Relative component value to overall SQ.


There is a lot of discussion about various things in the hi-fi audio component chain and how they affect SQ and as a beginner it would be interesting to see how folks rate the relative value of these items.

This is not necessarily meant to be a hierarchy. What I would like to see is a percentage value for each item in the chain. Total must be 100%.

I realize this is an artificial construct but I think for newbies building a system it would help them know where to start and where to put initial emphasis.

For simplicity I am leaving out the signal source. Let’s assume that the CDP, DAC, streamer, server or TT are delivering an optimal signal of an optimal recording to the system.

I included room optimization since that is also likely critical.

The components are as follows; assign a percentage to each. Total must be 100 :

Speakers
Speaker cables
Amp
Amp power cord
Interconnect cables
Pre-Amp
Pre-amp power cord
Interconnect cables (to source)
Room optimization


n80

Showing 1 response by teo_audio

So..the topic is more like, "how to land, for the first time, like a cat, on all four paws..as a newbie in audio...so one can then begin to understand the lay of the land well enough to get one’s bearings and then go on to figure things out."

As cutting it up into digestible dogmatic formulas does not reflect the reality.

But it does reflect a better considered reality when entering the big game or big chase toward better sound. It’s a good thing to do as an opening move.

But holds no sway after that, IF one continues further upward quests, with quality in mind.

One can force that formula to fit one’s upward quest after those opening moves and it will work, but it becomes more and more ridiculous to follow it as the quest reaches greater heights.

It’s like anything. To start driving, you need a car.

To win formula one races... what/when you ate, the angle of the sun, your mood, blood sugar levels, chemical balance, how you slept, how your last day went, the barometric pressure, the temperature across the tire’s body and width, the exact composition of the oil in the engine, and many thousand other points in extreme detail, the position of the seat and wheel down to millimeters, all of them have to be in a certain window of perfection. And each of them can cause the ’reach for a peak’ to fail, if they are off even just a hair. Each becomes very important and each can cause the attempt at a win to fail -or even kill you.

Audio is the same. As the quest to reach peaks becomes more advanced, and the seeker becomes more knowledgeable and refined in that knowledge...each aspect rises in importance in affecting the outcome. Each, like the racing attempt, becomes like a link in a chain, and just one link being off a bit, makes for a chain (the whole system and it’s intent) that utterly fails to be what it is supposed to be.

The complication comes when we fail to understand that the quest is as individual as choices in life partners, as this is about internal wiring and emotions, not technical numbers and measurements. That hearing is an individual thing as IQ is (it’s half physical and half brain power) and that we each build our given hearing IQ up as we grow from a small child and it is wholly individual.

Even worse, hearing remains an unconscious variable as adults, it’s controls are hidden from the conscious mind even as it has a multitude of adjustments and controls as a living breathing changing variable thing. It is not set in stone and has no conscious wording control system. There is zero chance that two people hear exactly the same. And that’s a set of facts you can take to your grave. 

Those technicalities in engineering measurement may define the boundaries but they don’t define the minutia that make up the edge of perfection that we seek.

With all that in mind, what is a good starting point of decent balance in planned out expenses, for a beginner? Even though that is a formula but that formulas don’t really apply. The road ahead is an unknown. One’s personal outcome of directions in that field are an unknown.To keep all that in mind.

Do most people want a formula to start? Yes. Does a beginner formula apply at all? Sort of. But not quite. It’s quite akin to a life formula.

We don’t get one.

We build it as we go along, apply our or physical assets, intellectualism, and emotions - as we may. Outcome is nebulous. Me likely.

The fool sets down the road. Always a good start.

Someone may try to give us a manual of a sort, and we may decide we want to use one, as that is how the given person is wired. But there is no way a manual can be ’the’ way to do things. It’s an open book, just like life.

I’m not into the manual or directions set idea. I’m with Heinlein on this one. Be a master of as much as you can. Specialization is for insects (built in hard wired manuals). I’m not interested in being a commodity for myself or anyone. At the same time, getting your bearings by reading a manual, is always - a very good idea.

So we can come up with a beginners formula but to say it can and cannot apply -is the deal. It depends. It depends on life and the individual.