Interconnects priority

Or, looking it from another practical budget perspective, if I have a total of of $1,000 to spend is it clear that I should spend $500 on each XLR pair, or should I “overweight” my spend on one set because it’s the more “important” interconnect from a sound quality perspective.

I think what is clear in one person's system is not so clear in another. Here's another curveball- suppose the suggestion above is correct and the phono to the pre amp has more of an effect than the pre to the amp: would it be better to entirely "overweight" the spending by adding just a $1000 XLR from phono to pre, instead of 2 XLR's in both places?

I would lean towards the former, because eventually you will probably have the itch to upgrade the $500 XLR's, but if you have one $1000 XLR you would just need to upgrade one, and you would probably get a bigger "wow factor" by hearing what the $1000 XLR can do, compared to $500 ones. 

Providing of course you don't have a "throw away stock" XLR, and at least a Mogami or equivalent for the pre to amp XLR. 

My system only has one pair of interconnects.  I believe the simpler the system is, the better it sounds.

Jerry

I've been swapping out cables between my dac and preamp trying to find the best fit. I've also got a couple of cables on order. 

I had a pure silver cable between my amp and preamp that I think is pretty good. On a whim, I replaced it tonight with a different cable and I'm liking the results.  I had it in my head that amp to preamp was less important, but I think both source to pre and pre to amp are important. 

I find Pre to Amp and Source to Pre most important. Had Fantastic Results with the Albedo Silver Mono Crystals over any Copper iv compared them against.

source first