What makes the biggest difference in sound quality?

The room

Speaker position

Rack position

Dedicated line

Cable management

Everything else

Interconnects, speaker cables, power cords, or fuses?

I must not have good ears, because homemade interconnects seem to as good or better than most of the store bought ones I have tried.

Keeping speaker cables short helps, and also keep em fat in diameter and bi wire them if possible.

I have not ventured into powercords and fuses.

I must not have good ears, because homemade interconnects seem to as good or better than most of the store bought ones I have tried.

there could be an open forum for say, car guys. You could have a group of these car guys talking about how they reduced their best lap times by seconds while outlining exactly what they did to their vehicles to lower their best lap times. Another group of car guys come along to tell the first group they are all nuts and that none of their tuning tips work, some even claim to have tried their tips and that none of them lowered their lap times. The reality is, both of these camps could be correct. The problem is perspective and details. The drivers reducing their lap times could be Porsche and Ferrari pilots while the second group could be Miata drivers. Knowing the details of an audio system is extremely important to put anyone’s perspective in perspective.

As to cable length, shorter is almost always better to a point, but if you must have long cables, make them your interconnects and not your speaker cables.

thanks much for your reply, ted : ) - kevin

@millercarbon 12 gauge mundorf copper foil, is 27 dollars for 10 meters. hificollective.co.uk

Make it yourself :)Cotton or silk sheathing is also available in bulk, very easy to use, or you can make your own. 

I have about $20K invested into my speaker system, and have tried all sorts of cables, every kind of construction imaginable. Simple unshielded copper foil (as XLRs and USB sound the best. Amazing clarity, timbre and dynamics. Soundstage is MASSIVE. I have also tried Silver/Gold foil, but copper was the best match for my system.

These cables are simple to make, and can compete with pretty much anything else on the market, it’s not a boast, or false bravado, it is a simple truth that I discovered after doing the hard work for myself.