Cable Costs Relative to System


Since making a spread sheet with my audio system prices, I have been thinking(shocked) about my total investment in cables. My total system retails at $67,000 (Digital and analog front ends included). I purchased all of it here on Audiogon so my investment is about 50%. Of that I have about 10% invested in interconnects and cables and another 10% in Power Cables (Shunyata Hydra included). That's $13,000 worth of wire. I'm starting to question whether it might be more effective to put some of this budget into acitve components. It would take forever to listen to all possible combinations, but would like to hear others experiences with relatively high end systems and cable selection. It would seem to me that the point of diminishing returns would be reached sooner with cables than with speakers and amps. Do most of you follow the 10% "rule" for cabling? How do PCs fit into this rule? Are there any super bargain cables capable of keeping up with highly resolving electronics?
metaphysics
I'll say this again, one of the best finds in cabling is the Monster Z200i IC. The shame is they are discontinueing it. It allows a huge soundstage with extremely pure and grain free highs, open warm and detailed mids with killer fast bass. I am currently trying to best it with A/B listening off of my CDP which has XLR and RCA outs with the same line level signal output.
After extensive listening with the Monster Z200i vs MIT's Magnum M1 Proline IC's the winner is the Z200i RCA's! Also trying to gain an improvement over my Monster M2.2s speaker cables by auditioning SRTesla Accelerator, Purist Aqueas Anniversary and Analysis plus Big Siver Oval's. Also tried Magnum M1 speaker cables but they failed horribly. So far the SR's have not bettered the monster's and it looks bleak for the others as well.
Dave_b, the accelerators are ok but SR's Apex are 100 times better. I'm curious to see what you would think of an all SR top-O-line cables with a Powercell and a Teslaplex outlet. ;-)
Maybe I'll try it from Robert at the Cable Co...but I really can hardly believe the synergy I have achieved for so little!
My hat is off to many of the writers in this thread: so informative from 2001 forward! I'm a total newbie and just bought a 100$ monster cable for my new tv but have no idea what cable is best for my new cambridge audio amp. Is there a recommended budget cables list somewhere online, like at an audio mag, that someone could link to?