Spaghetti cabling behind entertainment center

Arctikdeth, It is not a waste of time and money if you value the improvements you get. I built a Live End/Dead End room once. That was a major waste of time and money for me.

I try to run cables so they at least are not tangled around each other.
this is much harder to do since cables have become so thick and inflexible that just keeping them from pulling and pushing on the components in the rack is a real challenge.  
    If i were building interconnects (and even power cords) i would try to put them on "a diet" while maintaining good insulation from the environment.  
   Oh and one of the WORST scenarios are the twist-lock RCA cables that are
so difficult to put on and remove due to the lack of space for your fingers between
input receptacles on many components, especially preamps.

The only locking plugs I use are for my speakers, as I have real 8 awg speaker wire, I needed bananas to fit the 7mm wire and 9mm jacket.  I use those nakamichi cheapo ones.  No, they don't get picked up by my magnet, so they're not made of iron. 

Anyway, when the preamp comes Thursday night, I will reroute all my cables, and keep the power cords separated from the rest.   Thank you guys, much appreciated!!!!!!!   !!! !!!!!

Keep power and digital cables as physically separated from other wires as possible, especially anything running from a phono.  Use shielded ICs if in doubt.   Plug power amp units directly into wall, no power conditioner, separate outlets from others if possible.  Separate circuits even better if possible.   Use good quality power cables designed to shield noise with digital devices in particular.  Can only help with pre-amp and power amps as well.  

As far as keeping cables off the rug or floor, I've done that but notice no change.  I'm not saying there isn't one, just that it doesn't matter to my ears.  Try it yourself.  Use paper cups, or something like that to lift the cables and see if you hear a difference.  I use small wooden dowels with a wire tie to hold them together in a tripod fashion to lift cables over others.  Now that I think about it, I still have those ceramic insulators.