Which cable is most important to spend money on...

As for system ancillary, most definitely a good AC power cord. A well designed AC power cord will let a given piece of gear operate most efficiently as to what the power supply needs or what you want the power supply to do. This is important because when all is said and done, the music you hear out of your loudspeakers is basically the power supplies of your gear being modulated.

As with any piece of gear or cabling, there is one of two approaches you can take with AC power cords:

1.) An AC cord that pleasantly (to your ears and biases) editorializes the basic sonic signature of the piece of gear it's partnered to. From there you can further "tune" with the partnering I/Cs or S/Cs to dial in the "flavor" you're looking for. The power cord serves as the foundation to what you're trying to accomplish.

2.) An AC cord that is fundamentally neutral that offers the least amount of editorial to the gear the cord is partnered to. This approach allows one to more fully appreciate the sonic virtues designed into the gear or, if you will, the electronic designer's intent. Again, the power cord serves as the foundation and further, the I/C and/or S/Cs you choose will finalize what you're trying to accomplish...in this case we'll assume one is not looking to editorialize certain virtues of the gear and thus changing it's signature but rather exploit all the virtues equally.

As the hierarchy continues down the latter, our experience has lead to then address source I/Cs, then pre-amp I/Cs and finally S/Cs. I suppose this isn't "etched in stone" but, based on our "system approach", this has saved the most time and resources to finally get to the music and yielded the most rewarding results.

Hope this helps.

Cheers!

Robert
RSAD

I think of it like a tree with trunk, branches, and leaves. All the energy passes thru the trunk, the power cord, as Robert points out. Next most energy is thru the amp/speaker interface, and next most the preamp/amp connection, and last (the "leaves") between source/pre-amp.

The speaker cables are sort an equivalent "branch" in the hierarchy, to the amp/preamp connection (granted they carry more energy.) So one could theoretically make a case for upgrading the speaker cables right after the PCs. However, I'd argue that even decent gauge but inexpensive zipcord would allow accurate comparisons of cabling on the "input" side of the amp, and because they're not part of that "chain" of components/interconnects, that leaving them for last, after improving everything else, would allow for better hearing comparisons of different speaker cables. Just a thought ;--)
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Agree completely with Robert from Ridge Street Audio, and Nsgarch. My ears tell me that there are quite a few reasonably priced interconnects and speaker cables that get passed over because they don't offset the effects of colored power cords and AC products. Also, I don't think you can ever recover dynamics that are lost due to less than optimum AC products.

Well, Robert Ridgestreet's answer is theoretically correct. They day he can implement it (that is, marketing) for the average audiophile he'll become a millionaire! In the real world budget where I live, working on power delivery/noise control using 220V/110V isolation transformers/filters allows me to use much cheaper but still well designed power cords. I *am* waiting to save some money to purchase power cords from a friend who upgraded to Ridge Street throughout his system. He says they're the best--and this is coming from a guy who'll spend $2K on a digital IC. I'll settle for second best...and consider myself fortunate.

What a life!

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it depends on a few different issues.

where are you now?

if you are at an entry level point and don't already have some fairly good cables then i would start with more quality on power cords (and even power conditioning) as those areas are the areas of biggest shortfall with modestly priced gear and inexpensive interconnects and speaker cables can sound pretty good and not be a severe limitation.

if you already have some quality cables then it gets more complicated. what is your priority (or sonic shortfall)? as your system and room climbs the stairway of higher resolution and coherence it becomes a case of fine tuning instead of fixing problems.

what level of bass performance (how deep will it go and how does your room support it)? if your system does plumb the depths then the priority might be speaker cables. i have found that unfortunately the very best speaker cables handle bass considerably better that the 'very good' speaker cables.....and when your system can 'go there' that last bit of control and articulation in the bass will yield amazing performance gains overall.

at the top level of system performance power cables generally come next as they can significantly influence overall system energy and the 'toe-tapping' factor.

interconnects are generally last at the higher levels of system performance as they sound much more alike as you go to higher levels of performance and price (not that they sound the same just less different than speaker cables or power cords).

i have done maybe 30 whole system cable comparisons and as my system improved the above heirarchy was quite consistent.

get the bass right with the best speaker cables you can afford, get the system energy right with power cords and power conditioning, and then fine tune with interconnects.

i can live with imperfect interconnects; but the speaker cables gotta be right.

note added; i agree with Thomas above about the significance of the tonearm/phono cable. since that cable is dealing with such a tiny signal it will have more significance than any other interconnect and is really a part of your phono stage.