What makes the biggest difference in sound quality?

I don't believe using a full loom of cables from just one manufacturer makes sense regardless of the fact that we have one such punting his product here. Is this self promotion actually allowed?

The idea is put forward as staying with a certain house sound. When designing for instance a speaker cable, the purity of wire, the metallurgy of the connectors, the dielectric properties of the insulation and decorative outer covering all impact on the result. Now look at a USB cable, with different power requirements and vastly different types of connectors. How does the designer create his cables to adhere to his idea of the ideal 'house sound' ?

After sorting out the room which is paramount one can then try different cables, fuses, amps etc. Without taming the room by reducing the overly long time the sound takes to decay which is adding smear and obscuring detail, any  attempt at improving the system is doomed. For example, sound way too bright...add tubes and on and on.

You will never hear any manufacturer telling you to: "get back to me after you've treated your room" What you get is: "Buy a full loom of our cables to sort out all your problems.

Happy new year to all 🍺 🍹

@ ted_denney OP

I have heard systems with a set of cables all from the same brand and not knocked out with the result. In one particular instance where all Audioquest was used I introduced a DIY power cable to try instead of the Audioquest PC which made a very noticeable improvement. I’m not saying this would happen in each and every case but just to point out that a ’set of cables all from the same brand’ is not the panacea you make it out to be.

For those interested the DIY cable I refer to above was made from Oyaide Black Mamba V2 with Furutech’s best connectors. This is a killer deal and works with all digital components and amps. It's outperformed many very expensive pretenders!

In fact I’ve heard well set up systems $20,000-$30,000 with a full loom of cables, a full loom of electronics, proper speaker placement and mild acoustic treatments, outperform systems in the deep six-figure range with mis matched cables and components.

I notice also that you downplay the importance of proper room treatment, evidenced by you referring to ’mild acoustic treatment’ when in fact room treatment is paramount for optimising any system regardless of cost. IMO there is a way to get your hypothetical $20,000-$30,000 system to outperform a deep six figure system, and room treatment, that is proper treatment, not mild treatment whatever that vague and nebulous statement means, that complies with the target of achieving an RT60 across the full spectrum in the appropriate time for the room of concern, which on average is around 400ms. No tweaks including full looms can do that.

Without the room being tamed most tweaks are difficult to impossible to hear. By this I encourage all still reading to consider trying to make a decision on different cartridges by carting your turntable, amp and speakers into the bathroom with all hard surfaces. The amount of sound reverberating around the room would obscure and smear all the detail and you would probably choose the dullest cartridge to compensate.

Your clever initial and subsequent post just comes across as a thinly disguised sales advert.