Which cable do you think is most important?

Ihcho, confused about the answer to your question? Most of the answers in this thread are all over the place. It's difficult to be sure what the right answers are when you're building a system. It's what I dislike about this "hobby." I thought for a while that power cords were most important. I have been in the "power cord jungle." I'm no longer sure of that since a new pair of speaker cables have improved my sound noticeably. I begin to think that the answer to the most important cable can only be revealed by your trial and error with various cables, not through the advice of other audiophiles.

Your source, from there the next in line receives the signal.How that signal is received will only get there by the cables,that are plugged into your source.all the other factors talked about(length,imped.color,arrow's for sig.flow,best plugs)there are many choices,but few correct paths,choose wisely my friend.I choose poorly often.Its all important I have learned.IMHO it wouldn,t matter what cable you have coming out the back.The quality& integrity or degradation of the signal has to start there:your source cabling is a good place to begin.Have a great day & enjoy some music.

One problem with sound is that it is "in the eyes of the listener". One can change speakers, change cables, change the room and all, to some extent, change the sound that you hear. For the better or not is up to the listener and there is, and can not be, any standard.

Remember that unless you are listening to music played acoustically, you are listening to processed sound and you are adjusting the sound engineer's perception to your perception. It's a losing battle.....and unless you have a different sound system for each sound engineer, what sounds good for one may sound lousy for another mix.

Now if you tune your system for acoustic instruments, you may find that anything that's been processed sounds thin or too much bass or whatever. Also, keep in mind that very very few singers are recorded pure...they are almost always processed in some way.

If you accept the above, you will not spend a great deal of time and money looking for the "perfect" cable.

Some say that 60% of what you hear from your system is your ROOM so you should spend money on room treatment first...your get the biggest bang for the buck there!...

 
Once signal gets lost or corrupted, no amount of expensive cable will recover it. If you have to spend more in one place, spend on the run from source, starting with tonearm to phono section or CD to pre-.

Otherwise, don't spend disproportionately in one area, cable your system with a single vendor's lineup at a price point that accommodates the cables you need.