As for system ancillary, most definitely a good AC power cord. A well designed AC power cord will let a given piece of gear operate most efficiently as to what the power supply needs or what you want the power supply to do. This is important because when all is said and done, the music you hear out of your loudspeakers is basically the power supplies of your gear being modulated.
As with any piece of gear or cabling, there is one of two approaches you can take with AC power cords:
1.) An AC cord that pleasantly (to your ears and biases) editorializes the basic sonic signature of the piece of gear it's partnered to. From there you can further "tune" with the partnering I/Cs or S/Cs to dial in the "flavor" you're looking for. The power cord serves as the foundation to what you're trying to accomplish.
2.) An AC cord that is fundamentally neutral that offers the least amount of editorial to the gear the cord is partnered to. This approach allows one to more fully appreciate the sonic virtues designed into the gear or, if you will, the electronic designer's intent. Again, the power cord serves as the foundation and further, the I/C and/or S/Cs you choose will finalize what you're trying to accomplish...in this case we'll assume one is not looking to editorialize certain virtues of the gear and thus changing it's signature but rather exploit all the virtues equally.
As the hierarchy continues down the latter, our experience has lead to then address source I/Cs, then pre-amp I/Cs and finally S/Cs. I suppose this isn't "etched in stone" but, based on our "system approach", this has saved the most time and resources to finally get to the music and yielded the most rewarding results.
Hope this helps.
Cheers!
Robert
RSAD
