Cables for McIntosh Equipment

i personally hated AP speaker cables on my 501s. couldn't get rid of them fast enough.

speaker cables i did like: isoclean, prana and kubala sosna. plenty of choices.

power cords: stage 3 concepts do the job nicely.

I have a McIntosh C220 preamp/MC402 power amp driving Magnepan MG1.6 speakers, with a Bluenote Stibbert CD player. Tried various combinations of cables and interconnects over a year, and then, I used MIT CVT Terminator 2 right through (source-pre, balanced; pre-to-power, balanced; single wire to the speakers). That settled it for me once and for all! To think I never used to like MIT cables in the past ... I used Furutech power cords on the pre and power.

Another good single-brand system would be the Excalibur II from Audio Magic.

Bendmyear,
Extraondinary? I think not. After spending who knows how much on cables, I'm convinced your talking the smallest marginal differences from $100 pair to an $800 pair.
Four years ago I went into a audio store here in Maryland
after spending almost a thousand dollars on a pair of Audioguest Gibraaltar cables. Chest puffed out, I accepted his challanged to bring them in and compare them against his $5 a foot clear 10awg cable. What a mistake, to this day I never forgave myself.
I suppose if you have spent in the area of 25-40 thousand
dollars on gear maybe the difference is alittle more pronounced. But if you've spent say 8 thousand like me: Mcintosh ma6500, Consonance source and Harbeth speakers
then look for something very neutral. Analysis Plus clear cables and their Oval one IC's are simple very neutral and natural sounding. Once I figured this out, guess what, I started listening to music instead of the constant quest for the extra iota of something.
One last point, I called Mcintosh regarding upgrading their stock power cable to something that might improve the sound. You know what he said? Simply, 14awg 3C. Belive me don't you think Mcintosh would just add a couple hundred to their price and include another cable if there was benefit? Who would know or care if Mcintosh added $200
to their pricing.
I can truly say finally I'm at a acceptable level of ecstasy.

I am using XLO Reference 3 balanced interconnects (purple/green/white braided) between simaudio Supernova CD and Mac c2300 pre amp. I am using the same between c2300 pre and mc501 monos. Good results--quiet noise floor.