Interconnect downstream flow

The system is only as good as the weakest link. If sound information is to be lost due to the cable, it doesn't matter if you have it below the source or below the preamp - you won't be retaining the "original material" anyway.

However, there still could be a better cable for either the source/preamp or the preamp/amp. This would be the case for cable capacitance and resistance susceptibility of your components. In this case, empirical testing stomps opinionated or developed rationale. Good luck!

I can agree with all of the posts above.

However, and while this is not your situation, but my own, I have put my best interconnect between the preamp and amp.
My reasoning is that I listen primarily to two sources, my turntable and my CD player. (Actually, I actually have three more sources, if I count the lessor sources, being my SACD player, my CD burner and my tuner). Having multiple sources means that all are going through my best interconnect, rather than my second, or third best.

Good choice on the Audience AU24 btw. I use that between my CD player and my preamp. (I use a Cardas Golden Reference between my preamp and amp.)

Look at the output impedance of the various electronics. Put the "good" interconnect out of the electronics with the highest output impedance. For example, your solid state CD player might be 50 ohms, and your tube preamp 600 ohms. The preamp needs all the help it can get.

This thread comes up over and over and over and always the same responses. Contrary to the old UK brainwashed pro Linn/Naim magazines, putting the "BEST" anything at the front is NOT always the solution, in fact it rarely is with cables. It has nothing to do with what is lost or can not be recovered.

Eldartford's explanation might be why the link between my tube pre and power amps always makes the biggest difference by quite a large margin. I can put an NBS Statement between the pre (BAT 31SE) and amp (Wolcotts) and a $15 Belden between the Aesthetix Io phono stage and this works mighty well. If I swap the cables, I lose nearly all of the harmonic richness and incredible decays that the NBS between the pre and amp provides. Surprisingly enough, the NBS helps earlier in the chain, but ONLY after I get this one link "right". This may very well be a moot point for many SS based systems which lack much of this quality to begin with and/or also have much lower preamp output impedance.

So don't worry about the theories, or any other attempts at logic here; try this and learn what works best in your own system. ABall sums this up quite well here. I wish more people with extensive experience here would chime in.

John

Mr Dartford makes a good point about impedance matching and interconnects playing games with the sound and performance of the system. As such, one really has to experiment with what interconnect goes where. Some interconnects that one might think are "better" because they cost more and / or are located higher up in a product line may actually be poorer performers electrically. Same goes for speaker cables i.e. not all the more expensive models are necessarily better than all of the less expensive models. At least with speaker cables though, you don't have to guess where they go in the system : ) Sean
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