if you had my system and $2,000 budgeted for an upgrade, where would you spend it?

As others have said, a very nice looking system and I'll bet it sounds great!
I'd have to ask; are you using any dedicated AC lines from your AC panel? 
Also, what type of AC outlets are you using?
Clean dedicated power with good outlets can upgrade one's system.
I'm just not sure what you are using in that respect.
Also, is all equipment plugged into your Shunyata Research Talos, and some equipment run directly from a different AC outlet ect.?

Hi, thanks Lak, I have a dedicated 20 amp breaker in my house box that feeds a shunyata outlet.  The main house box also has whole house surgery protection, to eliminate that from the audio rack.

The 20 amp circuit has feeds the Shunyata Talos on one outlet, and the other outlet is empty.  All of the other audio gear (amp, pre, phono stage, table, dac, sub) is plugged into the Talos.  The mac mini and hard drive are plugged into a different wall receptacle on a different breaker circuit.

Low rider,

The cable company seems amazing.  Perhaps cables will make the biggest difference.  

In fact, I do not have $2k for an upgrade now, but that doesn't diminish this post one bit!  I am a planner and a researcher, so I like to think about that $2k for a while, perhaps 6 months or more before I pull the trigger.  That said, I may do an experiment to listen to some excellent cables.  perhaps I can switch out the amp-pre and the pre-phono cables together and listen to the source all the way to the amp with better cabling.  I can also switch them to the DAC for testing there.  I think I will call cable company and ask for advice.

thanks!

agree on get rid of the Cardas. If you go with Transparent, their general upgrade recommendation order is source to pre, speaker cable, pre to amp.  Though often a good deal determines the order...

Marktomaras 02-04-2016 10:40pm
Would it make sense / make a difference to change only one to start with, or would I need to change all (save for the sub)?

What would be the order of importance in these connections to effect the most change?

amp - preamp
preamp - phono pre
preamp - dac
preamp - subwoofer

Lowrider57 02-05-2016 2:12am
... there are no rules on where to start; ARC preamp to ARC amp may result in the most dramatic change in sonics. Start with one cable change to see you like the sonic signature.

+1 to Lowrider’s comment.

Also, I wouldn’t discount the importance of the sub cable. For example, its capacitance will affect the signals received by the main power amp just as much as the capacitance of the cable connecting the preamp to the power amp, since both capacitances load the output of the preamp. Also, capacitance is proportional to length, and it appears that the sub cable is the longest of the interconnect cables in your setup. Finally, cable characteristics can affect ground loop issues, which can manifest themselves in ways that are more subtle than the low frequency hum they are most commonly associated with (see no. 3 below). And the possibility of a ground loop issue involving the sub, preamp, and power amp that are interconnected would seem conceivable.

Regarding order of importance, consistent with Lowrider’s comment I don’t think there is much predictability. But FWIW the following factors will work in the direction of increasing the criticality of an interconnect:

1)Higher output impedance of the component driving the cable. In this case that would probably point to the outputs of the preamp.

2)Longer cable length. Nearly all interconnect cable effects are proportional to length.

3)Susceptibility of the particular components to ground loop issues, which is generally not predictable. I’ll mention, though, that in a recent thread here there was an example of a significant sonic issue that turned out to be caused by a ground loop between a CD player and a preamp. The symptoms in that case did NOT involve hum or audible noise.

4)Use of unbalanced rather than balanced cables. Not applicable in this case.

It is common among audiophiles to consider upstream cables, starting with those connecting the outputs of the source, to be more critical than downstream cables. As you can see from the foregoing, I am not a believer in that philosophy.

Good luck. Regards,
-- Al