Most important cable in a hifi system

If you had to choose, what would be the most important cable to upgrade?

[marcwilson]

I'd say the power cord is the most important. No power, no sound!😅

[zedcarr]

As an electronics engineer, here are the FACTS:
Speaker cable: A speaker is an electric motor, it's fed by an electric current which drives the speaker. As long as the cable feeding it can supply the current going through the cable, that is a good speaker cable. Simple copper cable of the correct gauge, the thicker, the better within practical reason, with PVC insulation will be as good as ANY cable, no matter what it's made of or claims made about its ''sound quality.'' These things can be verified with test equipment.
Coaxial audio cable: 100% screened copper cable, as short as possible. If you want to be fancy, you can measure the capacitance of the cable or connect it up to a signal generator, oscilloscope and multimeter and measure its characteristics. I've just measured a standard BNC to BNC cable on my bench and put a 1 Volt sine wave through it from 1Hz to 1 MHz. The sine wave stayed EXACTLY the same throughout. That's a good audio cable.
Digital cables: As long as the equipment works with the cable you use, that is a good digital cable. What the cable is made of makes no difference to ''sound quality'' whatsoever.
Your Internet gets to you through a twisted pair of wires of either copper or aluminium, the sound and picture quality of things I watch and listen to is good. I've used several different cables over the years and the quality has been EXACTLY the same with all of them.

[WWeiss-nvvz]

The answer is EQ. There I said it! Now banned from all internet Audiophile sites :(
People trying to tweak their sound with cables should just use EQ. A much cheaper solution. EQ is audible, tell that to the mixing engineers who made your favorite music.

[OlehZavadsky]

Thank you, Paul. The answer about the preamp-amp interconnect was unexpected but very interesting! Also about the speakers with more or less stable impedance. Very cool.

[ThinkingBetter]

As a rule of thumb, the more you pay for a cable the better you think it sounds.

[print-master]

When I changed the interconnect between my extensively upgraded quad 44 and two Quad 405's from a cheap cable to (expensive for me) £45 cable, the difference was very noticeable in terms of hum reduced to inaudible and the resolution improved considerably . Thanks Paul

[vsbkplz]

Dear Paul I love how you use different places in your shop as a backdrop. It's fun to see stuff you wouldn't normally see

[hugobloemers]

That's why the cable craze started with interconnects and power cables (costing more than the amplifier they power) came last.

[faludabutt]

Cable is the last step one has to climb in the audiophile journey.

[gurratell]

Paul is rambling weird stuff again.
When it comes to cable almost anything you get at a random electronic store will do the job just fine when it comes to audio quality.
RCA cables for 10 euro will cover all your needs, a cheap plastic toslink carries all your bits perfectly, a normal gauged power cable gives as clean power as you'll ever need, and those speaker cables just need a bit of thickness so it can deliver the power you need for those times when you want to play really loud, but a normal power cord for a lamp will do that just fine.
Balanced stuff you can probably do without though, they're actually built for professional environments where they have really long runs where they actually can get some interference and they also needs to be able to take a beat which is why they are sturdier built, which I really hope you won't need at home.

But whatever you do, it's REALLY important that the cables you buy are long enough so they can go all the way from point A to point B ;)

[geo.]

Whew.... great question!!! Your response was perfect, as they mostly are. You're doing a great job on your site and you are the GO TO guy for audio questions. I trust your opinion more than most I've seen on YouTube. Keep up the great work, maybe one day I'll fet the opportunity to view your shop. Cheers 🍻

[stephenmartin]

For me, most important cable is from source to amp/preAmp. First objective is to get all the music/information I can off the source

[johnkom]

Yes when I took someone's suggestion to swap out the Ubars connecting my Bryston amp and preamp and insert some Xlo cables it made an immense improvement in detail.

[spacemissing]

All of them, because if one is missing you don't get sound.

[peanutbutterjellyjam]

Yep, magic cables for magic electrons.

[midnightsunindustries]

I think the best place to start is to buy some great quality $30 interconnects, like Mogami, then any extra money you considered spending past that, instead spend first on room treatments. Once the treatments are done, try Dirac or other high end filter algorithms, to see if it is for you. After that, if you think your main speakers are sticking around awhile, go to the next cost tier of cables. Doing expensive cables first, before room treatments or main speaker upgrades seems backwards to me...

[biketech]

Any RCA cable carrying a small signal can introduce hum unless properly made, shielded .Especially from turntable to phono amplifier .

[randybradley]

The most important cable in any hi-fi system is the power cable because without it you won't get any sound. Unless your system is solar powered.

[Turboy]

I want to see statements like "Speaker cables can be critical" backed up with a full test series on the same system, with different cables. Pick the cable choices that make the largest differences. Let's see the difference in test results so they can be compared. This is simply a request for an honest and transparent analytical evaluation I want to see the same tests made with POWER cables, too.

[analogguy]

When I’m not listening to my system, I disconnect the speaker cables and store them in my freezer. This enhances high end response, and also, produces more dynamic vocals.