Love these chicken/egg threads.
I agree that in an absolute sense the differences in IC's will probably be more audible in a source application, but my version of which to chose first is just the opposite of many, especially if you have several sources which makes it more expensive to approach the source/IC first.
Sources sound different and you probably have several. You will want to pick your IC to match each source. They may not be the same brand/type of IC's. You will have a hard time really identifying source/IC/system synergy without already having already put together an amp/IC/Speaker (and speaker cable) which allows you to hear the differences that are made when you pick sources and IC's.
Now if you have only one source and it is the component you are building your system around perhaps starting there makes sense, but I still don't know how you will know when you have optimized its performance.
I agree that in an absolute sense the differences in IC's will probably be more audible in a source application, but my version of which to chose first is just the opposite of many, especially if you have several sources which makes it more expensive to approach the source/IC first.
Sources sound different and you probably have several. You will want to pick your IC to match each source. They may not be the same brand/type of IC's. You will have a hard time really identifying source/IC/system synergy without already having already put together an amp/IC/Speaker (and speaker cable) which allows you to hear the differences that are made when you pick sources and IC's.
Now if you have only one source and it is the component you are building your system around perhaps starting there makes sense, but I still don't know how you will know when you have optimized its performance.