Poll: Most impactful component

Given all the technological advances over the years, audiophiles have very different perspectives on equipment.

This likely reopens an age old debate, but which component has the most potential to improve a stereo system? Or can it?

If you could upgrade one component to take your system to the next level which one would get the investment? Speakers? DAC? Pre? Source?

Or is this the holy grail that no one can achieve?

tee_dee05-19-2023 2:24am

jjss49 Details Discussions Posts This discussion Message User 6,608 posts 05-19-2023 at 04:24am Copy Comment URL Report Comment Edit Delete with everything right in the chain, it is the speaker that matters the most (along with room of course)
jjss49 Details Discussions Posts This discussion Message User 6,608 posts 05-19-2023 at 03:05pm Copy Comment URL Report Comment Edit Delete @roxy54 it is all important of course, after all it is a chain, so the ’weak link’ logic applies and folks who say it is the source do have a point, the signal starts there, once purity is lost, it is never recovered but my thinking is, as knowledgeable, experienced audiophiles, we should know how to get the source purity to a very high level, then the speakers (assumed to driven properly by amplification) are the actual ’musical instrument’ that electromechanically transduces the electrical signal to physical music that we hear... so that (and how the speakers couple to the listening room) is, to me, the most important/critical aspect for each of us to get right, and in most cases, the most difficult
jjss49 Details Discussions Posts This discussion Message User 6,608 posts 05-31-2023 at 03:32pm Copy Comment URL Report Comment Edit Delete i like your list and sequence @tomcarr 👍 my only comment is that 1, 2 and 3 are usually a simultaneous solve...