Which Cable Makes the Biggest Impact?

Sherod, By skimping, what do you mean? Not cost I hope.

No, not cost, hopefully. Sometimes the most expensive is not necessarily the best, especially when you are buying used, which is what I have done on most of my cables. When I say skimping, I mean on the quality and sound. For example, why put a cheap $6.00 Radio Shack pair of interconnects from pre to amp and then put the excellent Fusion Audio power cords on each component with a nice sounding pair of speaker cables. Those cheap, inferior sounding interconnects will take away from what the better power cords and speaker cables are giving you. The cables are all one big chain where the chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

OK, I don't disagree with any of that. A lot of folks think the more they pay,
the better the product. Barnum had something to say about that.

Muralman1,
I try my best not to fall in the Barnum sucker crowd. I am not a rich man who can afford any audio gear regardless of cost. I try when at all possible to buy used( generally 50% off retail ) on most cords, unless the cords are relatively new and aren't yet seen on the used market, but I'll usually wait if I want to try that cord out because a used one will be available soon enough with all the constant upgrading that goes on in our community. With the one exception, I recently bought some new power cords from a new company called Fusion Audio. I did get a nice introductory price, but these cords are the first that I have bought as new for my system. The rest of my main system cords were purchased used at a reasonable price. Unfortunately, if I had bought all my cables new at full retail, I would have paid a pretty penny because their retail is fairly high in comparison to many other brands, but to my ears, I had to get them. Yes, there is a sucker born every minute, but in a lot of cases, you do get what you pay for. I want to feel that whatever component I buy will be a good value for me.

Sherod,
Excellent points all. Placing greater importiance on one cable while discounting the importance of a different cable "in the signal path," is much like placing greater importance on a specific link in a chain at the expense of another when all bear the same load.

LM