Cable Costs Relative to System

I'm with Cornfed, Ckuipers, and other experienced audio enthusiasts who know value when they hear it. I don't know how many systems I have listened to that were terrible but had "great cables." _Kid, I looked at your system pic, great room! Good amp, OK speakers, bright and shallow front end. Get my drift? There are areas due for major improvement. With the money you spent on the power chord alone, you could have bought devastating speakers and a much more pleasing front end. The time to start putting big money into cable rolling is after you've maximized playback of your favorite music styles by choosing speakers, amp and front end wisely. I just had a good fellow who has a system much like yours, only he went all the way to the breaker box with super wire. Our two systems are similarly priced. Instantly, he knew there was a whole new level of listening satisfaction, much higher than he had ever dreamed of.

Cables are not an extra accesory you add later when you can afford them. If you don't buy some when you buy your equipment, you'll either be hooking your system up with unshielded "antennas" or, with the better brands who don't give you any, not hooking it up at all. People who make cable purchases out to be something cost concious people should opt out of are missing the point.
That the "better components" found in one poster's system "need less tweaking" is a blatently erroneous statement. The cables are for THE SOUND, not the component. It may be crazy to put a $5000 CD Player with a $300 amp, but at least the amp will be showing what it can do and not being held back.
As far as "active vs. passive" what exactly is the big difference? Any component can only make things worse. If a $75,000 system "deserves" $7500 to $15,000, but you get the cables that seem to get everything right for less, or more, that's fine. As far as the ratio, it was probably only invented to prepare customers at the beginning of a sale for the extra expense involved that they never count on.
To put it another way, how stressed out would you be getting about putting 55% of your money into the front end, or 35% on speakers if that was the Magic Ratio? It should really be more random than that I think, although an awful lot of people had 10% to 20%.
BTW, I realize this thread is dead, but people will still come across it, and I wanted to make My Humble Opinion heard.
...or not so humble...

Juicebox, buy whatever turns you on. Don't go into debt doing it, though, it's clear you are already suffering from cable madness.

The Jerry Springer Show would be a great place to hold this discussion. We could also take a few people who have disputes, too and bring some big 16 oz boxing gloves to have matters settled...in public! Of course, we would have pretty *mamis* in bikinis walking w/ signs between rounds...

If you guys knew what I'm using for speaker wire and how little I paid for it you'd flip. And it has specifications! Silver plated copper, 12 ga, 37 strands, twisted, Teflon insulated pairs & dipped in Teflon. Awesome performance for a mere $16.25 per 25 ft. The real deal.

The most perfect power cable is only as good as the romex in the wall!. I am sitting in front of my system right now (listening to a GREAt Oscar Peterson CD, I might add), contemplating a fancy power cord. My System is mid to lower cost for this hobby, with about $4400 retail invested with (2) sets of AQ Diamond XLR interconnects and AQ Caldera Bi-wre. (All bought used, total outlay about $1400). My Martin Logans seem to easily reveal the difference between these cables and the MIT stuff I started out with, so I do believe cable makes a significant difference.

I Also have some hospital grade Hubell receptacles. BUT: comming into the receptacles is a dedicated line I ran myself. It is a 60 foot run of 12 gauge Romex, bought at Home Depot. It connects through a Square D Breaker. The breaker is mounted to a plated copper bar in the breaker box, which then runs to the service. It Goes through the utilities meter.

So, If I buy a perfect power cord, the best it can do is take the power the 3 feet from the wall receptacle and deliver it to the amp.

Now, My classe 301 came with a fairly decent ICc cord, as did my Audio Research LS 16. I Think both of these cords are way better than the wire in the walls, and they sure seem like they would have less loss than my breaker box.

It seems like my cables should not be the limiting factor in my power system, so, I don't see why I would want to spend money to "improve" them.

Actually, the best money I spent yet on my system was the Tube Traps and other room tuning. I think, dollar for dollar, the biggest improvements can be had with room treatment.

Just my 2 cents. I will duck now in anticipation of the flames to follow;)