What Is Most Important?

Gotta be the music.  Never forget the music is far greater than the system it's played on.  The system is just the means to an end.

Since I’m a McIntosh fan, it’s all about “For the love of music” and how it sounds. Soundstage, details, pleasing to my ears!

Everything playing well together so I can listen to a jazz trio and fell like I’m in the room with them, minus the smoke😁

Over the last month I replaced/updated my entire system’s cables, ICs, PCs and speaker from very well known and well reviewed company, PLUS, some 10 yo+ PCs from a boutique company to Nordost knock-offs from China. Like most of us I proceeded cautiously, first buying just a Odin 2 coaxial cable to replace my Pangea Premier XL ($169). The improvement was not subtle, so I ordered Odin 2 XLRs and power cord, similar improvements, so I followed with 2 robust twisted, but unnamed PCs from same company @ ~ $40 (these for my transport and dac/pre outboard PS- much better than the boutique >$400PCs. Enjoying my vastly improved musical enjoyment, it occurred to me that I should also replace the PC to my CorePower 1800 PLC. This time I ordered a Odin Gold, and the system sounded better still. On well recorded discs I often feel transported to the live performance or recording studio. Sharing this experience with a fellow ’phile, he noted the Odin Gold might not be heavy enough gauge for the PLC and recommended a Chinese PC that is available from Amazon; 10ga single crystal copper, very high quality Rhodium plated plug 1.5m just $45 with 20% discount, shipped in 2 days, compared to the ~ 3 weeks from China!. I decided to try it on the dac/pre PS- absolutely no comparison, so Saturday I ordered another for my transport, which is scheduled to arrive today

On entry level kit one may not notice much, but if your system, sans cables, is $3K +, Im confident you will be highly rewarded

@thecarpathian - Personally, I do edibles, mostly!