Which Cable Makes the Biggest Impact?

Power Cords.
1. DAC and Transport
2. Pre Amp
3. Power Amp

For interconnects.
1. Source to pre
2. Pre to power

In my opinion speaker wires are every bit as important as interconnects so if you need to make a significant change with just one pair of interconnect or one pair of speaker wire I'd go for the speaker wires first since this represents a complete change in one section of the signal path, assuming all other factors are equal. Conversely I see changing just one pair of interconnects in a standard two pair interconnect system (source to pre, and pre to power) as effecting a change to only half of the interconnect chain. As to which cable is of utmost importance, I think it really depends more on the state of your systems current cables with an eye for it’s weakest link, not an absolute standard. At the end of the day every cable in the chain is equally important and no cable can be ignored when synergy is your goal.

Hope this helps,
LM

Stumbled on this article and thought I’d share it with this thread.

An excerpt from the article is below.

http://www.edn.com/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=CA6418215

"Ordinary 60-Hz power travels miles from the nearest power station over ordinary, oxygen-rich, noncryogenically frozen wires laden with bird poop. It goes through a local distribution transformer (gobs more regular wire in there) and then travels hundreds of feet more through your house wiring to a local outlet. Do you think the last 6 ft of cryogenically altered, helically wound, hand-braided, eight-gauge wire makes any sensible difference?

You could probably solder together old, rusty coat hangers and do just as well, provided you don’t have any young children or pets in the house.

So what do you really need in a power cable? Insulation is a good idea. Stranding is good, too. Stranded wire is flexible enough to bend many times without breaking. That’s all the technology you need.

Ernie: How about shielding? A lot of high-end audio-power cables are shielded.

Howard: It’s a nice idea, but because all the other wires in the house lurking behind the dry wall remain unshielded, it doesn’t help to shield the last little 6-ft chunk."

which makes the biggest difference? the worst one in the worst application that you upgrade.

i've had it be the amp PC, the IC off the source, the PC off the source, the speaker cable.

but never the digital cable! so there!

(in all seriousness, there are no hard & fast rules; i thought if a component had a well designed power supply it would be immune; the Esoteric XO1-D2, which is built like no other player, disproved my theory with its sensitivity to power cords).

This whole discussion of power cables brings me to another un-answered question I wrote back in the spring of 2006...If we have literally hundreds of miles of so-so electrical cable running through our lives...why not just use the same Romex cable that runs through our walls for our audio systems? It seems like this would be the best we could do to keep the flow the same.

I don't mean to hi-jack this thread so if anyone has an idea let me know.

For me the order is:
Interconnects,
Speaker cable,
Power cables (have never even tried any ones other than what came in the boxes with my equipment.)

Ben

(Note: I am not attacking Zippyy in this diatribe, but rather Dr. Howard Johnson!)Zippyy coyly lays out the link and sits back to watch...

The above link, that of the interview with Howard Johnson, PhD, I see as weakly pertinent to our discussion. His primary point is that OFC copper is not superior to oxygenated copper. So? That is only one small facet of the design and implementation of power cords, IC's and Speaker cables. It certainly does not convince me in any way that "all cords are essentially the same."

Regarding his assertion that oxidation doesn't effect sonics, I would tend to agree. I have had cables which have oxidized, and cleaning them has produced one of the most imperceptible (i.e. non-existent) "improvements" of any supposed tweak I have tried.

I suspect Dr. Howard Johnson has not spent much time with high end audio, having dismissed the efficacy of high end cables in principle, my guess is that he would be quite content with a mid-fi stereo (I would be very surprised if he had high end components with low end cabling). Then, his pontifical stance regarding cables would be fairly worthless. It would be a perfect example of how the decrees of academia don't mesh with real world experience. I see his comments as betraying the fact that he's had no experience in the matter. He can huff and puff all he wants, but his proclamation doesn't change the fact that not all cables are the same.

This is a good example of why I do not simply take someone's advice as truth simply because they have a degree attached to their name. A person must think for themselves or else suffer the consequences. (If you think that I'm "suffering" unnecessary expenses due to my belief that cables make a difference, that's ok, you can feel sorry for me!) I'll gladly "suffer" the consequences of upgraded cables.

An aside: I assert that every person who posts to a cable forum should list their system. The fact is that many rigs are simply ineffectual at revealing cable nuances. Endless debate circulates unnecessarily as "phantom stereos" lurk in the background, and posters say, "I have never heard a difference..." Sorry, it's just not a level playing field to debate the issue when I don't know what equipment you run.

I will automatically weight your comment less if you can't show me the equipment you're using to make your judgment. That's reality. And the reality is also that if you show me your system and I deem it not worthy to make your assertion, I will conclude you do not know what you're talking about. That's reality, too.
99% of Audiophiles will think this way silently to themselves, but very few will actually say it. Well, I said it, and it's the truth.

My rig; well, mine is quite a bit different in a good way from what's shown here on my virtual system, but what's shown here is plentious enough to hear changes in cables. (I will not disclose all the equipment I'm using for reviewing purposes, but suffice to say that there are components which make distinguishing between cables even easier than those listed).