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Interconnects priority

Greetings!

I am mulling over my interconnects and one question I have is, which interconnect is the most  important, if any, in the chain.

My setup is a Rega P8 with a Hana SL LOMC cart, into a Moon 310 LP / 320S phono stage, onto a PrimaLuna EVO 400 preamp and finally into a McIntosh MC312 power amp.

I am contemplating which interconnect (using XLR in my case) is the most critical to the sound/signal path, the one from the phono stage to the preamp or from the preamp to the power amp?

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.

(Of course assuming the interconnects are of equal length so that’s not a factor.)

Would love to hear this knowledgeable group’s thoughts on this - thanks!

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mitchagain
441 posts
 

+ 1 @coralkong & phantom_av

I recently had this same discussion with a friend who works in the audio business; and, we came to the same conclusion (# 1 = pre to amp); but, we also agreed that speaker cables would be a close second. 

bimmerlover's avatar
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bimmerlover OP
41 posts
 

A big thanks to everyone for sharing their opinions, which interestingly varied quite a bit.

“The phono stage to the preamp [as closer to the source is most important]” - 2+ votes

”The preamp to the power amp [because everything goes through that ic]” - 2+ votes

”They are both important but start with the speaker cables and work you way up backwards”

Spend, in essence, $970 on one and $30 on the other, with at least minimum quality (eg a Mogami cable from WBC) “so you can upgrade the second one later and thus end up with two great ic’s”

“Have you considered upgrading your cartridge” - this was an interesting one, as it didn’t address the question but, hey, that’s always a possibility at some point

So, I ended up buying three different pairs of ic’s and one pair of speaker cables, to play around with…:

XLR ICs:

Townsend Audio DCT 300

Wireworld Equinox 8

Vogue Audio Silver Strand Ultra

Speaker cable:

Harmonic Technology Pro-9+

(all purchased used from various places - mainly USAM - in very good condition)

So, plenty to play around with in different places in my audio chain…

How much fun, and thanks again for everyone‘s input!

 

mclinnguy's avatar
mclinnguy
444 posts
 

yes (the new but not improved thumbs up, kind of looks like hitch hiking emoticon)

Let us know the results of your experiments smiley

Perhaps you could let us know your answer to your question: insert one a time and determine which has the greatest impact. 

jayctoy's avatar
jayctoy
4,013 posts
 

Source then preamp to amp then speaker cables.

macg19
909 posts
 

Here is what I did FWIW.

I went from RCA to XLR from phono to integrated - this was a really noticeable improvement - and I a/b tested using same brand of cable 

This lowered the noise floor and boosted the SNR

I use Zavfino Fusion which is very well made solid silver/OCC copper IC and IMO a bargain for the price at $357 for 1.5m 

I will probably try Acoustic Zen, Voodoo or maybe Audio Sensibility Statement Silvers at some point but this is very low priority (I replaced entry level Zavfino speaker cables with AZ Holograms which are really nice)

 

 

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