the A-7 amp, Sony turntable, and SAE preamp are all good. The speakers sound a little lame, though.Try to listen to the Polk bookshelf speaker,(I can't remember the model no.) It's unbelievable for the price, less than 300 for the pair.

They would probably benefit from a good cleaning of the connections, though. "Reasonable price" means different things to different people. But, ANY price is too much if you can't notice any benefit worthwhile for the money.

Once you start swapping components, if that is in the cards at some point, then you might want to consider spending some time on cabling. However, Audioquest cables offer good value...to answer your original question.

Welcome back! A great hobby to be a part of. Here's my forum if you ever want to read up on what some of the people are doing these days as far as getting the system in-tune.

http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/

It might give you some ideas on balancing out the different parts of the system that contribute to the sound.

have fun

michael green
MGA/RoomTune