Ok this will be a good thread.

This is base on my real audiophile experience,My plan is
to balance from cd to cables to pre amp to amp to speakers
I was very confident that the speaker i bought are very
good and they are, so i did not mind spending used good
gear to feed this speakers. After careful planning and
auditiong and add my little experience in cables and gear.
I was very happy with my system, although ther will always
be a weakest link.Until my friend called me and encouraged
me to rewire my norh 6.9 with siltech, believe ir or not
I was shock for what i have discovered.Suddenly the speaakers improve immesurably of course IMHO only. This
experience taught me that start or spend good money on
the speakers, and then good descent gear, i felt that
after my speaker greatly improve from cd to speaker cable
performed to the maximum. This reminds me also when i tried
eggleston andra with my cec transport $700, msb link dac;
and plinius sa 100amp, tara lab and audio quest cable,and
adcom gfa 750, Andra $15,000k i have fairly good listening
room. This combination IMHO and my friend we both agree
this is the best sound,he heard on the andra's. Ok wait,
some of you will say whats tha point? The point is to
me i would choose the speaker first. Because of this
experience i bought use andra's.I also oredered monoblock
upgrade feom Klaus the odyssey stratos,i will use sony
sacd dvd player 9000es, with adcom preamp,might use tara
lab,or siltech.I dont know what will this system sound
but i have a good guess this will work if they synergise.
notice my source are not like the one i saw on my friend
house, He was running them with, Mark Levinson 333,meridian
508 96/24 i think, with Mark levinson preamp $6000, he
using tara lab decade all the way, this combination did
not measure up with my mid price gear, my friend and I
talk about it. He told everytime we fellowship on audio
How can my system sound better than this expensive gear,
I suspect the gear did not match his system, or my
room is %30 better than his, Even the monoblock 350 did
not sound better than my set up.Now you will ask me why
did I order the stratos, bec to my experience this speakers
only need high current amp, plus what do i have to loose
Klaus is willing to let me audition this amp I mean GRACIOUSLY
not like when i call this dealer here, He think I will never
buy gear from him. If the stratos dont work, I will use
my sa 100 plinius, or sell it and upgrade to 102.So again
like Robert Harley mention in his book complete GUIDE TO
HIGH END AUDIO IF YOU DO YOUR HOMEWORK more likely you
will be able to put a very very good musical system for
less money its a good book. This to topic is also included
there, its a well balance book. I will recommend it to
every audiophile who are just starting or who are willing
to start again.I did exactly what he advise, maybe i got
lucky or maybe i did learned a lot from it.
sorry guysthis thread is too long Iam off for 3 days, so
ita time to spent couple of hours on this keybd.Thanks.

Taken in isolation....

No question -- it's the amp.

Clean, stable power, and plenty of it will bring any good set of speakers to life.

That said, speakers must match the room size and the listener's desire for bass. A good speaker mismatched to its room will sound lousy. I've moved four times in the past two years, and can attest to the fact that speakers that sounded wonderful in one room stink badly in another.

A pretty good cd player is not much worse than a very good one. I have owned a Meridian 508-24 and didn't find the step down to a Cambridge D500SE to be too harsh. I've also owned a decent Kenwood player and a Micromega, and the steps up the ladder weren't as profound as the dollars spent would have led me to expect.

But a mediocre amp (like my Luxman integrated) can't hold a candle to any product from Bryston, Conrad-Johnson or AR. Everything collapses unless supported by good clean power.

My order of importance:

AMP
CABLES
SOURCE
SPEAKERS
PREAMP

And yes, any really crappy component will drag everything down.

If you are talking about altering the total sound of the system, speakers matter most. But if you are talking about changing one thing that will make everything sound better, amp amp amp.

Speakers. They ultimately determine the limits and boundaries of what you hear.

KF

Here we go again,and again,and again...arhives!! This is soooo old.

Speakers,of course.Isn't it obvious?