What makes the biggest difference in sound quality?

@ted_denney Given the choices you outlined, I would say interconnects first, speaker wire second, then PC’s. Never played with fuses, so I can’t say..

@nickatnoon61  You do realize this is an audiophile forum, don’t you ?  
 

I don’t have a problem with people that are half deaf and know it....

My problem is with people that are half deaf and DON'T know it, and then accuse others of being delusional.

I mean, I feel bad for them...it’s not easy to live with a compromised sense of hearing, but the sanctimonious attitude...that I can do completely do without.

I am half-deaf, and wear aids to compensate.  Best $ spent, but was 'picky' as to how & with what...

Ignoring the 'cable conundrum' entirely, as my perception of late may hear the difference, but would chalk it up to a different system in a different space not 'lived with' long enough to ascertain a 'difference', however apparent to the host..

Believe that the space itself is ignored too often, but one needs to run what one has, to the 'best of...' what can be attained.

Day One; your space or mine:  "OK....sounds like....."

Day Two:  "Now I see what you're talking about..."

(One needs to adjust their 'onboard EQ'  to accommodate, but as to ones' preferences...we ARE from 'different planets', if not galaxies....)

...and it's Saturday 8, anyway.....*L*

It will be great to hear what the OP reports back, and how it helps his/her system or not.

I am not even sure what components are in the OP’s system… maybe I lost track of it?

Depends on what's the weakest link in a system and what it's replaced with

Oh man, I feel for you. But then, I glanced at your profile picture, and realized you speak the truth.

There are less thing to remember that way. 😎

Shortly and DEFINITELY, the eye of the beholder makes THE largest SQ difference.

@thyname @yuviarora  savage👍🏻

On the speaker cables I have tried AQ, Mogami, and lamp cord… No real head snapping differences… But the lamp cord seemed better

Oh man, I feel for you. But then, I glanced at your profile picture, and realized you speak the truth.

The speaker wires/cables are not really able to be A/B compared in any easy way. So if our auditory memory is short, then it is prone to being difficult to accurately assess it.

I don’t know how much more honest that I can be but to say that I hear speaker differences way more easily

Hmmm..... easier to A/B speakers, right? You line up a few pairs of them in your house, and fire them up rapidly to compare / and A/B ?

This is a thread with a 140 posts, from people that have years and years of hands on experience at the topic on hand, and in comes a bumbling blow-hard know it all, and proceeds to emphatically claim that everyone here is delusional, and his 5 dollars interconnects, and 20 dollars lamp cord sounds no different than any and everything else.

Starts talking about delusions, and fooling yourself etc etc etc....

I don’t get it......it’s like a fly in an ointment, a cockroach in a soup, such a productive conversation derailed by a deaf audiophile. These people should take up photography.... if you cannot hear tones, timbre, pitch, resolution, staging, separation, etc etc etc maybe music isn’t really your thing ?And if I was half deaf, I definitely wouldn’t go around proudly advertising it.

The OP asked a question, why are you made because I am being honest with the OP? But no problem chief, tell me what to listen for, and how to do the testing?

I don’t know how much more honest that I can be but to say that I hear speaker differences way more easily than power cords.
And amplifier difference often, but not as clear cut as speakers.

How could I be convinced that the cords make a difference, when I cannot hear them, but the speakers are easily heard?
(Is that a symptom of half deaf?)

And if the OP is half deaf then at least he/she/they will have funds left over for hearing aids. 😋

This is a thread with a 140 posts, from people that have years and years of hands on experience at the topic on hand, and in comes a bumbling blow-hard know it all, and proceeds to emphatically claim that everyone here is delusional, and his 5 dollars interconnects, and 20 dollars lamp cord sounds no different than any and everything else.

Starts talking about delusions, and fooling yourself etc etc etc....

I don’t get it......it’s like a fly in an ointment, a cockroach in a soup, such a productive conversation derailed by a deaf audiophile. These people should take up photography.... if you cannot hear tones, timbre, pitch, resolution, staging, separation, etc etc etc maybe music isn’t really your thing ?

And if I was half deaf, I definitely wouldn’t go around proudly advertising it.

That’s a very long cumbersome way to express your belief that cables have zero impact to the performance of any audio system. And since you are also of the belief that “we hear what we want to hear”, I take it you never tried (as in listen) for yourself?

Well Sir… When I put different ones in and moved them around, it did not make much difference.
I sorta-kinda thought that maybe the emerald AQ ones sounded better, but then later I moved them to another component and put in some homemade ones, and it sounded just as good.

It is really hard to A/B these quickly. The best I have been above to do is put different cables on last and right, to at least try and hear whether the image shifts etc.

But my interconnects are now mostly Mogamo with Neutrik ProFi ends. So they are pretty good for home made.

On the speaker cables I have tried AQ, Mogami, and lamp cord… No real head snapping differences… But the lamp cord seemed better bi-wired. The speaker wires/cables are not really able to be A/B compared in any easy way. So if our auditory memory is short, then it is prone to being difficult to accurately assess it.

I can believe that power cords could make a difference, but it is not like I can hear any noise coming through.

How is one suppose to listen and be sure that they are not being fooled?

The headline itself doesn’t mention pre or power amps.

True, it was just cabling.
No room treatments, or anything else either.
(I admit, it is easy to miss read the question to what we wanted it to ask.)

The headline itself doesn't mention pre or power amps. So, overall, what makes the most difference to a system is the source. If we talk about items mentioned below the headline then it's interconnect cables.

This is based entirely on the fact that once musical detail is lost or otherwise distorted it cannot be retrieved further down the line.

When you can get risk of the noises everything become dead quet all you hear was pure musical presentation!

I still have to pick my jaw up off the floor after installing Duelund Bypass capacitors to my crossover

@yuviarora - yep! me too

That’s a very long cumbersome way to express your belief that cables have zero impact to the performance of any audio system. And since you are also of the belief that “we hear what we want to hear”, I take it you never tried (as in listen) for yourself? 

^That is true^.
But the OP asked the question specially about the 4 items he/she mentioned.

They did not ask about “the room”, however it is an area which is more likely to get value happening, than a fuse or power cord IMO. Just that it was not the OP’s question. IMO It was worth mentioning, but again it was not the primary question. Certainly I would abide spending money there before putting in a cable. One can usually sneak in a cable, with hope, than trying to convince a SO that some anti-WAF room treatment is a good idea.

Like @rudyb said a few posts up, I mentioned early on that speaker cables should be short and low impedance.

And.I offered my opinion after the “everyone” post. And the OP can ignore it.

Many of the other posts offer “Synergy” and “The ensemble” of gear, and also delve into the room, speakers, etc… which was not part of the OP’s question.

FWIW, I generally suggest one pours all their funds into speakers first.

If there was some evidence from manufactures showing that power cords, for instance, lowered noise into the system, then it would be a lot easier to abide them over just flowery words. I can see how they could work, but I have no idea if there is RF coupling into my system, nor do I hear cell phone sounds coming through the system like we used to hear in cars (etc.). It might happen I dunno. A ferrite core asking as a choke seems like a good idea, but I have to assume that the manufacturers designing the power supplies know their stuff… and that the massive capacitor banks obviate the need for special fuses.

Most interconnect wire is spaced for impedance and capacitance, but many of the assembled cables are sold without specifications. It would be easy to alter the sound with high capacitance or inductance, however I cannot easily ascertain from the looks alone how they might sound.

@holmz :

We hear what we want to hear

Then what's the whole point of the whole discussion on Audio? Including the "room" discussion?

Hearing aids work,  you should try one 🙏. 

And anti-psychotic drugs can remove voices. 🙏

We hear what we want to hear, and spending thousands on a piece of copper wire in teflon or some other cover has never been measured to show where the woo is coming from, or if it even exists.

@yuviarora You might consider trying something based upon some provable facts rather than attempts at insults if you want to be seen as a mature adult. 

The four items you mentioned, interconnects, speaker cables, power cords, fuses, all are passive components. They can’t add anything to the audio signal, they can only act as a filter and take part of the signal away.

In theory noise could be added.

I’d say of the four items you mentioned speaker cables can influence sound the most.

Agreed.

Every Gear including the Room, I think the room is very important if this is not done right no matter type of gear you use it will never reach its full potential.

Audiophile tends to fill the space with diffusors but i think a 60-40 Ratio works well.

60 percent absorbers and 40 percent difusors

The four items you mentioned, interconnects, speaker cables, power cords, fuses, all are passive components. They can’t add anything to the audio signal, they can only act as a filter and take part of the signal away.

Fuses and power cords are not in the signal path. Assuming they are well dimensioned to allow for the current peaks your amplifier asks, they can only help reduce electrical interference.

Interconnects and speaker cables are in the signal path, they can directly influence audio frequencies. On top of that, speaker cables need to have low resistance in order to deliver the current peaks your speakers require, assuming your amp is capable of delivering those.

I’d say of the four items you mentioned speaker cables can influence sound the most.

None of these four components need to be excessively high priced, just choose them carefully.

I believe none of the crap matters much, and certainly not the power cords and fuses.

Hearing aids work,  you should try one 🙏. 

As everyone has pretty stated everything matters and is important, but that is where i differ with most…

Let me go on the record as the outlier from the group with “everyone”.
Specifically with respect to the question of:
 

When making changes or adding things to your system, what makes the bigger difference in sound quality on preamp‘s and power amps? Interconnects, speaker cables, power cords, or fuses? 

I believe none of the crap matters much, and certainly not the power cords and fuses.

But I may be a robot, and I believe that I am passing the Turing test.

As I learned today, I’ve been greatly underestimating the power of room treatments. I Installed a floor to ceiling bass trap in the most offending corner of my room and I’m astonished. Spent the rest of the afternoon recalibrating my sub to the “new room”. Best bang for the buck upgrade yet! 

"When making changes or adding things to your system, what makes the bigger difference in sound quality on preamp‘s and power amps? Interconnects, speaker cables, power cords, or fuses?"

This possibly could have been phrased more clearly, but I think the OP meant that *of the options listed*, what makes the bigger difference. 

"And while power cords may make the biggest first impression, it is usually the last cable you replace, something like a mis-matched ethernet cable, an interconnect or a power cord going to something you don’t think matters, it is almost always the last cable that is perceived as making the single biggest difference when that cable completes the loom."

I think that this is the answer. In a highly tweaked system, it's the last thing you do that seems most significant, because all the previous improvements allow the most recent to perform at its best. Whichever order you upgrade your cables and fuses, the last one done seems most impressive. Or at least that's been my experience. 

Yeah everything matters, I still have to pick my jaw up off the floor after installing Duelund Bypass capacitors to my crossover. .01uf bypass for 10 uf, and 115.8 uf each. 

KRAY KRAY.....everything matters. 

It seems that this thread has brought out some important aspects about pursuing high end sound. Lots of things matter. The breath shows how everything matters… since individual experiences are so widely distributed. It also shows one of the reasons it is such an intriguing pursuit… you can continuously improve your system by working on the finer points. Speaker placement, room treatment, power cords, cable elevators… etc.

I completely upgraded my system about a two years ago. Just plunking down new components each created a “wow” moment. I enjoyed every minute as the component broke in. Then after some time, I would actively make a change… new interconnect or, power cord. One by one interconnects as the first confirmed my views. I was lazy. I didn’t get around to fiddling with speaker toe-in for over a year. My speakers were known to disappear… voila, they disappeared, soundstage increased greatly. Most other pursuits don’t offer such opportunity for improvement. While the character of my system has not changed a bit since I established the major components… the details of imaging, detail, soundstage… have improved dramatically.

Transducers (speakers and phono cartridge: these are the areas to focus on most of all. 

Transducers are the points that transform energy from one to another. (electrical to mechanical/mechanical to electrical).  These two processes have the most variability in design, engineering and manufacturing.  The difference between two preamps is small compared to these.      

 Brad

I have as well...using a wealth of information synthesized over the years and well documented from various sources.

I agree based on experience its fruitless to focus on gear alone without first a focus on integrating the gear into the room properly, starting with the speakers. Lots of proven references for that and many services available to do it for you right if in doubt, if you can afford it. It has made a night and day difference for me. Acoustics are 90% of the battle.

I have tuned my system by ear, chasing that human voice.

Thank you for the info @mahgister, I’ll read up on this method, sounds very interesting. My next project is to build some diffusion panels. side/front walls, and ceiling as well.

My speakers are about 8 feet into a 25 foot long living room, and I prefer a live/dispersed room over an overly treated one.

Sorry but if you read wiki Helmholtz resonators the basic fact are explained...

If you type imaging for example. scientific articles are there...

one of my main inspiration for example:

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-relation-between-spatial-impression-and-the-law-Morimoto-Nakagawa/ba829e4e0788024adb236c16c89572ab43d7e838

It is an optimization method with many resonators...You tune them one at a time...

You LEARN how to listen at the same time...

i design it , no one explain that to me...

but with just the basic elements i described anybody in a dedicated room can begin to LISTEN and have fun at NO COST...

Helmholtz is the creator of room acoustic but nobody ever said it this way why?

Because small room acoustic existed only for the few last decades ONLY with the consumers access to small audio system...

And why nobody ever dare to talk about H. method before me?

Because all consumers audio market conditioning is directed towards the GEAR engineering and not toward acoustic and psycho-acoustic method..

Most people think they listen music directly from the gear.... The room is passive object which dont exist and must not obstruct the sound coming from the speakers... But small room acoustic is not big Hall acoustic....

Small room acoustic is more of a contemporary phenomena, but even in ancientime some H. method were used before H created them in modern context...

Amphiteater acoustic exidted for millenia....13 feet square acoustic room control, or near these dimensions , is a few last decades old and was bown with the recent audiophiles consumers ...

It cost nothing but it take the time to learn how to hear and listen timbre and it take a dedicated room... It is not for most people....But if i did not speak about that who will?

Even acousticians debate the rignt way to accomodate a room like mine:

13 feet irregular square with 2 windows... 8 1/2 feet roof....

i take the bull by the head, i sit, listen and i have the fun of my life ...

It is described in my now abandoned thread journey : "miracles in audio... "

I would very much like to understand the cited Helmholtz method as it applies to pro or even just home audio in order to be able to assess it and maybe even attempt it if viable but google search turns up nothing.

So how does one practically apply this method? Has anyone documented it so that others could attempt to execute correctly? Is it just trial and error? An Educated guess of some sort? IS it used by professionals? I would expect any robust process would be adapted at least in some cases by professionals in certain applications like studio design, etc. and be well documented in the process.

Like just perfectly said oldhvymec, thanks to his generous friendship, The Helmholtz or H. method is the way to tune a room complementarily to the passive material treatment... It is a machanical adjustable set of H. bottles and tubes of different size with different necks, mechanically adjustable at will in diameter and lenghth , which are distributed in a grid around the location of my speakers and myself in the room, at key locations , beginning at few inches from each tweeter or bass drivers and at some reflection points at right and left of my speakers and behind my position of listeming,,,

The grid created a new set of pressure zones distribution in the room where the goal is to accomodate FOR the specific speakers and to the specific ears of the owner the specific acoustical content of the room...

These locations of some resonators near at few inches of the tweeter and bass drivers are not symmetrical for each speakers, because of the first wavefront law in psycho-acousatic, who says our brain accomodate each direct front waves from each speakers differently for each ears with a time delay...The goal is to help the brain figuring out and calculating the position of the sound sources in the room...

I used it to create a better imaging then and also i used reflections time and reverberation... To use them i made listening experiments during some months each day, like a tuner tune a piano, listening instruments timbres and voices in the room to accomodate the room acoutic content characteristics to the speakers characteristic mechanically....One modification at a time....

Someone could say it is impossible to implement this in an incremental way because some modification can reverse some other positive one on the frequencies spectrum... It is relatively true but the gist and key of the art of tuning them is to adjust them not perfectly but optimally BECAUSE each of the many hundred of modifications possible COMPENSATE one another.... At the end the micro structure of the tone playing instrument and voices are natural for your SPECIFIC ears and you are able to perceive his flowing surfaces and volumes....

All is made of plumber tubes or bottles i take from my basement or from a flee market,....

By the way the H. resonators are absorbing devices but also diffusing one... i used passive materials to control but also use the reflections.... In small room reflections are NOT only negative waves to eliminate but waves you could use to reinforce imaging..... Small room acoustic is NOT great Hall acoustic....Reverberation time did not play the same role and function to the perceptive ears....

You can make the H. resonators very distributive of some frequencies range by varying the aperture of the bottles and shortening the neck....I dont made any precise calculus even if the H. method is MATHEMATICAL... Whith more than 50 H. devices they compensate each other all along the frequencies range all along the tuning process, if i used the TIMBRE perception like a meter ruler in my listening experiments...

The human ear is trained by millions years to perceive human voice....The human ears is NOT trained naturally to perceive one frequency of very thin set of frequencies like a microphone in an electrionical process of equalization...My H. grid is a MECHANICAL equalizer and the ears replace the test microphone, and the timbre large spectrum replace the test frequency used in electronical equalization...It is better because the grid is part of the room, the sweet spot is distributed in INCHES not in millimeters like in electronical equalization...

It takes a dedicated room, it is impossibble to do this in a living room...

The only cost is the time it takes .... Few months each day because i am retired...

Peanuts costs...

Then with the passive acoustic treatment and the active H. mechanical one, if you take care of vibrations in the system, and if you decrease the electrical noise floor of the house you make what i call the three main working embeddings dimensions control of any audio system, then, your system is not the better there is for sure but so much good and relatively optimally well controlled than UPGRADING will make you smile...

There is a limit to optimal Sound quality / price ratio...

All that seems complicated but it is not , it take much time , reading, but NO COST...

Acoustic is the sleeping queen, all the pieces of gear are only the 7 working dwarves....

what is the Helmholtz method?

Speakers and pre-amp.

Analogue get yourself a fabulous quality cartridge that costs a fortune(you need to come into money for this) they really are better and a great phono stage.

what is the Helmholtz method?

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

One of the best ways to tune any room to anyone's personal preference. 

It is the mechanical implementation of EQing a room correctly. No mater the size or shape. It is a ground up approach. Electrical, room, vibration control, passive and active tuning materials. The Helmholtz method is the final part of the embedding process. It's very interesting and the best way in my opinion.. 

Master M. has a different approach, it's also the way anyone can change a so so system into a really good one for Peanuts..

How's that Master M.? :-)

Regards

Price is a factor in all this. At lower price levels, cables make a big difference. As component prices increase, spending more on cables hits the realm of diminishing returns before expenditure on electronics, speakers and vibration control does. And a good mains installation is more cost effective than spending money on more expensive cables. Last, absolutely correct speaker placement relative to walls, correct toe in and verticality is the cheapest upgrade of all if it hasn't been done in the first instance. All of that IMHO and experience.

what is the Helmholtz method?

Maybe like the “rhythm method” but as a solo actor?

what is the Helmholtz method?

Cables cannot make a difference comparable to the huge transformation in the room acoustic...Like just says lemonhaze...

No one selling gear or cables want to disclose that simple truth...

Acoustic passive treatment and especially mechanical active control with Helmholtz method WOULD KILL any desire to upgrade in most people who will implement it... And changing cable is a MINOR improvement, only seems to be a major improvement when someone has never correctly adress the room or had synergy gear problem already ...

Anything else is marketting or ignorance or the two....

@ 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.

room

I'll go with the Linn philosophy, the source. I'll also agree with a previous post that even lower budget speakers can sound great with more upscale electronics. Lastly, power matters. A dedicated line, a good power conditioner,  and power cables do make a difference. 

As everyone has pretty stated everything matters and is important, but that is where i differ with most. Most feel speakers is the most important and not to say they aren’t they for sure are but i believe in putting more emphasis on the front end. Preamp, phono preamplifier or section, amp, source equipment, cartridge, turntable, tonearm, digital playback, speakers then cables. Yes quality of power and power cables also make a big difference, but speakers are down on the list for me because you’d be shocked how good even average speakers can sound with great equipment, where as great speakers with modest electronics will sound very mediocre to poor. Not to mention the importance of setup and calibration ! Speaker placement is the single most important aspect in getting good sound.

Run an A to B to C comparison of 3 sources on my integrated / DAC Devialet 250.

1. mac mini + Lifatec Glass Toslink
2. mac mini + Intona USB Isolator + Oyaide Continental 5S USB cable
3. Project CD Box RS2 T + Kimber Kable KCAG Coax

The test involved instant switching between the 3 systems, playing for 2 mins each for maybe an hour. Same song s running on all 3 sources.

System 3 edged slightly, with system 1 (optical) second, but the differences were very subtle. To the extend I could hardly remember them had I played the systems each on a different date.

I suspect most quality DAC makers have managed to isolate the digital input from any artefacts that may come along, to such an extend that interconnects have a much lesser impact than say power input and speaker cables.

Thanks for the question, Ted,

Well-grounded, clean electricity is a great beginning point for a sound system.  The biggest difference in sound quality is the interaction of your loudspeaker choice(s) and the room in which they are used.

Happy New Year.  More Peace, Pin  

If you take into account your room is a constant and suitable arena then for me speakers/amp interface is the biggest impact. Speakers first then amplification.