Which cable to change first-intercon. or speaker?

It would help to know what you have?
Assuming they are already both somewhat equal and upscale in quality/performance, you'll hear more inprovement with an upgrade to the i/c's. And it'll be because they are "upstream" from the speaker cables.
Think of it this way, if you put the best speaker cables available in your system, if the i/c's relatively suck, and "takeaway" (more) from the music signal, you ain't gonna hear an improvement through your speakers, no matter how good of a speaker cable you use. The I/c would be the weakest link and you know what is said about a chain.
Good luck!

It sounds like your CDP is your primary source.You need to replace your IC first as previous post stated.

Could you please say what you're using now, and what length(s)?

I think the whole philosophy of always putting the "best" anything upstream is questionable if not nonsense. Unfortunately, it's just not this easy or I'd be spinning LPs on a Rockport turntable driving my old Marantz receiver and Pioneer HPM speakers.

What improvements would you like from cable changes? Do you want more resolution and detail, more dynamics, more dimensionality, midrange bloom, etc? I think the particular brand and model of the cables here will be a bigger factor than simply IC vs. speaker cable.

Please share with us the cables you are currently using. I owned ARC electronics for 15 years and can suggest a few ICs for you to try that worked very well. The performance of a few IC's in the $300-400 price range on the used market is quite amazing compared to the much higher models.

I have recently tried a speaker cable at this same price that is so darn close to the speaker cable I have using that I am truly very impressed. I find the point of diminishing returns to happen much sooner with speaker cables though. Your experieneces and trials could be very different here.

You simply need to try out several ICs and speaker cables with the money you are willing to spend, and hear for yourself what works in your system.

If you're interested in some suggestions for auditioning, send me an email.

John

I upgraded the ICs first in my recent overhaul. Basically the ICs deliver the music from source to preamp to amp. Once I replaced them I got a good idea of what my speaker cables could deliver. I ended up replacing them but the important thing was I knew more about why I needed to replace them and found an excellent match for the ICs.