The most important link in the chain...

IMO, I would say that the room that you place the system in is the most important link in the chain. No matter how much money you invest on equipment, if you do not have a decent room, then you will not realize the potential of your hifi. On many occasions, I have noticed pictures from the "Virtual Systems" section that have horrible rooms with absolutely awesome equipment in it. Not that it takes rocket science to figure out, but so many audiophiles seem to live in cramped apartment spaces that were never meant to be sound rooms. If I were to spend more than $100,000 on a sound system, I would definitely make sure that the room would work well before investing in the equipment. Every once in a while, you might find a room that is perfect, but more often than not, you will have to spend money on tweaking the room to get rid of any acoustic aberrations. Conversely, if you are lucky enough to have a great room, you will have no problems finding excellent performance with even modestly priced equipment.

The most important link is the room! Component differences are small compared to what a bad room can do to spoil the sound.

Every link in the chain is important as is system synergy. Because as the saying goes anything is only as good as its weakest link.

As far as those stressing the room, well, I'd agree, per my post, it is certainly an important link. There are ways of dealing with a bad room though. Listening nearfield (with the right gear) can potentially be a runaround for a less than desirable listening room. That said, I'd agree that you could certainly spend a whole lot of money on a system and have it ruined by a room. Likewise you could spend a whole lot of money on a system and have it ruined by a poor speaker choice, or a poor front end. So why is one more important than the other?

Marco

Well, without denegrating the 'weak link' comments, somehow we have to get by this old chicken v egg conversation.

Everybody has to start somewhere and no one that I know has ever bought a well researched high end system all at one time. Most every body buys a piece and tweeks, buys a piece and tweeks, ad infinitum (or so it seems).

The speaker/room/amp (in that order) interface is essential and 2d only to your sonic/tonal preferences (frequency response). In fact this will contribute more to getting you to your goal than the obverse IMHO.

If your speakers don't have the natural ability to resolve detail with out emphasis, for example, why would you need the 'most resolving' pre-amp, analog or digital front end. You'd never hear what they really have to offer and you would never have the ability to compliment your speakers/set up by you choice of sources, pre-amp, and to a much lesser degree your amp.

Not everybody is going to 'shoot the moon' (including myself) and just requires balance in their system. Its much easier to find electronics to match speakers than it is to find speakers to match the room and your 'ears'. At least that has been my experience.

FWIW I've gone from a fairly high end set of electronics, sources, pre-amp, amps (for 1985) and good speakers which didn't really quite 'work' for me, to some fine (IMHO) speakers and fairly pedestrian electronics which have, finally, taken me to the threshold of meeting my expectations. I might experiment with more refined electronics but I sure as hell don't need to!

My 2 cents worth.........