The most important piece in a stereo system???

You are only as strong as your weakest link.

Just like a track team that runs relays, an outstanding performance from one participant can be completely hindered or even negated by a less than perfect contribution from someone else prior or after the fact. With that in mind, you may never know what one piece is capable of unless everything in the system is of equal capacity. Sean
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Well, everyones system has to start somewhere, so it may help to re-phrase the question, eg "what one piece of equipment would you most want to build the rest of your system around?". For a long time, I was convinced that source components amd pre-amp were most important-- until I got a really superb pair of speakers. Now, if I were to start from scratch, I would want the best speakers I could afford, and I would build the rest of my system around them.

That said, I also strongly believe in the weakest link approach and am constantly trying to identify it. As I've acquired better and better gear, I've also really come to appreciate the importance of good clean AC, the room/speaker interface, power cords, and certainly high quality recordings. I've enjoyed reading the varied responses above too. Good thread. Cheers. Craig.

Only as good as the weakest link. The entire system including the room.

Garbage in, garbage out. You cannot improve the source downstream, it only gets worse. Get the best front end components you can (Analog, digital, tuner, hell even cassette deck). Build from there; having the best speakers, amp, wires, or room won't fix a flawed signal generated right at the very beginning of the chain. Common sense in my view. ATB, Jeff

Speakers! Gee whiz.