Which one defines sound: Pre amp or Power amp?

Leaving the Rotel in play greatly diminishes any significant upgrade in the system's performance.

I agree with Ryder. I would upgrade the speakers first, then preamp. I have McIntosh C42 preamp and MC252 amp. Without speakers that can extract the full potential of the McIntosh pieces, I wouldn't bother upgrading to better pieces like McIntosh, Classe, Pass, C-J, etc.

IMHO, speakers diverge from neutrality more than any other component. That said, this divergance is generally in frequency response, clarity, and distortions that are consonant (harmonically related) with the input signal.

Electronic components, while having lower levels of distortion, have distortions that are "electronic" sounding, and this is usually much more problematic than the distortions of loudspeakers, so I think that you are barking up the right tree.........kind of. Better speakers are just going to let you hear the distortions of your electronics that much more clearly. A bad thing.

Again, I really don't see putting Pirellis on a Yugo and would question the logic of teaming up either of the existing components with a very high end piece. You are just not going to get the bang for the buck, unless you will buy, say the 252 and be able to buy the 2200 in a few months, and then it won't matter; buy whatever you can get the best deal on now.

If you like the Mac sound and reputation for reliability as well as the domestic connection, why not buy one of the excellent Mac integrateds, now? Be done with it, the cost is not going to be that different to get a 6300 or 6500 and the whole electronics issue is dealt with and you can begin saving for that, much needed, loudspeaker upgrade. Just my 2 cents.

For what it is worth read on with my most current experience, this was posted from the other day from another thread of mine.

Speakers or pre's or amps,which is it?

I sold my CAT mono blocks (list $40K)and have not yet replaced them and have been looking but I wanted some music so I have put some mono blocks in place that I found barried away in a corner at my place and likely over 20 years old. I have to chuckle because my first thoughts were these are a joke and I didn't get around to chucking them out, you know the type that you have two push buttons in to insert speaker cable so you have to strip the wire, not too thick or it won't fit. I have two pairs of Stealth Dream speaker cables that list at $8K a pair and can't even use them, never mind the Dream power cords as the amps have their own and pretty well the same size as a lamp cord.

Well I found some speaker cables that have 8 single runs inside and went through the effort of sorting and testing to confirm each one was in phase then tried to hook-up. Well that was a no go, remember the speaker cable plugins on the amps too small. Went and found some other cables and did the process over again and they barely fit in but ti was done.

I know this is going on and on but I had a laugh and figured I mise well share with others too. I can't believe the sound I'm getting, it's just absolutely unbelievable. Now you can't really crank it or it sounds not very good but at moderate listening volumes I have to say I'm just amazed and it is very listenable. A friend called me and we chatted for a bit and I told him I've got some new monoblocks in place so he says he wants to drop by for a listen so I cover up my mystery amps and keep the lights dimmed down so he can't see what they are along with the cables and all you can see is the little red light glowing. He own's a very serious system, anyways he listens and then I turn up the lights and uncover the amps and he says "you gotta be kidding me" and says "I was just listening to those" He goes to me saying "you pulling a fast one on me" and thinks I have something else hooked up but then verifies himself after seeing the mickey mouse speaker cable set-up and just laughs.

These little Yamahahah's really kick but, so now I don't know what to think any more.

The system as it stands currently;

MBL101E speakers
Oracle 2000 trans
Accustic Arts Tube Dac
ARC REF3 pre
All Stealth IC's

I have been interrupted by others who have been calling while doing this thread as my friend is a real prankster and has put calls out to others we know, now he has not told anyone what the amps are but said ***** got a sweet deal going on with some mono blocks he is demoing right now.

Six individuals so far all asking what's the scoop bla! bla! and wanting to come over for a listen, now is this just too funny or what. Tomorrow is the day for the prank on everyone but I gotta say it sounds pretty darn good.

It's now after the fact posting the above and having 8 people over to hear my mystery mono blocks, well all I can say is once we were done and I revealed the mystery amps not one person could believe it. This will be talk for some time now, a couple of others who couldn't make it have called wanting to come by. I have spoken to a few of the others who came by and they said "okay what did you really have hooked up?" I told them what you saw but they think I'm still playing a prank on them.

This experience really has me thinking now.

your experience probably demonstrates that few of us can actually detect the extremely thin margin of difference amps of decent power make in the sound of good speakers.