Which Cables Are of Most Importance?


In a hi-end system, McIntosh, B&W, which cables will give me the most bang for the buck between IC's, speaker, power and HDMI? Which cables are most important and which are least important? Will concentrating my $$ in any one or two cables give me the most bang for the buck?
stockinv
For myself I have experienced the greatest amount of impact from powere cables, then speaker cables followed by analog interconnects. Bringing up the distant rear are all shapes and forms of digital cables.
Any information lost cannot be retrieved further downstream, no matter how good the cable (or other piece of gear) further downstream. Any distortion added to the signal cannot be corrected by a better cable (or other piece of gear) further downstream.
Agree with ( Frogman ). It used to be called the Humpty Dumpty affect, once the pieces are broken nothing can but it back together again, not even all the kings horses and all the kings men.
Frogman is right. What is lost, is lost. The point is that when you upgrade IC's you gain less then when you upgrade speaker cable or power cords. This can be clearly heard.
Differences among IC's are just smaller then in case of other cables.