Which is more important - Interconnects or PCs?

I've done several things that have helped me immensely in this area of audio:

1) Ask manufacturers/dealers to try a cable in which I am interested. I do this under one condition. That is, I will buy the cable from them if I am going to buy it at all. Otherwise, I'll buy it used, and won't bother the manufacturer/dealer about it.

2) Unless the music is simply unlistenable with the cable swap, I listen for AT LEAST two days with the new cable in the loop. When I go back to my original cable, it's always startling how it performs quite differently than I had remembered.

3) I've stopped paying attention to the price of the cables, in the sense of anticipating what they 'should' sound like because of their pricing. Naturally, we still have to be able to afford whatever it is that we decide to buy. But if we buy used, we can try out $200 IC's, or we can try out $1400 IC's, and not lose any money on the re-sale, should we decide they are not for us.

I believe that too many people make conclusions about cabling even before they get started with experimenting. Sure, there is plenty of cable babble and voodoo out there, but I don't even read it. I just buy various cables and try them out. Re-selling them is a snap. And while I'm certain that many people would not necessarily agree with my (and my wife's) conclusions about a particular cable's effect in our system, the differences between two cables are often huge, and easily discernible.

There is no 'have-to' in this arena. I just think that many people miss out on the potential for significant improvements in their system because they say NO even before they get started.

Just my 2 cents,
Howard

>>The Signal Cable Magic Power cords compete with much more expensive power cords,<<

Yes and a Yugo competes with the more expensive Corvette. Both have 4 tires and a steering wheel.

What most of us audiophools do is spend time and money on cabling when other issues should be addressed first...like frontends, amps, speakers etc...because in most cases it is the cheapest and easiest way to change the sound of your system. So in that case it is an endless search to alter your systems presentation when you feel the need....like tone controls.

That has brought me to this conclusion having been on this merry-go-round myself....the better the components in the system the better any cable sounds. Put classic "best bang for the buck" cables like Kimber PBJ and 8TC in a balanced high resolving system and they are hard to beat, damn hard to beat and you can spend as much as you want. Put them in a middle of the road system and they sound maybe "ho-hum. It's not the wire! I have tons of cables laying around, some reference, middle of the road, mega bucks and cheap and I put the Kimbers mentioned above in my system and they outperform just about everything I've tried, mind you not hundreds of cables but quite a few.

System context:

Meridian 200/563
CJ Premier 14
Mcintosh 501 mono's
Thiel 3.6

Put classic "best bang for the buck" cables like Kimber PBJ and 8TC in a balanced high resolving system and they are hard to beat, damn hard to beat and you can spend as much as you want

I disagree completely, and I can't help reading such claims as reckless. You're saying that anyone could expect to hear the same quality of reproduction with the PBJ in the chain as they would with a Cardas Golden Reference? Or a Jena Labs Symphony? A Purist Venustas? An HT Cyberlight? Not possible. If your hearing is good--as in you have an ear for learning an instrument, or a language--then I'm stunned that you could make such a claim.

I agree with Pops. Based upon the questions and virtual systems shown on this forum, too much attention is paid to cabling at the expense of front end components and other issues, primarily room acoustics. There are tons of sub $200/meter interconnects and cables, while not state of the art, are very good to excellent performers. Unless you're in the $5,000+ per component range, an incremental $2,000 or $3,000 is nearly always better spent on anything but cables. You don't have to agree with me, but there's really nothing stunning or reckless in this position.