[Nuance]

As far as importance goes:

Speakers + room = 70% or more.  Everything else is for us tweak-o-philes.  You can tweak the sound all day long with various tubes and what not, but to achieve great sound you need to start with great speakers and a good room.  Fixing flawed speakers with colored gear is a band-aid.  That's not to say using colored gear doesn't appease to many people; it just isn't smart to fix a speaker with such gear.  Buy a good speaker instead, then tweak to achieve those last few percentiles.

If room is taken out of the equation, speakers still remain 70% for me.  Again, this is assuming none of the other components are flawed.  Your system is only as good as the weakest link, and the speakers are definitely the most important.  Nothing else will effect the sound more than speakers (except the room, but it has been excluded).  Other components certainly make a noticeable difference, but in comparison to the difference the speakers make the difference is dubbed marginal.

For instance, my new Butler amp added into my existing system alone made a very noticeable difference, in a good way.  But If I had instead moved to Salk SoundScapes or Vandersteen model 5's or 7's, there would be no competition, as the differences would have been much grander.  So in the grand scheme of things, when being compared to everything else in the audio reproduction chain, the other components just don't effect the sound near as much as the speakers.

[DMurphy]

This is a particularly interesting subject for me, since Frank sent one of his Insight DAC-preamp combos to use as a backup in case anything horrible went wrong in Rockville (other than the room).  I'm going to give it a really close listen this weekend, although the transport I'll be using is part of an inexpensive AMC CD player that I've been using for 4 or 5 years.  Purely on the basis of science (and not any subjective impressions people may have had comparing transports), what kinds of contraints does the transport impose?  Why should I expect better sound from a more expensive transport? 

[Nuance]

This is a particularly interesting subject for me, since Frank sent one of his Insight DAC-preamp combos to use as a backup in case anything horrible went wrong in Rockville (other than the room).  I'm going to give it a really close listen this weekend, although the transport I'll be using is part of an inexpensive AMC CD player that I've been using for 4 or 5 years.  Purely on the basis of science (and not any subjective impressions people may have had comparing transports), what kinds of contraints does the transport impose?  Why should I expect better sound from a more expensive transport? 

Because:

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. 

[divisionbell77]

The question is relative importance of components.  Room is not a component.

[fsimms]

The room acoustics and speakers make up almost all of what you hear.  Ask any industry professional.  This is, of course, assuming that the rest of the system doesn't have some sort of flaw.

Even a cheap CD player through a good DAC will offer a great listening experience through great speakers in a great room.  If changing CD players makes a huge difference, there is something wrong with it, or your system is just really bad.    It would take some horrible jitter to be audible, in which case that would fall into the "flawed" category.

You are right on the money Nuance!   I am playing with positioning my HT1 speakers and had to temporarily disconnect my TACT preamp and Mccormack amp.  I have been listing to music through my cheap $250 Panasonic XR 70 receiver.  This receiver is not great in any area but is good in all areas.  The system sounds fantastic!  Of course it will sound even better when I get the full rig back up but, by themselves, it is remarkably good!  Not crying good, but very close! 

[rlee8394]

The question is relative importance of components.  Room is not a component.

Although the room has the greatest influence on the sound more than any other component. Unless the room is anechoic obviously.

[newzooreview]

This is a particularly interesting subject for me, since Frank sent one of his Insight DAC-preamp combos to use as a backup in case anything horrible went wrong in Rockville (other than the room).  I'm going to give it a really close listen this weekend, although the transport I'll be using is part of an inexpensive AMC CD player that I've been using for 4 or 5 years.  Purely on the basis of science (and not any subjective impressions people may have had comparing transports), what kinds of contraints does the transport impose?  Why should I expect better sound from a more expensive transport?

Looked at another way, what could go wrong to make a transport degrade the sound? Bad servo controlling disc speed, bad error correction in reading data off of the disc, bad power supply dumping noise into the output signal? I dunno. Maybe it's like amps--they should all sound very similar IF they've successfully addressed the technical pitfalls in carrying out their function.

Why the Insight DAC and not the Vision DAC? Never mind. Got it.

[Nuance]

This is true, newzooreview.  But its not that difficult these days to achieve all the above prerequisites for a fair price.  Of course, if any transport suffers from those things, I consider it flawed right off the bat. 

[jsalk]

In the the original question (which removes source material and room acoustics from consideration), the definition of "best sound" was addressed.  For some it may not be the case, but from our perspective, "best" means the most accurate reproduction of the source material.

If you look at it from that perspective, the importance of the speaker dwarfs the importance of all other components. The reason is that speakers are the least accurate components in a system.  So if the goal is accurate reproduction, speakers are the most critical.

At the risk of oversimplifying, even a moderately priced receiver is rated at 20 Hz - 20 KHz +/- 0.1 db.  Speakers, on the other hand, are generally rated at x Hz to x Hz +/- 3db...orders of magnitude less accurate.

You would never consider purchasing an amplifier rated at +/- 3db.  Yet we readily accept speaker performance within those tolerances.  From that perspective, speakers are clearly the limiting factor where accurate sound reproduction is concerned.

Granted, this is a rather simplistic analysis.  But it should serve to illustrate that a rating of 80 - 90% for the speakers is likely most appropriate.

Do higher quality transports, preamps and amps make a difference?  Of course they do, but not as much as some would believe.  You could drive a $100 Big Box pair of speakers with a $10,000 amp and the results would likely be quite poor.  But drive an appropriate $10,000 pair of speakers with a $100 amp and the sound would be surprisingly good.  While I am not recommending the latter approach, it should serve to illustrate the point...speakers are by far the most important component in a sound system.

Just a speaker builder's opinion...

- Jim

[fsimms]

I would like to add one more point.  The component, besides the speaker, that is most important is the Amp.  Amps usually have great specs but only into a resistive load.   Almost all speakers are reactive loads which cause some amps great problems.  This is usually only in the bass so it is not as immediately obvious and would otherwise be the case.  The room’s largest modifications are also in the same area and confuse the issue.  So, if the speakers are 80 percent of the importance, I would make the amp, at least, 10+ percent.

Bob

[martyo]

At the risk of oversimplifying

Granted, this is a rather simplistic analysis

I guess it is simplistic, but it is also a refreshing analysis.

[werd]

This is a particularly interesting subject for me, since Frank sent one of his Insight DAC-preamp combos to use as a backup in case anything horrible went wrong in Rockville (other than the room).  I'm going to give it a really close listen this weekend, although the transport I'll be using is part of an inexpensive AMC CD player that I've been using for 4 or 5 years.  Purely on the basis of science (and not any subjective impressions people may have had comparing transports), what kinds of contraints does the transport impose?  Why should I expect better sound from a more expensive transport?

Not necessarily more expensive but better transport  lets say. The transport drives the whole sound of your system. (not your speakers). The speakers are just an end product of it all.  You can have either a very clinical bland digital sound or very musical more analog sound. This depends very heavily on the quality of your transport.

[srb]

Not necessarily more expensive but better transport  lets say. The transport drives the whole sound of your system. (not your speakers). The speakers are just an end product of it all.  You can have either a very clinical bland digital sound or very musical more analog sound. This depends very heavily on the quality of your transport.

I will have to disagree with that, as my personal experience is different.  I have swapped many digital front ends, amplifiers and speakers, and the speakers have always made the most apparent difference in the resulting sound.
 
As far as a digital transport, the differences in those seem to be in the focus or tightness of the sound.  As far as a clinical digital or analog sound, that seems to be much more related to the DAC.
 
Steve

[werd]

.

If you look at it from that perspective, the importance of the speaker dwarfs the importance of all other components. The reason is that speakers are the least accurate components in a system.  So if the goal is accurate reproduction, Do higher quality transports, preamps and amps make a difference?  Of course they do, but not as much as some would believe.  You could drive a $100 Big Box pair of speakers with a $10,000 amp and the results would likely be quite poor.  But drive an appropriate $10,000 pair of speakers with a $100 amp and the sound would be surprisingly good.  While I am not recommending the latter approach, it should serve to illustrate the point...speakers are by far the most important component in a sound system.

Just a speaker builder's opinion...

- Jim

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...

[jtwrace]

1 Room
2 Speakers
3 Amp
4 Source

+1

It all still needs to work together though...

[cacophony777]

At the risk of oversimplifying, even a moderately priced receiver is rated at 20 Hz - 20 KHz +/- 0.1 db.  Speakers, on the other hand, are generally rated at x Hz to x Hz +/- 3db...orders of magnitude less accurate.

This is a great way to view it, thanks.

I just looked up specs on a bunch of Onkyo and Denon receivers, and most of them (even pretty expensive ones) say something like:

Frequency Response: 10 Hz–60 kHz (+1 dB, -3 dB)

How does one interpret this relative to your comment above?

[cacophony777]

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...

You keep repeating this point, but I still haven't seen a reason or explanation for why this would be the case. My understanding is that a functional CD player outputting a digital signal will sound exactly the same as any other functional CD player. If you disagree, please provide a concrete reason or evidence for how they could possible sound different.

[ctviggen]

This is a great way to view it, thanks.

I just looked up specs on a bunch of Onkyo and Denon receivers, and most of them (even pretty expensive ones) say something like:

Frequency Response: 10 Hz–60 kHz (+1 dB, -3 dB)

How does one interpret this relative to your comment above?

His comment stays the same, because he was using 20Hz - 20KHz (supposedly the range of hearing for a young person).  Chances are, your equipment isn't going to reproduce 10 Hz to 60Khz (and you wouldn't hear it anyway). 

[ctviggen]

You keep repeating this point, but I still haven't seen a reason or explanation for why this would be the case. My understanding is that a functional CD player outputting a digital signal will sound exactly the same as any other functional CD player. If you disagree, please provide a concrete reason or evidence for how they could possible sound different.

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. 

[cacophony777]

His comment stays the same, because he was using 20Hz - 20KHz (supposedly the range of hearing for a young person).  Chances are, your equipment isn't going to reproduce 10 Hz to 60Khz (and you wouldn't hear it anyway).

Here are some measurements from my integrated amp:

http://www.stereophile.com/integratedamps/907onk/index3.html

Unless I'm misinterpreting, it looks like at 8 Ohms from 10-20Khz it moves up to +2db. Does this mean the amp isn't very accurate between 10-20khz or am I missing something?