Cable Influences: IC SpeakerCables Power Cord?

Rule number 1 in audio: No component or cable downstream from the signal can make up for any problems that are in the signal.

Basically a general system signal path is the following:

Power
Source + AC cord
IC from source to preamp
Preamplifier + AC cord
IC from preamp to amp
Amplifier + AC cord
Speaker cable
Speakers

I use Component + AC cord because in reality, a component's sound has the sonic signature of it in addition to the cord you plug it in with.

Thus, if you have bad power, this will not be able to be fixed by any component down the signal path.

If your Source + AC cord has problems, you cannot correct them downstream.

Etc... etc...

In general the more transparent a system is, the more it will be affected by any one degradation in the signal path. I can make my system sound absolutely horrible changing out just one AC cord.

Some people claim that cables make little to no difference in audio. I respond to them, you have not heard your system entirely hooked up with excellent cables and AC cords. Then try changing out one of the cords or cables.

These rules being laid out, I would consider (if you have good power) to upgrade you power cables 1st. You probably will not believe the sonics one can obtain from great AC cords. Next upgrade IC. And lastly upgrade speaker cables. This is effectively starting upgrading upstream then working your way down.

Cables and cords are notoriously the most neglected components in many systems. I personally would rather have a $30k system that had great cables in it than a $200k system that used awful cabling.

KF

Tok20000

Good perspective. If I want to start with a good power cord for my source, do you have any recommendations? Say, $150 range? Per your logic, I'm sure Glai would be interested too.

Steve

KF- I couldn't have said it better myself!

BTW nice to see a few posts from you in the last few days :^)

Good post KF. I would agree with that and also add that effective vibration control will let you hear things that you will not even with the most expensive cables. I am playing with the Ceraball isolation devices and the improvement is the type where you say "after hearing it this clear I could never go back to the old sound". The Ceraballs even work well under my speakers. Some people tried the Aurios under speakers but that sure seemed unstable to me. Give them a try, music direct has them for $100 30 day home trial. I also plan to try SRA and Neuance shelves to see how much of an improvement they provide.

After toying with over 100 cables in the past few years, I'm done with cabling.
Think of it this way: from source to preamp to amp to speakers
your signal gets amplify to a greater degree prior to amp. Therefore, any small flaw will show up 1000 times greater when it pass through the amp.
Based on the above, you then ask yourself if IC is more critical or speaker wires?
As far as power cord goes, clean power and larger bandwidth is always more desireable. Too much filtering might also trim off some signals and reduces speed.

The "bigger" difference is all depends on how well your component match with each other.

i.e. If you have a $50 apex dvd player as your source then a $5000 IC will not do the magic.
or If you have a $10000 cd player with $300 integrated amp, the $10000 cabling will not do much good either.

There is no definite answer of what will make a bigger difference.