interconnects vs speaker cables vs power cords - which make the biggest difference?

I’ll revive a pretty important topic for us and for those we try to help.

I say get everything with your power done right, including very stable grounding. Then, Ii you don’t think power cables are the right ’first upgrade’ to buy then, wait, and buy one eventually. Once you buy a power cable you want, then go AB them next to some reference Nordost. Maybe not even that high up their line. What I’m getting at, is that you’re going to think you just put in a $2k capacitor and top transformers with that one power cable alone. A good one can do that kind of work for your system. There is a reason cables (power, and others) are highly considered in the hospital field tech. work. Yes, some is for spark safety, others have nothing to do with audio, others have a lot to do with EMF/RF. For instance, do you want noise in your system? Neither do the doctors doing a kidney removal on a cancer patient. Then find some RCA cables, better yet, then get a tool you can work with that will pick up any EMF/RF on your RCA cables. You’ll be more concerned with EMF rather than RF at this point. RF can be simply treated by moving your system from any and all mobile devices. EMF more important because it comes from bad grounding (mentioned earlier) bad electric work by the internet tech or any tech using that tech in your robot home. I’m simply going wireless because I have more trust in how to do it right than the audio companies who continue to push Ethernet as they don’t want to drop some R&D cash on WI-FI for their next product. So they simply go with what the audio engineers think they know of Wi-Fi (nothing). Ask Paul (the PS Audio guy about WI-FI), but he’ll tell you to use the connection on his DAC, (USB probably piped from WIFI)

See where I'm going with all this power trip stuff? A LOT of place, too many. Power is everything. Consider it well. Then be happy and do jumping jacks with your RCAs

Dang, did not mean to ramble. Tired and moved all day. But you get my idea. If you disagree, please let me know, I’m still learning and wanting to learn about this topic.

@ccandte Six years late, but here’s my experience as well as first time delving into a subjective mater on audigon. here we go!

I would say based on my experience and conclusions aftermarket power cables SOMETIMES matter, whereas interconnects and speaker cables ALWAYS matter, so determine your power situation before finalizing your ranking.

Here’s the logic behind this sweeping statement.

1. I have NEVER heard a difference between aftermarket power cables and the stock cables that came with the McIntosh amp nor the McIntosh preamp/DAC in the setup in my home.

• I have auditioned 4 cables over the years on my home setup and could not hear any difference.
• A McIntosh engineer once wrote to me that said there should be no need to use anything other than the stock cable if power supply is designed and built properly. I’m not sure I would go that far. I would imagine bad power in (whether EMI, RF, or voltage issues) would cause some problems.
• Also, Judging from the experiences of our fellow Audigoners, and many other places, a power cable matters and when it does, it matters A LOT.

2. Contrary to my experience with after-market power cables, EVERY speaker cable I have auditioned made a sonic difference. Some a lot, some a little, but they all changed the quality of the sound.

3. Likewise, EVERY interconnect I have ever auditioned has made a difference. I’m not sure I could rank the impact speaker cables and interconnects though even in absolute terms much less factoring for price.

So, before you rank order, my advice is to first determine if the power cable even needs to be a criteria for your particular situation. If not, then you can focus your budget (and efforts) on the other two entirely. If the power cable does matter in your system, then fortunately you have already received a lot of great info on this subject from other posts on this thread. Let us know how you fare.

In my experience Power Cables and Digital Cables can make big differences while Interconnect and Speaker Cables make very small differences.

I'm always shocked at just how easily differences can be perceived between power and digital cables. I find decay reproduction and low-end performance can vary significantly from cable to cable.

On the other hand, I generally hear very little difference when comparing interconnects. I've tried many different RCA interconnects and always end up returning to my budget Wireworld cables because I never hear enough difference in interconnects to justify the cost.

I once took part in a blind speaker cable test. A set of very expensive speakers cables was compared to a pair of car battery jumper cables. There was no consensus in the room as to which one was preferred.

I’ll add that I’ve been working on upgrading PC with the help of the Cable Company (highly recommended). They recommended that I start with my power conditioner cable (big difference), the DAC ( clear difference, but not as big), pre, and amps (I haven’t done yet)—so down the chain.

I will also add, if you use digital, consider your inputs there. Going to a fiber system and good Ethernet cord definitely reduced glare (fiber did 90% of it for me).