Order of importance of cables

I have to agree with Al, there is no one correct answer. Many will have their own priorities, but that doesn't mean anything to you or me, as synergy will guide you to your own personal preferences.

This question has been asked many, many times over the years with no definitive answer. Search the archives for some entertaining answers.

When Nordost came out with the Norse Series 2 cables I was lucky enough to get a demo case for an in home demo. My Ic's and Sc's were original Frey's. I always thought the Ic would make the biggest difference. So what I did was swap out the Ic only with the series2 Frey. Noticed the improvement. Put the original Ic back in and swapped out the Sc for the series2 Frey. I noticed a bigger improvement. So for grins I put the original Sc back in and swapped out the original Frey Ic with the Tyr2. To me it sounded just a hair better than the Frey2 Sc. I then later played with different combinations but came to the conclusion (at least in my case) the Sc made the biggest difference.

That said I never tried different brands. I did play with the Pc's a bit but compared to my Fusion Audio's I didn't hear that much of a difference but I was more interested in Ic's and Sc's. In the end I upgraded my Ic from the original Frey to the Tyr2.

Well that was my experience.

AC power cables first IF you have dedicated/treated AC runs.

I have a dedicated run to my room (20A) feeding two MIT AC digital rectification outlets, then to a QB8 Quantum power strip and Echole AC cables - the best tweak and the best invested cash I have performed in my system.

"a chain is only as good as it's weakest link". It's probably safe to assume your ac power supply is poor-and since you haven't mentioned any I assume you have no power conditioning or isolation of digital. Without clean(er)ac power it's hard to evaluate the potential of your system. My suggestion is first buy conditioning. Next move would be the power cords to preamp and digital, hopefully with isolation value.. Then ic from digital to pre. Then ic from pre to amp. Only experimenting and listening will tell you the best bang for the investment.

1. Phono Cable
Nowhere in the whole chain is the signal so small and what is lost here can't be compensated

2. Speaker Cable
There is a interaction between Amp and Speaker Chassis to control the movements of the chassis

3. Hardware to Preamp
4. Preamp to Amp

when your RCA connectors from Preamp are cheap, coated .... be happy, this will save you a lot for cables, these inferior RCA plugs normally kill the majority of the incoming information (Studio Standard, copper=100, silver is 106, gold=90, brass is somewhere 60 and there is even worse out there in "High End"...)

5. Power Cord
Try to get one with top connectors (grip), Oyaide for example