not to dredge this back from the dead, but geoffgarcia, i was actually debating the same a few months back, at the time i had a very minimal system (integrated reciever + dvd/cd player, so a single digi-coax and some speaker wire was all i needed). i quickly dumped a good 7-8k into my system in a matter of months, scary thing is, everything seems to have "fit" a ratio of 50-55% electronics, 30-35% speakers and 10-15% cables with 5-10% left over for supports etc (speaker stands, av rack, etc). now - the thing is, i did NOT spend all of that at once, and it went in this order: speakers, then electronics, then cables. in fact, i would bet that your system from a price standpoint is about where mine is now minus the cables.
here's what i'd do:
skip out on buying ANY power cables (for now). or at least, dont spend more than 50-150 on any, and only to power your amp, and a line conditioner. buy a nice panamax or similar (ie somethingin the $4-500+ range) and plug everything but your amp into that. that in my opinion is better by FAR than spending $150x3 for pre/transport/dac power cables etc. get a good cable for that, or at least take and put an RF-blocker (at the component IEC end) on the stocker. get two hospital grade (aprox $10-15 worst case) outlets and put your amp and sub if you have one onto one, and everything else on another. then invest in the absolute best COPPER you can afford (something like audioquest's PSC+ level of product ie coral / king cobra would be a good balance of price/sound for your price range). the ones to obviously pay the most attention to is pre->amp and dac (or player) -> amp. don't do something crazly like a $400 cable pre->amp and $40 cd-player to pre... it's all about balance.
about the last thing to choose / upgrade is speaker cable. now, that might sound CRAZY because let me tell you, upgradeing mine (and i still have lots of room for improvement there i'd say) was the biggest improvement i've ever made save changing speakers -- however hear me out. all of the other things going on in your system make drastic changes to the character of stuff as well, so you don't want to say choose cables that are so revealing that a certain interconnect and speaker wire combo seems waaaaaay too bright or lean or whatever. i'd certainly go with the 10-20% rule and spend maybe half to two-thirds of that on interconncets and the rest on speaker cables (throwing in power cables later except again maybe the one to the conditioner).
hope my recent experiences helps lend a hand, btw to give you an idea of what i consider balanced:
(the 2ch portion of my rig)
B&W CDM1-NT bi-amplified from a Rotel RB-985 using 2 runs aq CV4
Rotel RDV-1060
comparing 1060 built in vs. Cal Audio Labs Sigma vs. CI Audio VDA-1
running aq king-cobra from whichever DAC to Rotel RSX-965
(using it as a pre and to power rears)
running 2 runs of aq coral from the 965 pre-outs to 4ch total on the 985
when using the outboard dac, aq optilink 1 or vdm-1 (toslink vs coax)
it's nothing incredible but i'm absolutely thrilled about it (upgraded from an old marantz dvd player, the 965 as an integrated amp and a pair of b&w 602 speaks). i know on here so many people seem to piss on b&w and it's main-stream-ness and yeah, i've heard a lot of stuff i like besides theirs (lets just say, my next speaker will likely be totem forests) but hey, sometimes the price is right :)
