[thunderbrick]

#1 the music, especially of the recoding engineer did a good job, and if it's a genre you enjoy

#2  In my case it was a couple of amps that transformed things (after MANY loans and purchases of stuff that didn't do it for me).  Now that I have settled for life with my amp..............

#3 The preamp.  In the past 10 years I have owned nearly a dozen, and while they have all made differences, it wasn't as great as finding heaven with the amp.  But it still made a big difference.

#4 A tie between moving to Maggie 1.6s and borrowing a different MC cartridge    (Thanks, Scott!)

My .02.

'brick

[opnly bafld]

Wayner, I like your priorities, but have never owned an active pre-amp and for years have used monoblocks but not owned/used any pre-amps. 

IMO this is a bit misleading since your dac has a 3v out tube gain stage with a volume control.

Lin

[buckeyefanandy]

Not everyone can afford a fire breathing dragon.

At this point everybody probably thinks source components are my favorite gear. No my favorite components are power amps.  When i look at systems i always see power first. I like power amps the best. I even tried to spice up the look of my bdp/bda to make it more interesting.....




  i know its ridiculous.

The first time i heard my source gear as a component wasn't until after i invested in good treated AC. I started tweaking out my source and it clicked. I went -- "WOW" -- i actually hear this component. The whole mystery of the audio chain unveiled itself to impact of each component. The fog was gone. I looked at systems differently and how they work as a whole.

  It reminded me the first time i went and had my prostate checked...lol. During the exam..." i was like holy shit!!! thats been there all along...... "

When i started tweaking my source gear i heard the source  component for what it was. The beginning of the audio chain. The tweaks were on the source and it changed up the sound. It also speaked to the importance of that component. If you hear that gear and you can change it then its clearly the most important piece. Especially since its at the start of the audio chain.

Pre amps are the component that you are not suppose to hear. Its completely unlike the source gear. That piece should be neutral and out of the way. I am speaking theoretical.
Realistically we all love the little things it does when we use tubes or active line or passive. Its just are tweaking nature. But for me it just a tweak off the source. You see where i am going with this.

Power amps amplify, thats it. Clean with lots of reserve. But we all love the different ways the power changes up the source signal. Its just are tweaking nature of the source of making it loud..

Speakers react to the signal load it sees from the amp. It allows us to hear the music played on our source gear. Setting up a speakers in a decent audio chain is difficult and some how i think people confuse it with importance. Getting the right speaker position and knowing the right speaker choices is being some what skillful. It doesn't speak to the importance of it an the  audio chain imo but the skillfullness of it. They are just harder to set up and we all like the way they can look and how they sound.

So when i hear people say "all amps sound the same" and they are using the same source gear and not very great. (I am not talking about yours Wayner). I think to my self "no shit". Everything is going to sound the same if you don't set up your system to make it source friendly.

[*Scotty*]

Elizabeth +2.
  Your statement is 100% correct. Sometimes the weakest link is a simple as a coupling cap. When it is replaced with one with grossly superior performance, the true potential of the amplifier,preamplifier or source component's circuit design is revealed.
  The weakest link always determines the system's level of performance.
Scotty

[eclein]

Elizabeth +3, the same thought I had

[Wind Chaser]

#1 the music, especially of the recoding engineer did a good job, and if it's a genre you enjoy

Absolutely right.  If the recording stinks or the music sucks, nothing else matters.  Every true music lover knows this.  Gearheads skip this important fact and prefer to quibble about everything else.

[Guy 13]

Hi all Audio Circle members.
In any audio sound system, all the pieces are equally important.
However, if the source is of mediocre quality, how can the other pieces of the system be good, all the pieces of an audio system, cannot be better than the source or cannot rwally improve the source.
Some pieces of a audio system, don't need to be excessively expensive, like speaker cables at 5,000 USD.
Guy 13
P.S.
I agree with the above posts.

[JLM]

Lin,

I suppose you're right, the EE DAC has a real tube output with volume control that is relatively strong.  But frankly it hasn't been a huge step up from my Scott Endler modded Behringer DEQ 2496 with stepped attenuators.


Another thought, I take it that audiophiles are into both hearing the very best sonic qualities (whatever that means) and love of music.  As a lover, the quality of recording and system are secondary.  Case in point is all the time we spend listening in cars, FM, MP3 via earbuds, etc. under far less than ideal circumstances.

After 40 years at this, I'm into coherency (allows for proper nearfield listening which in itself is huge), imaging (focus with proper size & big soundscape), and palpability (body density & juicy tonality) with detail taking a backseat.  More power, detail, and many other "audiophile" qualities can make so much poorly recorded music sound like finger nails on chalk board.

[Mitsuman]

I think the ears are the most important part. 

[emac]

While I'm not going to disagree with the ideas in the thread, to me, the mind is the most important piece of a system.

A couple of examples:
1.  When I'm tired (physically or emotionally), music just doesn't sound as good to me.  Usually more flat and lifeless.  The music is good, but it still doesn't sound as good as when I'm rested.  I guess I could also expand this idea out to my mood.  When I'm upset or bummed about something, music also doesn't sound as good.  The opposite tends to happen when I'm happy or excited. 

2.  Expectations play a big role.  For example, if I try something different in my system (e.g. new cables, source, etc.), 90% of the time it sounds better the first few times I listen to the new set up.  Then, after a few days when the expectation effect passes, I sometimes will say, "This change didn't do anything" or it actually made things worse.  Another example: if I feel that one or another part of my system is holding it back (even if the decision doesn't make much sense), I likely won't enjoy the sound as much as I had before.  This creates the "never satisfied" problem.  The reality is that the sound hasn't changed, but my perception of it has. 

As a result, I feel that Yogi Berra was quite right in saying "90% of the game is half mental".

[JohnR]

I don't think there is a most important piece... (sorry!)

It's a bit like asking which is the most important piece in your car. You could make an argument for any number of things, but saying any one thing like the chassis or the motor or the wheels or the bodywork is "most important" seems... well, to me it seems unproductive.

Maybe there's a different way to ask the question. With the car analogy, what's most important to you? Looks? Handling? Comfort? Quarter-mile performance? Style? Fashion? Reliability? Individuality? The stereo? (oops!)

[richidoo]

I don't think there is a most important piece... (sorry!)

I think the ears are the most important part. 

 and 

[toocool4]

It is been very interesting reading what everyone has to say about what is more important.

To me the first person that really thought about it and made sense was Wayner saying the most important thing is the material. Like the saying goes “it’s all about the music stupid”.

Like Mitsuman also said your ears.
Let’s use the extreme case, if you are deaf you are not going to enjoy anything with regard to music anyway.
If the material is bad i.e. crap music you do not like or bad recording nothing down the line is going to make it better. Garbage in Garbage out.

[Gopher]

The room!  I'm experiencing first hand how much satisfaction a bad room can steal from listening.

Shindo's belief was that the preamp is the heart of the system.

[pardales]

 and 

Agreed. Its the synergy of the whole baby!  Including YOU 

[macrojack]

Further upstream - the juice is most important. Nothing mentioned here can perform at all without it.

[Eric]

The weakest link.

[werd]

I am not talking about synergy or the weakest link. In any system, have synergy or not the piece that gets amplified is the source piece. So call it the most important piece or call it the piece that gets amplified or call it the source. What ever its all the same.

[werd]

Here is a good eg. What is the most important piece here ?




I would say the pre amp but there is none....   Wayner

Pre amps and power amps are just a tweak off the source. This pic says it all but gives good argument for speakers too.

[Thebiker]

I'm a tuber, but I'm gonna kick in MHO based on recent experience.  I run 3 two channel systems in my home, plus HT.
The third system I just put back together in my reloading room (yet another expensive hobby).  Initially I dropped an older HK single CD player into the system since in was sitting around doing nothing. 

Fired it up and thought, damn those cheap-ass speakers have to go, they sound way too muddy for me to tolerate!  Then I grabbed a Rotel CD 1072 from another system that had a modded Sony 9100ES in it as well.  Difference - night & day.  Soundstage opened up and clarity had arrived. 

Sounds like I'm endorsing the source but my bottom line is the newer DAC in the Rotel was MUCH better and that made the difference.  I could have plugged the digital out of the HK into a DAC (which I borrowed from the main system to find out) and it cleared the mud.  Same source, different DAC, a point I believe Wayner made.  Sometimes newer technology is the answer.

My response is that the piece that brings it all together is the most important.  System synergy is always my answer.  Just MHO.