Quote Originally Posted by bumpy View Post
You still need to get (longer) interconnects from the pre amp to the power mono blocks. So is the premise here that speaker cables have more influence on both cost and sound quality?
If the longer runs of interconnects are balanced I would guess yes. Like all things hifi, it probably depends. The differences between cheap (relative) and expensive balanced interconnects are less easily discernible to me than differences between unbalanced interconnects and indeed speaker cable. Different types/materials will work better in some systems than others.

Back to the sub-plot somewhat, I think Barry has concluded that by using balanced interconnects for the long run of cable needed to physically reach the amplifiers, it makes more sense to have this (low level) signal balanced than having the same long run of 'signal' carried over the same distance at speaker level power. Maybe.