[sarge_in]

This is a good query. Useful for me as I need to decide what my future upgrade path should be once I have the speakers (ST-dome). Mostly comes down to DAC, Pre-Amp or Amp?! I used to think Amps, but have read posts about pre-amp being more important - no idea of % of course. I guess the question is still outstanding!

[HoosierInOhio]

Hello Folks

With all due respect i think your analogy isnt realistic (by your admission). So i dont think it is a good analogy.
You would be far better off spending (on a $10k budget) $1500 on speakers than $8k lets say. Infact a pair of $1500 speakers can be
made to sound very nice when partnered with a well balanced system. This is a realistic  approach.

The transport or cd player drives the whole sound. It can even make a bad amp sound way better, and make a bad pair of speakers sound
better. Anything to do with the source can screw with your sound far more than anything else. Lousy cabling, transport, or dac can drag
the system down to an unlistenable playback on a great pair of speakers...

So you are saying that a $1500 pair of speakers with $8500 worth of equipment will sound better than say $5000 HT-2TLs and $5000 worth of equipment? 

[Big Red Machine]

I just made a great system sound fantastic by changing amps.  Sure I have a good dac and great preamp and DIY cabling and HT2 TL's to start with.  I believe the best speakers first and then source and then preamp and amp.  In my case the amp change added levels I never expected (well, I hoped for) and complemented the system perfectly.

[jsalk]

With all due respect i think your analogy isn't realistic (by your admission). So i don't think it is a good analogy.
You would be far better off spending (on a $10k budget) $1500 on speakers than $8k lets say. Infact a pair of $1500 speakers can be made to sound very nice when partnered with a well balanced system. This is a realistic  approach.

werd -

I understand what you are saying.  But taking a $10,000 budget, I know I can get better results using, say, our Veracity HT3's and $4000 worth of other gear, than with SongSurround II's, as good as they are, and $8500 worth of gear. 

It's not that you can't get fairly good sound out of a $1500 pair of speakers.  But you can get far better sound out of a $6000 pair of speakers, even if it means spending a little less on the other gear. 

I have never known this not to be the case.  I have demonstrated speakers with an amp I bought at a flee market for $125 and no one ever complained about the lousy sound.  Naturally, a better amp would have sounded better, but the sound quality was good enough for demonstration purposes.

- Jim

[werd]

werd -

I understand what you are saying.  But taking a $10,000 budget, I know I can get better results using, say, our Veracity HT3's and $4000 worth of other gear, than with SongSurround II's, as good as they are, and $8500 worth of gear. 

It's not that you can't get fairly good sound out of a $1500 pair of speakers.  But you can get far better sound out of a $6000 pair of speakers, even if it means spending a little less on the other gear. 

I have never known this not to be the case.  I have demonstrated speakers with an amp I bought at a flee market for $125 and no one ever complained about the lousy sound.  Naturally, a better amp would have sounded better, but the sound quality was good enough for demonstration purposes.

- Jim

Hello

Yes but you keep talking about amps and my point is with sources or transports. I think you are about to
prove my point here. What source were you using that drove that $150 amp?

[Nuance]

Hello Folks

With all due respect i think your analogy isnt realistic (by your admission). So i dont think it is a good analogy.

Do you have anything to back up that statement other than your own opinion?  Telling someone their analogy isn't realistic then never explaining why is nonsense!

You would be far better off spending (on a $10k budget) $1500 on speakers than $8k lets say. Infact a pair of $1500 speakers can be
made to sound very nice when partnered with a well balanced system. This is a realistic  approach.

The transport or cd player drives the whole sound. It can even make a bad amp sound way better, and make a bad pair of speakers sound
better. Anything to do with the source can screw with your sound far more than anything else. Lousy cabling, transport, or dac can drag
the system down to an unlistenable playback on a great pair of speakers...

No, it cannot make a bad pair of speakers sound better.  No, it cannot make a bad amp sound better.  You cannot fix a flawed piece of gear by adding coloration; it will still be flawed and a weak point in the system.  It might sound different, but likely not better.  Its also the worst possible plan of attack.  If your speakers are garbage, buy new speakers; plain and simple...at least for most people. 

There's jitter for one.  For another, even with error correcting coding, you can still get errors.  There's also the output circuitry and how this performs. 

Tests between CD players are easy to do and you can do them yourself.  I had a Pioneer Elite CD/DVD player that I compared with a more expensive Proceed PMDT transport (to a number of different DACs) and it was easy to hear the difference. 

The amount of jitter it would take to become audible is on the very high side of things.  Also, most relatively inexpensive transports don't suffer from audible jitter or reading errors.  There are many documented blind tests that have proven this. I do agree that CDP's can sound different, but the difference is usually minor unless one is flawed, not to mention very minute when compared to moving from a poor speaker to a great speaker.  YMMV, of course.   

I just made a great system sound fantastic by changing amps.  Sure I have a good dac and great preamp and DIY cabling and HT2 TL's to start with.  I believe the best speakers first and then source and then preamp and amp.  In my case the amp change added levels I never expected (well, I hoped for) and complemented the system perfectly.

The nice thing about having a great room and pair of speakers to begin with is it will reveal the flaws of your other components, and also allow you to more easily hear the changes you make to those components.  But I digress, without that great pair of speakers you may never hear those differences.  That is why I rate the speakers 70%.

Hello

Yes but you keep talking about amps and my point is with sources or transports. I think you are about to
prove my point here. What source were you using that drove that $150 amp?

No, he isn't.  You haven't even proven your point.  His analogy also applies to transports, by the way.

I'll take a $200 Denon transport and a $5000 speaker budget and put it up against the Audio Research Reference CD8 (linked below) and a $1500 speaker budget any day of the week, with the rest of the equipment being equal (the same).  I'd be willing to bet the system with the better speakers gets chosen as the majority favorite every time.
http://www.audioresearch.com/ReferenceCD8.html

[Big Red Machine]

My present source is a Squeezebox and EE dac so about $1000 invested including nice Ubyte cable.  I would never spend $8k on a source and expect it to be better than a $2k source, for instance, given my vast experience in trying to do so!

[werd]

My present source is a Squeezebox and EE dac so about $1000 invested including nice Ubyte cable.  I would never spend $8k on a source and expect it to be better than a $2k source, for instance, given my vast experience in trying to do so!

me either, excellent front end has come down in price.. but price should'nt undermine what we are talking about.

[woodsyi]

Everything in interdependent.  The weakest link can be any of the component including your ears.  Having said that, unless the speakers have enough resolving power, you may not hear the differences that other components may produce.  Speakers are important but so is everything else.  I can't quantify the relative importance because all must of of sufficient quality to make good music.

[cacophony777]

me either, excellent front end has come down in price.. but price should'nt undermine what we are talking about.

Except if all modern fronts are excellent. Can you name one that isn't excellent (and provide some evidence)?

[Nuance]

Except if all modern fronts are excellent. Can you name one that isn't excellent (and provide some evidence)?

He can't, and he won't.  That is his style.  I've been down this road with him before, and every time it ends the same; with him never proving anything he says.

[cacophony777]

Everything in interdependent.  The weakest link can be any of the component including your ears.  Having said that, unless the speakers have enough resolving power, you may not hear the differences that other components may produce.  Speakers are important but so is everything else.  I can't quantify the relative importance because all must of of sufficient quality to make good music.

The question driving this is : How should one allocate spending between components to get the best possible sound?

Let's make this specific 
Can you propose a $5000 system that will sound better than a pair of HT2-TL + $800 for everything else?

[jsalk]

Hello

Yes but you keep talking about amps and my point is with sources or transports. I think you are about to
prove my point here. What source were you using that drove that $150 amp?

A Sqeezebox digital out.

- Jim

[werd]

A Sqeezebox digital out.

- Jim

Hello

A squeebox into..? Was it a modded squeezebox?

[jsalk]

Hello

A squeezebox into..? Was it a modded squeezebox?

A Panasonic XR57 digital receiver (the one I bought at a flee market for $125). No mods - in my opinion I don't need them. 

I use the same squeezebox on my higher end system and no mods are required.  I am running the digital out into an AVA Vision DAC that uses a Wolfson 8742 digital chip set.  I use this same DAC with an inexpensive Denon CD player as well.

In either case, it is the quality of the DAC that determines the quality of the sound.

If there were problems with the transport, they would be found in two areas:  data errors and/or clock jitter.

Data errors are almost non-existent.  There is enough error correction built into any CD transport to almost eliminate data errors.  If this were not the case, computers would not be able to run properly as software is often distributed on CD's and bit-for-bit accuracy is mandatory (computer transports are not normally high-end either). 

With the Wolfson chip in the Vision DAC, clock jitter is not really an issue.  If it is really bad, you may be able to see it in radio frequency measurements, but not in audio measurements.  The chip set is optimized to virtually eliminate audio distortion due to any clock jitter.

So...if you have a good bit stream feeding a good DAC (and both the Squeezebox and Denon are certainly good enough to provide a good bit stream), the resulting sound quality rests almost entirely with the DAC (in this case the Wolfson, which is one of the best).  Nothing you do to mod the squeezebox and no change in the CD transport itself will have any effect on the sound quality put out by the DAC.

That is my opinion based on the engineering involved.  If someone can provide a demonstration, in the form of a blind test, that an expensive transport can provide better sound quality, I am all ears.  But until then, I prefer not to drink that cool-aid.

Again, just one person's opinion and not necessarily the final word on the matter.

- Jim

[casarman]

A) Your brain has to justify the ridiculous amount you spent on hardly any gain
 and
B) Because the manufactures tell you to. 

Seriously, though, to each their own.  If you want to go big, good for you.  Just be ready to back up what you preach when asked. 
[/quote]
+1 and the only evidence I have are my ears, whish when it comes down to listen to my system I trust them blindly!
Cheers!

[ctviggen]

Except if all modern fronts are excellent. Can you name one that isn't excellent (and provide some evidence)?

I compared the following (using the same interconnects if applicable and level matching the outputs):

1)  Pioneer Elite CD/DVD player as CD player and as CD transport into a Proceed AVP

2)  Shengya tube CDP as CDP

3)  Ack Dack D/A driving by Pioneer Elite and by Proceed PMDT transport

4)  Proceed PMDT into Ack Dack or into Proceed AVP

5)  Modified Squeezebox (analog outs)

#5 was best, very, very closely followed by #2.  #1 as CDP was worst, by far. 

To perform these tests, I listened to the same snippets of songs over and over and over again. As stated above, I used the same analog interconnect for both pieces of equipment being tested (if applicable).  I also level matched the outputs. 

Is this enough "evidence"?

As far as what makes the most difference in a system, certainly speakers are high on that list, as are room treatments.  Some of the comparisons I made above were at the "I have to listen to this 10 times to determine differences" level.

[cacophony777]

I compared the following (using the same interconnects if applicable and level matching the outputs):

1)  Pioneer Elite CD/DVD player as CD player and as CD transport into a Proceed AVP

2)  Shengya tube CDP as CDP

3)  Ack Dack D/A driving by Pioneer Elite and by Proceed PMDT transport

4)  Proceed PMDT into Ack Dack or into Proceed AVP

5)  Modified Squeezebox (analog outs)

#5 was best, very, very closely followed by #2.  #1 as CDP was worst, by far. 

To perform these tests, I listened to the same snippets of songs over and over and over again. As stated above, I used the same analog interconnect for both pieces of equipment being tested (if applicable).  I also level matched the outputs. 

Is this enough "evidence"?

As far as what makes the most difference in a system, certainly speakers are high on that list, as are room treatments.  Some of the comparisons I made above were at the "I have to listen to this 10 times to determine differences" level.

You're comparing analog outs, but we've been discussing whether there's a difference in digital outs of front ends. I agree there's a difference in DACs, though I think it's pretty subtle. I did a blind A/B test between two DACs at one point and did hear a small difference.

[martyo]

I compared the following (using the same interconnects if applicable and level matching the outputs):

1)  Pioneer Elite CD/DVD player as CD player and as CD transport into a Proceed AVP

2)  Shengya tube CDP as CDP

3)  Ack Dack D/A driving by Pioneer Elite and by Proceed PMDT transport

4)  Proceed PMDT into Ack Dack or into Proceed AVP

5)  Modified Squeezebox (analog outs)

#5 was best, very, very closely followed by #2.  #1 as CDP was worst, by far. 

To perform these tests, I listened to the same snippets of songs over and over and over again. As stated above, I used the same analog interconnect for both pieces of equipment being tested (if applicable).  I also level matched the outputs. 

Is this enough "evidence"?

As far as what makes the most difference in a system, certainly speakers are high on that list, as are room treatments.  Some of the comparisons I made above were at the "I have to listen to this 10 times to determine differences" level.

Just curious, how did you match the levels?

[R Swerdlow]

Conventional wisdom has it that the components in an audio reproduction system where energy is transformed from mechanical to electrical, or electrical to mechanical, are the weakest points in the chain and where the greatest improvements to overall sound quality can occur.  Even though most of us have not determined this for ourselves in a rigorous scientific manor, there is abundant evidence from many people over many years to support this conventional wisdom.

In the old pre-digital music days, both tonearm cartridges and speakers participated in energy transformation.  Ever since CDs and digital audio, cartridges have vanished as part of the equation, leaving speakers as the major weak point.

The remaining components in an audio system (CD players or other digital playback systems, DACs, preamps, or amplifiers) take electrical energy in and send it out.  Much less can go wrong during these steps than compared with a loud speaker.

The word from werd has it that a CD transport drive (independent of the signal chain itself) can have as large or larger effect on sound quality than speakers do.  Compared to conventional wisdom, that is an extraordinary claim.  We all would like to know the best way to spend money to improve our sound systems.  I am not rejecting your ideas as wrong or impossible, but such an extraordinary claim needs backup with extraordinary evidence before many of us will accept it.