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Interconnects priority

Greetings!

I am mulling over my interconnects and one question I have is, which interconnect is the most  important, if any, in the chain.

My setup is a Rega P8 with a Hana SL LOMC cart, into a Moon 310 LP / 320S phono stage, onto a PrimaLuna EVO 400 preamp and finally into a McIntosh MC312 power amp.

I am contemplating which interconnect (using XLR in my case) is the most critical to the sound/signal path, the one from the phono stage to the preamp or from the preamp to the power amp?

Or, looking it from another practical budget perspective, if I have a total of of $1,000 to spend is it clear that I should spend $500 on each XLR pair, or should I “overweight” my spend on one set because it’s the more “important” interconnect from a sound quality perspective.

(Of course assuming the interconnects are of equal length so that’s not a factor.)

Would love to hear this knowledgeable group’s thoughts on this - thanks!

128x128Ag insider logo xs@2xbimmerlover

Showing 1 response by audphile1

audphile1's avatar
audphile1
5,443 posts
 

Bimmer…in my experience the best ROI in interconnects is preamp to amp. There are exceptions though. In case of silver/ copper mix, having silver between source and pre and copper from pre to amp always sounded more natural to me. In example I had AZ Silver Ref II and Matrix Ref II interconnects. The Matrix between pre and amp were much better the Silver between there. And Matrix is a cheaper cable. You have to try. 

If I were to upgrade cables, I’d start with speaker cables though and work my way up the audio chain. 

Have you considered cartridge and phono amp upgrade?

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