RCA interconnect recommendation

Study what ghdprentice says above. There are many, many things that make a great deal of difference that don't cost a lot of money. Some of them do however cost a lot in terms of time and effort. To give just one example, things like springs might not seem worth doing. They totally are.

What happens is they force you to listen close and evaluate. You can do this with a cable, speaker or amp too. But with those it is very expensive to change. With springs it is easy, simply change or move the spring. Total cost: zero. Same with things like routing cables. Another novice tried that and was shocked to hear a real significant improvement, just from moving wires around.

Every time you try something like this you learn a little bit more. Not only about what does what, but in terms of how to describe and evaluate what you're hearing.

Then when you go to buy say an interconnect you're not all, "What can I spend for $500 to go between this and that" but instead are, "I'm looking for great depth and layering, not up front in your face detail, who makes a cable like that?"

See the difference?

Your best approach with wire is to understand wire is every bit as important as every other component. Then from there you consider your system goals. Are you building a system over time? Let’s say you find a speaker you really fall in love with, but it costs as much as all the rest of your system combined. But you can afford it. Would you buy it? If it will serve as a foundation upon which to build for years to come, why not?

Cables are no different. I once built a $1200 budget system for my father in law. Set it up in my room to burn in and during that time I thought, wonder what if I put my $1200 interconnect in there? Well, it transformed that budget system, let me tell you! So never, ever fall for the story that one thing is "too good" for another. It if is good, it is good- period!

In my system my speaker cables cost about as much as my speaker, and my amp. They are all right around $5k each.

The point of having a budget is not to tell you what to spend. The whole point is to make you aware of the fact this is a system and a system demands a system approach. Otherwise without the budget everyone runs out and buys the biggest speakers they can, blows almost all the rest on the amp, and then spends the next five years running around trying different speakers and amps trying to solve all the problems that never would have been there in the first place had they put as much attention into wire.

That’s it. No sales pitch. Figure it out from there.