Cable vs. Electronics: biggest bang for the buck

The chain is no stronger than its weakest link.

You have to balance both cables and electronics. A great cable will reveal the shortcomings of lesser electronics; and cheaper cables will choke off a signal from great electronics.

Hi all,
Jdubusc, to some extent this analogy is useful, but mostly it is misleading.
In a real chain, if you improve the second weakest link (assuming you can identify it), then the chain is no stronger. In a hi fi system, if you improve the second weakest link, the sound CAN be better. Every relatively weak link, once improved, improves the sound.
Besides, weak is a relative concept, since no one is exactly sure WHAT constitutes a weak link. If everybody knew exactly what a weak link looks like in an absolute sense in an audio system, then there would be no disagreement in high end audio. The disagreements are about compromise and priorities, not absolute concepts such as "weak" or "strong"
As for $7k cables, if component makers were as uncompromising as the mega cable makers, our gear would take up half the room and sound much better, but would also cost hundreds of thousands of dollars retail.
So it's all about compromises. Even the simple 50 watt solid state amp represents so many compromises to absolute sound quality, that it has many weak links in terms of sound alone. That doesn't mean that a well designed interconnect can't change its sound for the better. Unfortunately, we live in the real world where choices must be made, i.e, we have to feed ourselves.
Cheers
Tom

Spend your dollars on better gear before you think about better wires.....10% of the cost of the system will get you down the road just fine for wires.....There sure seem to be a lot of folks out there that have 15K in their systems with 1/3 of that in wires which is just ludicrous....

The whole point of the review and the subsequent comments is that outrageously priced cables add a bigger improvement for less money than buying the electronics. I have listened to $7000 monoblocks and not heard as much improvement as I did with the $7000 cables. So ultimately which is cheaper, or a better value?