Help with first cable upgrade.

By far the easiest/cheapest/fastest way to learn is take whatever crap you have now, stuff it in your pocket, and drive on down to any stereo store. Where you say to the guy, "The guys on line are saying I can do better than this. I can only afford $X. What do you think?"

Then listen to what they have for $X, followed by your patch cord. Then listen to something 2X, or better. Repeat with power cords. Repeat this whole thing at another store. 20-30 min per store, couple hours altogether, you will learn as much as a month of shipping stuff back and forth, and with no credit card/shipping hassles.

This was the first thing I did back in the day and it opened my eyes big time, and fast. You do not need home audition. You do not need a special system. You most definitely do not need "reference" tracks or anything like that. If the differences are so slight and hard to hear you need any of that then forget it, no way it is worth the price anyway. So don't bother. Pulling those stunts they will only peg you as not knowing what you’re doing anyway. Just be real and open to learning and chances are they will help you learn. Worked like a charm for me.

Not true. Not at all. At the same time however considering the budget level of your system you will get more improvement for your money with a couple sets of Nobsound springs. Three sets for $90 will do your speakers, turntable, and CDP. This will be a lot bigger improvement than any $90 you can spend on wire.

You do however still want to do those wires. The smart way is to plan ahead. If you will just be doing this and then nothing - no component upgrades at all- for a long time that is one thing. In that case take what you can spend and divide it pretty much equally. So if say $500 and speaker cable, 2 power cords, 2 interconnects, then your budget is $100 each.

Or maybe you have bigger long term plans. Might be well worth it to put $500 into one really good set of speaker cables, knowing you will upgrade one thing after another so that a year or so from now the whole system is way better.

Either one is perfectly fine so long as you know and have a plan. Otherwise you listen to random knee-jerk ideas, real easy to find yourself having spent a lot with not all that much to show for it.