06-10-14: Stevecham"Everything," so to speak, can AFFECT the signal path, to one degree or another. For example, turning on a dimmer switch in a different part of the house from the listening room can introduce sufficient distortion on the AC line to have audible consequences, in some situations. But I don't think that most of us would consider that dimmer switch to be "in the signal path," i.e., to be part of the path that is traveled by the audio signal.
EVERYTHING IS IN THE SIGNAL PATH
Regards,
-- Al