Which cable do you think is most important?

I would suggest that the next few dollars you spend are on fixing problems in your room instead of trying to improve your system with cables.

If you are going to go the cable route, make sure that you do BLIND A:B tests.....because in most cases, in a BLIND test, you will not be able to reliably tell the difference. If you do find a difference, it's not going to be clear if you are actually hearing purer sound...or sound that is biased towards what you like better (but your friends/wife/others may not).

That's my 2 cents....but you will spend $1000's on wires.

Note: If you are a concert violinist with perfect tone and you already have an acoustically perfect room, then cables may make a difference. For the other 99.999% of us, you will feel that the sound is better, but no one else will be able to tell the difference....and likely in a blind test, you couldn't either.

Just getting up and going?

First. Get as neutral and as good a set of speaker cables as possible.

Next do the same thing with the main pre to amp IC.

Two more sets of ICs are required for both sources and I’d not break the bank on either yet. Cardas Neutral refs did a fine job for me in both RCA and XLR, AND they are quite neutral and gave me a good base line with which to compare other wires here and there. They aren’t the only wires suited to this task so just get in where you fit in on budget and brand preffs. I picked Cardas for no real good reason but was pleased with the results.

PCs at each end of the system seems to boost performance best. I’m assuming analog is no different than digital front ends here. I’d begin with the amp pc first, then each source, and the preamps pc as a later step perhaps.

Again, cardas is as good a place to start here as is any other brand, Voodoo also is a safe bet and not cost prohibitive, providing a very good value to performance ratio. Any number of others will suffice, Kimber, AZ, HT, etc.

Now that everything is up and running and completely broken in I’d begin to reassess cabling. Beginning with power cords. Amps first, then sources. Lastly the preamp.

Thereafter re-address ICs. Main IC first of course. Sources next.

Finally if necessary, step up the speaker cables.

You should be done at this point in time or ready to sell everything off and try something else. This time around however, you’ll have good to great cables in place to begin with. For along the way I think you may find matching wires to components is harder than matching components to components.

Naturally, none of the cables then in place will likely wind up as keepers but one never knows. The closer you stayed to neutral in selecting cables, the better off you might be. RWV.

So far… the above plan has worked pretty well for me.

I'd put power cords first, interconnects next, and speaker cables last. Took me a long time to even put power cables on the list, though. I also believe in cable break-in and STRONGLY recommend a cable cooker, so I'm obviously beyond the pale :-) Dave

Ghstudio
I could not agree more with Ghstudio with working on your room. I would look at diy rock wool aboout 4" thick with an attractive open weave cloth or is you like a more professional look then try a compay like Auralex they have all types of excellent products and will even on line evaluate your room for the best fix.This is a better way with spending your money and getting a good bang for the buck then trying to evaluate the best wires for your system.

Remember your system is as good as you weekest link
I have spent a lot of money on power cables and could not realy notice the difference but between my amp & pre amp
and pre amp and player I have notice a difference then speaker cables and I use all Analysis Plus cables they are reasonable in price