The most important component of a system is...

[LenWhite]

1. Room
2. Speaker (properly setup with listening position)
3. Source
4. Amplification
5. Power/Cabling
6. Resonance Control

System dynamics, articulation, imaging all improved dramatically when I finally had a purposed acoustic listening room.

 

[Gregadd]

I think a lot of it has to do with degree of difficulty. Transducers are harder to design. Rooms aren't that hard just often neglected.
Humans are often just impossible to deal with.

 

[Ron Resnick]

paradoxically; it turns out that a digital source is the best tool for room and system development. digital reveals changes much more easily since it's less friendly to our ears. so we are much more sensitive to changes since our emotions are not as engaged. vinyl and tape media masks faults easily as we tend to get caught up in the event as opposed to the sound.

digital vocals tell all. I have 20-30 main ones (some guilty pleasures), and many more too that I can cycle through from my server very quickly to judge changes. room tuning or gear changes that cause digital vocals to be more listenable and real make perception of positive changes easier.

my 2 cents is to have some sort of trustworthy digital source you can get comfortable with. I hear ya on vinyl being better and more important as your main thing......but testing room changes and even set-up can require many dozens of repeats and so having a digital reference is important. room tuning requires good tools.

sorry if this is off-topic but your post triggered this train of thought........

Thank you for the tip, Mike.

I actually have a digital source. (Please let's keep that a secret.) It is not connected to the stereo system.

I have a Musical Fidelity kW SACD/CD player (circa 2006). With a tube output stage I think at the time it was considered a half-way decent one-box player.

I was planning to see if I could sell it. I decommissioned it years ago, but I could unbox it and reconnect it for speaker and subwoofer set-up and for testing room changes.

 

[DaveC]

The importance of the room depends on the speaker and setup, so the room must be secondary to the speaker and the amplifier needs to be matched to the speaker so it's also secondary and possibly MORE important than the room depending on the speaker/setup.

The room is maybe more important than the speaker with conventional dynamic speakers but with controlled dispersion speakers the room is far less important. A nearfield setup in a larger room can also reduce the importance of room acoustics.

After this, I'd say source quality, than synergy of the remaining components is the most important, including power, cables, etc...

 

[sbo6]

1. Source material - garbage in garbage out (or not)
2. Speakers
3. Room
4. Everything else...

 

[Geardaddy]

After decades of pondering this question and after having spent 4 years and thousands of hours tuning mine, for me it is the LOUDSPEAKER.

But let me explain:

- it would either have to be the source of the last part of the chain
- I am excluding the room because most of us don't have the luxury of dedicated rooms
- what tipped the scale is my impression that speaker manufacturers are by far the most incompetent of any other, thus the speakers are the most critical to get right

To me most speakers sound significantly flawed to outright wrong, unlikely any other component, any it feels like most manufacturers are just integrators and not designers. Basically just about every Tom Dick and Harry builds speakers and very few truly understand what it means to do it right. Again, unlike other type of component where I can point to a multitude of true designers, who also use live u amplified music as reference.

Interestingly enough I see more competence even in cable manufacturers although they are second to last on my list.

What do you about the most important component in a system?

Great thread. The most important component of any system is.....the listener. A healthy dose of a serotonin retuptake inhibitor will make navigating audiophiledom a lot smoother and a lot less complex. A lot of the other variables will fall away.

 

[Robh3606]

The room is maybe more important than the speaker with conventional dynamic speakers but with controlled dispersion speakers the room is far less important. A nearfield setup in a larger room can also reduce the importance of room acoustics.

Hello Dave

Below the transition frequency it doesn't matter you are going to have issues. Most systems don't start controlling the directivity until it gets matched to the woofer with a waveguide/Horn so say 800hz or so. Even if you have good control down to about 300hz you would still have the same issues as a conventional box system below that. I wouldn't say that they are all that different. I just don't see it?

Rob

 

[DaveC]

Hello Dave

Below the transition frequency it doesn't matter you are going to have issues. Most systems don't start controlling the directivity until it gets matched to the woofer with a waveguide/Horn so say 800hz or so. Even if you have good control down to about 300hz you would still have the same issues as a conventional box system below that. I wouldn't say that they are all that different. I just don't see it?

Rob

Geddes and Sanders share the same opinion so I'm a little surprised you have any issue with my statement. At shows, Sanders sets up without ANY room treatments whatsoever and gets decent results. While the dispersion pattern of the speaker may not matter much below the transition frequencies it matters quite a bit above that point! So yes, you still need to deal with bass modes but you don't need to deal with room reflections in the same way. A good CD speaker can produce a convincing 3D soundstage without much thought put into 1st reflection points, etc.. while it's absolutely critical for a typical dynamic speaker.

Also, at that 800-1000 Hz crossover point the woofer's directionality matches the horn, so the dispersion pattern has been narrowing well below the crossover point. Or just use a larger horn that works down to 3-400 Hz or so...

 

[SoundQcar]

Here's my 2cents....

Room first. THE most important component...BY FAR!!

Amen!

 

[Argonaut]

 

[analog brother]

is absinthe the secret ingredient?
please do tell - i have no experience with this powerful potion.

 

[Ronm1]

^^^ Little green fairies fine tune as you listen, in the ever widening sweet spot.

 

[audioguy]

Here's my 2cents....

Room first. THE most important component...BY FAR!

Could not agree more and it much too often, ignored.

Second...The source. Loose information here and you can not make it up later.
Third...Preamp....or phono stage.

The speaker is important, BUT I believe the speaker has to be fitted to the room. Too big a speaker in the room...and we all know the result ( well most of us do, LOL... )

I see it a bit differently.

The speaker has far more measurable and audible distortion than any other component other than the room. So it would be second on my list.

Next would be passive room treatment (a passive "component"), which, in reality, is the marriage of room and speaker.

Then come the sources and preamps and then amps.

 

[analog brother]

^^little czech fairies? from prague?

 

[Lee]

Speaker and Amp combo.

 

[Simon Moon]

While I agree, that speakers make the most obvious audible improvement, or can be the most obvious audible detriment to system, I think the source is the most important.

My reasoning is, you could have some of the most accurate speakers in the world, but if your source is missing information, or otherwise distorting the signal, no speaker in the world is going to make up for it.

What you will end up with, is an accurate representation of a problematic signal.

 

[DaveyF]

While I agree, that speakers make the most obvious audible improvement, or can be the most obvious audible detriment to system, I think the source is the most important.

My reasoning is, you could have some of the most accurate speakers in the world, but if your source is missing information, or otherwise distorting the signal, no speaker in the world is going to make up for it.

What you will end up with, is an accurate representation of a problematic signal.

+1

 

[Kal Rubinson]

While I agree, that speakers make the most obvious audible improvement, or can be the most obvious audible detriment to system, I think the source is the most important.

My reasoning is, you could have some of the most accurate speakers in the world, but if your source is missing information, or otherwise distorting the signal, no speaker in the world is going to make up for it.

What you will end up with, is an accurate representation of a problematic signal.

So, by source, you are referring to the recording or to the device that transduces the recording? If the former, I can understand that.

 

[bonzo75]

Since I started paying attention to analog, speakers started making less of a difference. People in average rooms with average speakers can make the system jump to live with a well set up deck and cart.

 

[PeterA]

Since I started paying attention to analog, speakers started making less of a difference. People in average rooms with average speakers can make the system jump to live with a well set up deck and cart.

bonzo, can you describe what you mean by "average speakers" by naming some examples? I agree that a properly set up analog front end can make some great music, but the rest of the system needs to be able to amplify that signal and transcribe it into something without adding much distortion. I learned the importance of a good front end when I got my current turntable/arm/cartridge. And it has only been confirmed recently when auditioning lots of different digital front ends and a couple of other turntable/arm/cartridge combinations.

I really think that everything matters, and proper set up, whether it is the front end with cartridge/arm or the back end speaker/listener/room relationship, great sound depends on both set ups being right. I agree with you that set up is more important than the specific model of speaker or analog or digital front end.