Be consistent with brand?

I used to race cars and I found that it was best to put tires on all wheels! Frankly, I like tires on all four corners when racing cars.

OH! about the cables... I like the same interconnects throughout. Although, my cd unit has both balanced and single ended outputs. So, I have a second, different manufacturer's cable which I use to soften (take out some of the hard stuff) for really crappy media that I really like.

Bill E.

I do not have the same cables either brand or model. To keep it short, I find all components react to cables differently. I have the best cable (which is the most important in my opinion) on the Preamp Power Amp link. This interconnect affects the sound of the whole system. The other cables are chosen around this. The same goes with the speaker cables. IMHO, different speakers sound better with different cables, so I see no reason to stick to the same brand.

I agree with Sugarbrie, I've been down both roads and I think it's a synergestic thing between components. If you check with most audiophiles, I would think this applies to cables and components. I don't know many that have components from the same manufacturer. I've done the whole system with a certain brand of cable, but I prefer to have 'specialized' cable handle a 'specialized' application. For instance, while I may prefer one manufacturers speaker cable, I might not like the way their interconnect handles digital.

For more details. I have a Nordost SPM as my Pre-Power link. Siltech to the CD Player and Tuner. Van Den Hul to the Turntable. Music & Sound Black to Tape Deck. MIT T2 BiWire Speaker Cable. A smaller system in the Den has Cambridge Audio Studio Reference to Tuner, Music and Sound Grey to DAC. LAT Digital Cable to CD/Transport. Store Brand Bi-Wire Speaker cables. DVD Player also has Cambridge Audio Studio Reference. Subwoofer has Tributaries to low pass connection. A couple Vansevers Power Cords.

Whatever works, works. Although I suspect that a mix and match approach may be a band-aid approach towards fixing deeper component problems. Think about for a second -- the CD player is a little bright and the preamp is "revealing" -- the solution is an interconnect that is somewhat "soft". Such a fix can be very effective. Personally, I use Discovery interconnects for all analog connections, but I also use Sumiko OCOS for the speaker cables. It works.