Order of importance of cables

"a chain is only as good as it's weakest link". It's probably safe to assume your ac power supply is poor-and since you haven't mentioned any I assume you have no power conditioning or isolation of digital. Without clean(er)ac power it's hard to evaluate the potential of your system. My suggestion is first buy conditioning. Next move would be the power cords to preamp and digital, hopefully with isolation value.. Then ic from digital to pre. Then ic from pre to amp. Only experimenting and listening will tell you the best bang for the investment.

1. Phono Cable
Nowhere in the whole chain is the signal so small and what is lost here can't be compensated

2. Speaker Cable
There is a interaction between Amp and Speaker Chassis to control the movements of the chassis

3. Hardware to Preamp
4. Preamp to Amp

when your RCA connectors from Preamp are cheap, coated .... be happy, this will save you a lot for cables, these inferior RCA plugs normally kill the majority of the incoming information (Studio Standard, copper=100, silver is 106, gold=90, brass is somewhere 60 and there is even worse out there in "High End"...)

5. Power Cord
Try to get one with top connectors (grip), Oyaide for example

Hello Rox.

I suggest cleaning up your power. An industrial isolation transformer makes a difference, but it growls, and should be outside the music room. Almarg has good advice too, but I would add that capacitance and dielectric absorption are your big enemies in line level cables, while inductance is your big enemy in speaker cables.

flg2001, according to your statement, AC cables are NOT important in apartment building because you can't install dedicated line for your music rig.

In 16 years of time I have done thousends of tests with cables. For me it is a lot of fun to do.

With the newest and best cables I even think powercables can make a bigger difference than loudspeakercables.

In the past I said: loudspeakercables will be the most important.

The tests I have done with the Purist Audio Limites Edition are stunning.

For example: test with a Wadia 7si of a client. He had a heavensgate powercable of about 2000 euro. The limited is about twice this price. At my home the difference was extreme. We are not talking about 20% better. But far more than 50%. The dynamics were superior, the mid freq. was so much more open and involving. The highs were a lot opener and the stage was bigger and wider. The individual focus of instruments and voices went to a different and a much higher level. The difference in blacks was stunning. I never heard a loudspeakercable doing this level for improvements.

About a week ago I visited his home. We did many different tests. Between interconnects and powercables. ( conditioners) When we connected the Purist Limited Edition. The difference between the interconnects was a lot bigger than with the heavensgate powercable.

I knew this from many other tests I did in the past. Powercables of high quality can make a huge improvement.

Another example: I owned the Pass Labs XA100.5 monoblocks. I used them with Purist Audio Aqueous powercables.

Later I owned the X-250.5 with the Limited Edition powercable. Overal I had a better end result compared to the XA100.5 with the Aqueous.

What was better?: More control, more drive. Better blacks and more decay and resolution. Also the articulation of voices is better with the X250.5 and Limited Edition.

Here you see: hearing is believing. That is why I love blindtests. The sound ( outcome) is what you hear and what counts most. It is that simple!

* It depends on the situation and cables. In general I think loudspreakercables will have the biggest improvement.