A vote for power cables.
I've gone through all kinds of upgrades--though always in a solid state mode. in upgrading components, clearly the biggest improvement was going from 80 watts to 200 watts, and again to 500 watt mono blocks. bigger impact that speakers, cd players, network streamers
in accessories, and i am still surprised at this, biggest improvement cape from power cables, better than speaker cables, ICs, digital cables, brass footers, maple plinths. The brass footers also made a big change, but only on my Cyrus cd changer, not on other components or my Marantz SA8004.
All of the upgrades improved things to various degrees, but the amps and the power cables were the biggest change.
I've gone through all kinds of upgrades--though always in a solid state mode. in upgrading components, clearly the biggest improvement was going from 80 watts to 200 watts, and again to 500 watt mono blocks. bigger impact that speakers, cd players, network streamers
in accessories, and i am still surprised at this, biggest improvement cape from power cables, better than speaker cables, ICs, digital cables, brass footers, maple plinths. The brass footers also made a big change, but only on my Cyrus cd changer, not on other components or my Marantz SA8004.
All of the upgrades improved things to various degrees, but the amps and the power cables were the biggest change.