Two questions about....?

I second that opinion - definitely the gear is far more important.

Yep, cables are like 5% of the sound. Focus on the system components first, and then upgrade your cables over time as you find good deals. Or never, if you're happy with the sound of your system as it is.

IMO, people who hear vast differences between cables hear those differences because their system is not well grounded. As they change interconnects, they are changing the ground potential between system components. So save yourself a ton of money, properly ground your system, buy decent, but not expensive cables, and enjoy the music.

Dan

There is one thing about cables that I am fairly sure of, that is if you have a power amp that draws a lot of current then a bigger PC will improve the sound. This was the case with my MF M3 when I replaced the stock cord with a considerably larger one. Otherwise, I would say that PCs do make a difference but they are HIGHLY system specific.

You could think about it this way also:

Take a SoundDesign stereo and replace the speaker cables with Transparent Opus. It will still sound like a cheap amp and bad speakers.

Take midrange components and speakers (Rotel/paradigm/PSB/Arcam/Rega) and hook them up with lamp cord. It will always sound better than the Sounddesign.