The most important component?

Gregadd

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Hardly a new topic. Unless you were lucky enough to have an all out system the first time out ,you are going to have to go the upgrade path. That could involve anything from finding source material that optimizes your systems strong points to a dedicated room.
Recommendations range form Consumer Reports recommendation that 50% of your budget be spent on speakers to the notion that the ratio should be ten to one in favor of electronics.
Some recommend that the front end is th em most important. The theory being that if you don't extract it correctly form the source it does not matter what happens later.
Others argue that amp and preamp are pure physics and when you do it correctly they all sound the same.
Some spend what IMO is ridiculous amounts of money on cables. I'm not sure what the rational is there. Some have cables that cost more than the components they are attached to.
Then of course is the speaker is probably the most distorted component of all.

Finally many argue that the room is the most important. Even if you have done everything else right a bad room can ruin it all.

I thought about this when Myles said he felt he had not pushed his ML Summits to their summit (pun inended)

My own approach, as you might guess, is to get the right speaker for your room. Then assemble a supporting cast. Ideally you could purchase the best of everything. Not a reality for most of us.

My approach.
speaker /amplifier/ source/ preamp/ cables. The upgrade path should be source/amplifier/preamp/cables. I assume you made a really excellent speaker choice.
What's your thought?
 

audioguy

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Since the room has (by orders of magnitude) the highest distortion component, it along with the loudspeaker (and attendant placement in the room) probably represent 95% of what you will hear. Purchase reasonable speakers, put them in a well treated room and it will certainly outperform awesome speakers in poor and incorrectly treated room.
 

MylesBAstor

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Guess I still subscribe to the "crap in, crap out" school of thought. Everything begins with the software and there's little one can do if that sucks (unless maybe one uses say a Cello Audio Pallette to try and correct frequency anamolies). So for me, the objective remains retrieving as much information off the source material beginning with the laser and reading, tape heads or cartridge. For example, the cartridge purchase should also esp. take into the account the tonearm the cartridge will be mounted in; one shouldn't put a SOTA cartridge in a entry level arm because it'll be near impossible to realize the transducer's capabilities due to arm and bearing resonances, wiring, construction, etc.

For instance many years ago, got to hear those cherished and greatly revered original RCA classical master tapes with Reiner, Munch, Monteaux, Leibowitz, Fiedler, etc. at RCA studios. And you know what they played the tapes back through? JBLs. But I'll tell you this. You start with a master tape and you can make a pair of JBLs sound like Steve's Wilson speakers :)

Then one should carefully select and balance the electronics, speakers and cables around the budget (and no, one doesn't need to spend 70% of your budget on the front end; OTOH, one shouldn't cut corners here either).

I think in regards to the room, that there are many inexpensive approaches to overcome some room issues (of course, avoiding a square room if at all possible) and get the system sounding really good. Then if one wants, they can tweak that last 10 or20% with room Rxs.
 

FrantzM

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Hi

I , like I guess many audiophiles, had a prejudice against Professional speakers.. I had to put them aside upon listening recently a pair of Genelec (powered!) speakers. I am digressing some but it was to address Myles point on the JBL .. They may not have been that bad to begin with. A bad speaker will never be mistaken for a Wilson Audio regardless of source material...
Let us get this straight, electronics are for the most part OK, there are great electronics but in the high end area one has to strain these days to find a completely bad sounding piece of electronics...
Speakers are the weak link, this is not a cliche or an opinion: A Fact... Speakers are far from linear IOW they don't reproduce linearly what they are fed.. they distort, compress, have dip and peaks in their frequency responses, problems plus they have to contend with the room in which they are placed and how they are placed in this room... A recipe for disaster.
So I agree for the most part with you .. Speakers first but keeping in mind the room in which the speaker will be and how they will be placed in the room. If I were to assign a weighing/percentage to getting the ROOM-SPEAKER interface corect I would put it at 87% (;) to put a little on Audioguy)it .. Adequate electronics, Adequate power for these electronics, adequate source would take the other 12.9% .. You leave 0.1% to cables as they make the least contribution to a system once they are electrically adequate ...

Frantz
 
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JackD201

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I'd have to go with the right speaker for the room too :)
 

ggendel

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May 26, 2010
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I put any transducer at the top of the list... Converting from mechanical to electrical or the reverse (Loudspeakers and Phono cartridges). These can really gum up the works. Next on my list is large-signal amplification. This process usually has to deal with lots of non-linear issues as the signal moves far from the stasis operating point and impedance issues when driving non-ideal resistive loads.
 

es347

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The service entrance.
 

MylesBAstor

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Hi

I , like I guess many audiophiles, had a prejudice against Professional speakers.. I had to put them aside upon listening recently a pair of Genelec (powered!) speakers. I am digressing some but it was to address Myles point on the JBL .. They may not have been that bad to begin with. A bad speaker will never be mistaken for a Wilson Audio regardless of source material...
Let us get this straight, electronics are for the most part OK, there are great electronics but in the high end area one has to strain these days to find a completely bad sounding piece of electronics...
Speakers are the weak link, this is not a cliche or an opinion: A Fact... Speakers are far from linear IOW they don't reproduce linearly what they are fed.. they distort, compress, have dip and peaks in their frequency responses, problems plus they have to contend with the room in which they are placed and how they are placed in this room... A recipe for disaster.
So I agree for the most part with you .. Speakers first but keeping in mind the room in which the speaker will be and how they will be placed in the room. If I were to assign a weighing/percentage to getting the ROOM-SPEAKER interface corect I would put it at 87% (;) to put a little on Audioguy)it .. Adequate electronics, Adequate power for these electronics, adequate source would take the other 12.9% .. You leave 0.1% to cables as they make the least contribution to a system once they are electrically adequate ...

Frantz

Actually Frantz, those were really bad JBL speakers. Trust me. The type that peels paint off the wall :)

I'd also suggest that you're leaving out the electrical supply in your equation for success. Simply changing the AC receptacle can markedly reduce the system's noise floor, distortion, brightness. And there's no hocus pocus going on here (unless one wants to talk about getting rid of nickel plating!). Most receptacles in many audiophile rooms have been there for years. They cost what, 50 cents to begin with? If you remove your receptacles from the wall, you will find in many cases that the contacts are pitted and arced, hardly a low distortion interface. And I've had cases where the whole receptacle actually crumbled and fell apart in my hand after taking it out. Now I'm not saying one has to buy $100 receptacles, but a modest investment in even a Hubble outlet will bear dividends. I also like those receptacles that make such a tight connection, take Ray Kimber's for example, that one needs to hook up a 4x4 to pull the connection apart.
 

ack

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I don't know what the most important component is, but I think I know which ones are the hardest to get right - namely, speakers and amplifiers. For the large scale symphonic music that I like, there seems to never be enough dynamic range in amplifiers that I have heard for real-life event reproduction.

So getting an articulate, very-low-distortion, in-full-control, but also very powerful with immense amperage ratings and high slew rates, yet nuanced and able to reproduce huge macro dynamics concurrently with much quieter instruments (at -60dB below top level, which appears to be our hearing's differential limit) type of amplifier has yet to be produced, although there are currently some truly amazing products out there. And I am sure that for speakers, very few would disagree that they are an endless balance of numerous compromises, although I can't claim I have listened to anything more expensive than the Nola Grand Reference or any significant number of the over-30-grand amps out there.

Looking at my system, the amplifiers appear to be the most expensive, followed by the entire analog rig, then digital, the preamp, and finally the speakers - this also appears to be how I would order them in terms of strongest to weakest link. So obviously the speakers is where I have my attention turned to, but the choices are so many and the variables of matching them in the room and the electronics equally mind boggling.

Therefore, taking into consideration the garbage-in-garbage-out issue, I would probably conclude that, once source components and anything before the speakers is at a particular "high end level", the speakers seem to be the wild card and what can vary the most in terms of performance and cost and effort to set up and fine tune. But then again, what do I know...
 

MylesBAstor

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I'm kinda surprised no one mentioned phono sections. Not necessarily an easy component to design and get right!
 

rsbeck

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Depends on budget. If Budget is a consideration, spend the wad on speakers and scrimp everywhere else. When I say scrimp, I mean buy very judiciously and get the best bang for the buck stuff you possible can. When buying speakers, pay close attention to sensitivity and make sure your speakers not only sound great, but will also present an un-finicky (is that a word?) easy to drive load to your amps. With some careful attention to detail and some flexible thinking, you can assemble an excellent sounding big bang for the buck system this way.

Next, if you've paid attention to the details, you can save all the money you were going to put into wire and cables and spend it on room treatments.

Improvements derived from expensive wire and cable are extremely controversial, even in the audiophile world.

Improvements derived from improvements to the room are much more noticeable to all ears, most would agree you'll get a much bigger improvement for the money spent.

Next, I would address the front end. Feed your system the best resolution possible under your budget.

Next, upgrade your software -- without well produced material, you will never hear what your system can give you.
 

keithyates

Industry Expert
Apr 25, 2010
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My 2 cents:

1. The linearity of the direct response (speaker-to-listener path). Difficult to evaluate without moving the speakers into an anechoic chamber or outdoors, well away from walls, ceiling, etc.
2. The timbral and temporal features of the indirect response (speaker-room-listener paths). Typically the weakest link; strongly influenced by the speaker's rad-pat and the room's acoustic features/treatments. Especially difficult to get the seat-to-seat bass right in the lowest 3 octaves without CFD, though general placement guidelines per Welti et al. will generally improve an otherwise grim situation for many.
3. The sweetening/optimization of system response at the listening location(s) -- judicious editing of EQ, level & delay and correction of spatial mapping issues. Haven't yet experienced an "automatic room correction" system that gets this right -- they often sound better when off -- so necessarily still a human component to this for most users for some time to come.

In most audiophile installations I've listened to and/or measured, very few have sorted through & optimized 1 thru 3; in such cases, spending big on power amps, cables, power conditioners, source components, etc. seems inefficient at best.

Sorry, didn't mean to start a food fight!
 

keithyates

Industry Expert
Apr 25, 2010
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Either outdoors, well away from walls, ceilings or other source of reflections; or have Ron Sauro/NWAA or Pat Brown/SynAudCon do them.
 

FrantzM

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Apr 20, 2010
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My 2 cents:

1. The linearity of the direct response (speaker-to-listener path). Difficult to evaluate without moving the speakers into an anechoic chamber or outdoors, well away from walls, ceiling, etc.
2. The timbral and temporal features of the indirect response (speaker-room-listener paths). Typically the weakest link; strongly influenced by the speaker's rad-pat and the room's acoustic features/treatments. Especially difficult to get the seat-to-seat bass right in the lowest 3 octaves without CFD, though general placement guidelines per Welti et al. will generally improve an otherwise grim situation for many.
3. The sweetening/optimization of system response at the listening location(s) -- judicious editing of EQ, level & delay and correction of spatial mapping issues. Haven't yet experienced an "automatic room correction" system that gets this right -- they often sound better when off -- so necessarily still a human component to this for most users for some time to come.

In most audiophile installations I've listened to and/or measured, very few have sorted through & optimized 1 thru 3; in such cases, spending big on power amps, cables, power conditioners, source components, etc. seems inefficient at best.

Sorry, didn't mean to start a food fight!

Wonderful, Wonderful post!! .. I especially like the last paragraph ..
In most audiophile installations I've listened to and/or measured, very few have sorted through & optimized 1 thru 3; in such cases, spending big on power amps, cables, power conditioners, source components, etc. seems inefficient at best.
I have reached the same conclusion after 45 years in this hobby ( I started VERY early, around when I was 5 :D)

Frantz
 
Although I tend to agree that speakers have the most impact, it is true that a chain is only as good as it's weakest link. Now, what does that mean? Clearly different things to different people fortunately. I have fiddled with bits and pieces (in a limited way due to a shortage of audiophiles in Africa) and sometimes found an apparent step backwards gave a better result e.g. replacing my Bryston wonder power amp with an aged Technics SE A3 (after a short listen - was an easy decision in my case) for a massive sound improvement. Now, the chain is complete for me, however, don't forget the environment is a link too, so no telling what will happen after a forthcoming move. At the end of the day any sounds must be emotionally satisfying for my enjoyment and will even repeat a track 4 or 5 times for the sheer enjoyment. However, my techno latest gear crazed freak friend of course has a completely different take and only tech specs matter - he is infamous for never hearing a track all the way through and changes his system 5 times per annum. Parts of my system have been with me for 25 years such as turntable and arm.
 

rblnr

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May 3, 2010
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My 2 cents:

1. The linearity of the direct response (speaker-to-listener path). Difficult to evaluate without moving the speakers into an anechoic chamber or outdoors, well away from walls, ceiling, etc.
2. The timbral and temporal features of the indirect response (speaker-room-listener paths). Typically the weakest link; strongly influenced by the speaker's rad-pat and the room's acoustic features/treatments. Especially difficult to get the seat-to-seat bass right in the lowest 3 octaves without CFD, though general placement guidelines per Welti et al. will generally improve an otherwise grim situation for many.
3. The sweetening/optimization of system response at the listening location(s) -- judicious editing of EQ, level & delay and correction of spatial mapping issues. Haven't yet experienced an "automatic room correction" system that gets this right -- they often sound better when off -- so necessarily still a human component to this for most users for some time to come.

In most audiophile installations I've listened to and/or measured, very few have sorted through & optimized 1 thru 3; in such cases, spending big on power amps, cables, power conditioners, source components, etc. seems inefficient at best.

100% agreement that the setup is as or more important than anything, and am with Frantz in wanting to celebrate the last line. I've seen so many expensive setups that can't possibly sound good from the get go based on the room and placement, and yet still, more and more money gets tossed into amps, sources, etc.

Having said that, I'm a believer in starting with speakers and building backwards. Two reasons: a) setup two pairs of 5K speakers and it will be easy to discern the difference. Two 5K dacs, probably much less so. b) get speakers that will work well where they will be placed. It's why I think good controlled directivity speakers make a lot of sense for many applications.
 

keithyates

Industry Expert
Apr 25, 2010
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0
I'm a believer in starting with speakers and building backwards. [snip] I think good controlled directivity speakers make a lot of sense for many applications.

I agree, though I'd rephrase slightly to read: "I'm a believer in starting with the speakers-room interface and building backwards."

The biggest challenge is, as ever, getting the bass right, which you CANNOT DO in residential size rooms without deploying multiple subs (depends, but typically 3-6); siting them in the precise locations that Computational Fluid Dynamics modeling shows to produce the most linear result (lowest mean spatial variance) throughout the seating area; setting unique delays, EQ and levels for each; and then creating the global Sub/LFE settings (x-over freq & type/order, EQ, level and delay). This may sound like some judicious knob-twiddling, but it's a lot deeper than that, demanding $40-80k in software, staff with MS degrees or better in 3 different fields (Acoustics, CFD and Optimization Theory), test hardware and a commitment to make dozens or hundreds of in situ measurements. It "works" not just because someone finally figured out how to do it, but because a few subwoofer manufacturers (Wisdom, JL Audio, Velodyne, etc.) finally decided to make really good subwoofers that fit within wall and ceiling cavities, which opens up the number of aesthetically acceptable sub locations for the computer to evaluate.

Imagine: We're at a point where no amount of money or effort or brand-name cachet can buy you as good a result below 150Hz in your room as installing 3-6 smaller subs in exactly the right locations -- without taking up one square inch of floor space. It's a new world, man!
 

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