Which Cable Makes the Biggest Impact?

Muralman1,
I try my best not to fall in the Barnum sucker crowd. I am not a rich man who can afford any audio gear regardless of cost. I try when at all possible to buy used( generally 50% off retail ) on most cords, unless the cords are relatively new and aren't yet seen on the used market, but I'll usually wait if I want to try that cord out because a used one will be available soon enough with all the constant upgrading that goes on in our community. With the one exception, I recently bought some new power cords from a new company called Fusion Audio. I did get a nice introductory price, but these cords are the first that I have bought as new for my system. The rest of my main system cords were purchased used at a reasonable price. Unfortunately, if I had bought all my cables new at full retail, I would have paid a pretty penny because their retail is fairly high in comparison to many other brands, but to my ears, I had to get them. Yes, there is a sucker born every minute, but in a lot of cases, you do get what you pay for. I want to feel that whatever component I buy will be a good value for me.

Sherod,
Excellent points all. Placing greater importiance on one cable while discounting the importance of a different cable "in the signal path," is much like placing greater importance on a specific link in a chain at the expense of another when all bear the same load.

LM

"There's a sucker born every minute" is falsely attributed to PT Barnum.

In actuality it was probably David Hannum or Joseph Bessimer, both contemporaries of Barnum. The record is unclear but friends of Barnum claim he did not view his customers as suckers.

I thought I would update this original post and add in the digital cable:

1.  Power Cords (in order of importance: Source, preamp, then amp)

2. Interconnects

3. Digital cables (almost a tie with interconnects)

4.  Speaker cables.....

 

Biggest impact: Speaker Cables

Mas o menos: Interconnects

Minimal: Power cables - Diminishing returns maxed at a 100 dollars if you have a decent filter or conditioning solution.