difference and why do B&O not recommend this kind of stuff? Do any B&O dealers recommend doing it?

I open to the floor!

Oh dear, a cable debate - things could get heated!

Suffice to say, B&O manufacture the Beolab 5's to critical acclaim and deem their normal cables not to be an impediment to their performance!

Spend what you want to ensure you're content but don't be dragged in by all the pseuso-science.

I don't know the prices of the cables you've identified but, of your list, I would immediately save money by not buying "posh" mains cables. The conditioner may be useful if you live in a noisy mains area to prevent spikes etc. damaging your equipment - if the purpose is to "improve" performance then you can save that money too.

I'll leave it to others to bicker about the signal level cables.

Stupidly expensive cables  - BAH HUMBUG

Chris.

Read here too.

This is the Power Mains Conditioner I have been advised to look at and is about £600

http://www.isoteksystems.com/en/minisub.asp

and these are the HDMI's

http://www.chord.co.uk/products.php?pg=149

about £60 for a 1m

I stand by what I said about mains conditioners - good for preventing damage to equipment (have you ever had any equipment damaged by mains spikes etc)?

Bear in mind, the first thing that happens when the mains enters your equipment is that it is filtered, transformed down to a lower voltage, rectified to dc and heavily smoothered, filtered again and then regulated to power the device. How will a "smoother" sine wave improve the quality of the dc rails within the device?

Protect against spikes and lightning strikes. All the rest is complete nonsense designed to part fools from their money. I have spoken to Hi-Fi journalists about this and they are acutely embarrassed by having to suck up to the cable companies - at least in the cases of the ones I know. Try auditioning them double blind ABX with the dealer and see if he can tell the difference! If you can, you could win $1 million!

I have personally seen the difference of the picture of a Diboss LCD screen when using mains filtering. The difference was amazing!  After that we did the same thing on an Avant. The Avant showed no difference between with or without external mainsfiltering. The reason? The mains filtering that is used in a B&O Avant is sufficient enough! 

Here's my opinion on expensive cables and mains filtering. If you can hear or see the difference between normal cables and expensive cables or with or without mainsfiltering and in your opinion it is worth the money, buy the expensive cable or the mains filter. If you can't see or hear the difference, don't. And if somebody says that it makes a difference, first let them proof it. It can save you a lot of money!

fishta:

and these are the HDMI's

I always thought that with digital (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI) all that mattered was to get the bits through to the otherside

the actual quality is inside the bits not the strength/quality of the electrical signal

see the section in wikipedia on the cable types