What type of cables make the most difference

In my experience:

1. Speaker cables / analogue interconnects
2. Power cables / digital interconnects

@frank009 

Pretty sure WBC are made in Sri Lanka. When are you going to set up your virtual system?

I have been adding Nordost powder products recently.  I just received a Tyr power cable which replaced a RedDawn. The change wasn’t subtle. The soundstage increased in all directions. Instruments were better defined and more pronounced I installed it yesterday and have been listening all day today. I’m very pleasantly surprised 

Seeing how cables of any variety make no objective difference in sound, it doesn't matter which you spend too much money on when replacing them.

I like monoblocks cus I can run short speaker length reducing resistance in the 60 foot long runs as it is suggested 10 gauge or greater. I have some 4 gauge speaker cables and like the expanding bananna plugs that fit tight. For sure insulation dielectric and skin effect are important. 90 degrees if you cross other system cables. Twisting or weaving seems to help reduce emf,  rf, interference.  Long xlr don't seem to distract. Enjoy the science and the music.

@zavato - 

I align with the many who have pointed out that there are too many variables at play for the question to be answered with any degree of certainty, but with one exception. If you enjoy digital music, the one cable that will make the greatest difference regardless of the huge complexity at play downstream, is the one coming before all else, the Ethernet cable/s connecting between modem and streamer/server.

While fibre optic cabling is said to overcome the deficiencies common to Ethernet cables, the kind of power required to run fibre optics corrupts that goodness past a certain point of return, which a well put together Ethernet cable will exceed.

And, while it is well known that the ones and zeros of an ethernet passage remain unchanged, what these cables pick up along their way as antennas is noise. Eric Geiss of ethernet-sound.com, a German forum which takes ethernet noise isolation, rejection, and filtering, to fine art, has a DIY cable he calls the drosselkabel v3, or the V3 throttle cable, coming after V1 and V2, and to be used if Ethernet is all that’s used, and if it cannot be certain any possible interference in the switching networks in the upstream chain can be ruled out.   

Instructions for its build can be found here -

 https://ethernet-sound.com/forums/topic/drosselkabel/page/50/#post-4080

What is required is any basic five metre ultra thin UTP Ethernet cable, an isolater, four ring ferrites as specified in Eric’s blog, about five additional clamp on ferrites, a single super short 10cm cat5 patch cable, and a little effort to wind the assembly together.  

The materials for the build will cost no more than usd120. The cable itself costs next to nothing - it’s the ferrites that cost most.

While the effect of this throttle cable is best felt right before the streamer, I’ve found it super effective even before, and at any point an Ethernet cable is used. It’s combined use throughout results in an uptick to sound realism equalling almost anything else in my signal chain - this includes my server and preamplifier, the entire network of Swiss digital fuseboxes and graphene sluggos I have replacing all my regular fuses, and any other cable which has brought improvement to my system, really, any other single component you may choose. Together with my power cables, the throttle cable is the most I’ve ever wrung from any cable addition, and at multiples of a fraction of what those power cables cost me, never mind my most effective components. The only thing it does not outperform is the system grounding I have in place.

The throttle cable comprehensively out performs Ethernet cables I’ve tested over weeks at a time, costing up to usd4000. Completed, it weighs over half a kilogramme, looks like a small fat snake tied up in a pretzel, and handles like sin; but for me, delivers an unprecedented level of realism I cannot do without. It has worked for every system I’ve recommended it for friends, regardless of downstream configuration or complexity. 

In friendship - kevin