Cable differences -- power, interconnect, digital, and in what order?


A friend of mine has been a real connoisseur of interconnects and speaker cables; he hears very subtle differences between them, mixes and matches them with different results, and experiments with upgrades (and reselling!). 

One thing he's never done much with is power cords or power conditioners. 

This raised a question for me -- to what degree have people found differences in source and interconnect cables vs. power cables? Are they all important to an equal degree for you? Where is the greatest impact for you?

And if you do find power cables to be an important factor, where have you started making changes in your system? Wall to amp? With source? 

Thanks for any thoughts. 

128x128hilde45

Showing 2 responses by vonhelmholtz

I can’t mix and match and I don’t have experience with cables outside of stock and Shunyata power products. I went from everything plugged into the wall to Shunyata Venom power cables, except Sigma NR to integrated amp and Everest conditioner/20 Amp Sigma to wall. Next, I switched out cable for Venom NR for subwoofers and Sigma NR for all else. All stock to full Shunyata was a major improvement and further upgrade to Sigma NR was another improvement. Other cables/interconnects did not make such a dramatic difference, with the exception of upgrading to the Sigma Ethernet cable to my streamer. So, the two cable categories that made the most difference in my system were the ones that I least expected improvement. Currently, I use the six independent channels of the Everest for, Integrated, streamer, DAC, phono preamplifier and one channel per subwoofer. My turntable is on a lesser power conditioner and power cable.

I was sold on the Shunyata system and have my doubts as to making small changes here and there and expecting a major improvement in your system.  I live in a new home, with a crazy level of building in my area, so maybe I have particularly noisy power lines, so your experience may vary, especially if you are  looking to do something with one component at a time.

Btw .. Companies such as Shunyata and maybe Audioquest are small enough that you can call and speak to some experts.  I found this type of input to be invaluable and quite interesting.