Which is the most important part of a stereo system?

The vinyl. No question. Then place it on an ancient AR XA TT & arm with a V-15 VxMR, an Apt Holman preamp, a Hafler DH-500 power amp and either a pair of Maggies or Martin Logan electrostat hybrids. Of course, both the Apt and the Hafler need to be refurbished, but that's doable. Yes, you can do better, but you'll need to spend insane dinero to do it.

Getting the system optimized to work with the room - rather than against it - is the major key to unlocking your music.

IMO, & IME, of course...

Best,

Jim Smith

Volya Audio Bouquet speakers.. 
 
ALL NEW top of the line Audio Note 300B Meishu Tonmeister Integrated Amp.. 

 Live Music IN YOUR ROOM...

The room embeddings exceed any electronic design potential S.Q. of speakers or any other electronic components in almost all case....

Acoustic embeddings wins all....

Speakers cannot work rightfully in a bad room, at the maximum potential, without mechanical vibration/resonance controls and in a too noisy electrical grid...

Any acoustic engineer will say the same thing...

« Audio is the active communication between the room of the house and the room of your head. Simple» -Groucho Marx



Electronic design is generic, and the same for any room....

But the interaction between the room of the house where the speakers are amid many other things, and the room of your head, is not generic, it is totally indiduated and absolutely unique.... It is from this communication between the 2 rooms that any S.Q. is or is not what it could be.... The resonance/vibrations controls, and the noise floor of the house and room increase or decrease greatly also the S.Q. But the communication between the room acoustic and your ears are the main factor....

Anyway all these 3 embeddings are totally particular in each case....Electronic design is generic, an electronic component need to be embed to express any particular working of his own.... The factors that will influence the working of any electronic design are EXTERNAL to it: another interacting connected gear, the electrical cables of the house and room and all electric appliances, the vibrations and the many sources of all interactive resonances, all that will transform amy electronic component giving to it an individulized behavior and a variable qualitative workings....( i even forget humidity, temperature and the electrical grid in a particular city)

At the end the evaluation of the S.Q. of any working electronic device will be communicated to you by the room acoustic....

No amplifier speak by himself.... the speakers are translators...

The room only speak by himself to your ears....


«If the room speaks, then my ears too»-Groucho Marx

« You said it Groucho, not me» - Harpo marx

I have to go with speakers  .Getting them first ,what you like ,the sound of them.Then you'll know ,what kind of power you need to power those Speakers.Already having an amp that doesn't  have enough power,dampening your speaker choices.

The best amp/receiver in the world won't make mediocre speakers sound good. Good speakers on a mediocre amp/receiver will still sound good. Spend significantly more on your speakers and sub, just buy a receiver that has the features and build quality you require. In my opinion of course.

Controls over the information-synesthetic embeddings field is perhaps a little bit too much to ask for when people dont even properly embed their audio system in the first three dimensions.... :)

You are from the future indeed.....

Look, I did’t even have to squeeze his head that time. 🤗

Removing geoff from the room is best for the SQ. cause' I imagine he just keep's talking ..... 🙉

You’re close, mapman, very close. The real answer is the user’s experiments.

The most important part is the user’s expectations.

Oh boy, that's rich... 🙄👎

I figured that would bring out my stalkers but I didn’t expect the quickness. One suspects you’re trying to be the poor man’s glubson. 🤗

Well color me surprised!' 😱

Here are some examples of subconscious interaction with surroundings for your consideration. Comments accepted. 😬

The color blue for room walls is best for SQ.

The color green for the room ceiling is best for SQ.

The color white for any cable or power cord jacket is best for SQ.

Removing all CDs, LPs, DVDs or books in the room is best for the SQ.

Removing all cell phones from the room is best for the SQ.

The MONEY source is the most important!

Which is the most important part of a stereo system?

There isn't one. As long as there is an audiophile around to argue about it nothing else matters.

I will tend to you later, Mr. Smarty Pants 👖 If you don’t know just say you don’t know.

geoffkait,

If you're actually interested in self education I suggest you start with the work of Sigmund Freud and then move on to that of his nephew Edward Bernays.

I don't approve of psychological shenanigans, but you as a 'businessman' might owe it to yourself.

cd318
Your subconscious largely composed of memories also happens to be the most unreliable part of the sonic equation.

>>>>Yet memories are what allows you to hear music. You can remember words and music, no? You like a certain song because you can remember it. That’s how you can sing along in church, because you remember the words and the music. You can probably remember entire movies if you work on it a little bit. 😬 If your memory is unreliable eat more fish. 🐟 🐟 🐟 And if you’re going to pretend to be an expert on the subconscious or psychology at least provide links to support your statements. The sonic equation? 😬

mahgister

Your subconscious. Final answer. The one variable you can’t control. 😳

Too deep to be attented and controlled in my first 7 years of audio experiments for sure...This is the information field.....But I think that you know that.... :)

I think that this variable cannot be controlled the way the others embedding’s variables can be, but it is possible to create bridges that will open more the mind toward a better reception of the information... I will attempt it someday....

>>>>>May your path take you to the promised land one day. Meanwhile rejoice in what you have. 🤗 As for myself I am always moving beyond. Good luck in your quest for the Unified Field Theorry. 😀

There is no final frontier. - Sammy Davis Jr.

Good luck to everybody. - Bob Dylan

Everything matters, however, my observations have led me to feel that a preamp can make or break a system. 

Your subconscious. Final answer. The one variable you can’t control. 😳

Too deep to be attented and controlled in my first 7 years of audio experiments for sure...This is the information field.....But I think that you know that.... :)


I think that this variable cannot be controlled the way the others  embedding's variables can be, but it is possible to create bridges that will open more the mind toward a better reception of the information... I will attempt it someday....

Your subconscious largely composed of memories also happens to be the most unreliable part of the sonic equation.

Yet it is the one most targetted by advertising and marketing. You will see these attempts everywhere.

There are even some here on AG who seem do little other than constantly attempt to slyly divert some of the available revenue stream towards their own direction.

Nothing can beat real time listening and comparison. Everyone knows this and anybody who has done so will also know that loudspeakers make the greatest sonic difference.

No two sound alike or even close.

Not even when tested under controlled blind listening conditions.

Which other component can you say the same for?

Your subconscious. Final answer. The one variable you can’t control. 😳

Your Ears.

7 years ago this answer would make me cold.....Now it seems the most clear revelation from my last years journey in audio with the experiments about embeddings an audio system...


Speakers+Room+ Ears are ONE......

Your Ears.

Rbyington I get your analogy perfectly and just recently improving my source improved everything else down the line especially my enjoyment of listening to my favourite music however all source components are not created equal .
A new and improved dac didn’t do it , neither did new speakers or wires or anything else to the extent that I got from improving source components IE Innuos Zenith 3 server and the all in one box Innuos Phoenix USB regenerator, power supplies and data clock. 

Of course like a quality camera lens and choice of fine grain slide film back in the day the quality of the recording itself is equally important.

rbyington711,

I get where you’re coming from but personally I think the camera and recording studio analogy works a bit better. Wouldn’t you agree that it’s the microphones and lenses that do the vital capturing work?

Maybe a loudspeaker is more like the monitor you might use to later view the captured image.

Couldn't a poor loudspeaker be likened to a poorly calibrated monitor, introducing far more serious distortions than anything else in the chain?

Come to think of it, even a good loudspeaker will do that, just far less obviously.

Unfortunately recorded audio, existing in a circle of confusion without any established standards or reference points, does not yet have the equivalent of an international colour chart as used in photography (or film/TV).

So loudspeaker playback can only be an approximated guess at what was put down on tape, unlike a well calibrated monitor which can accurately reproduce what was captured on film.

Going further, maybe the captured image should be likened to the finished recording. Once it’s finished, very little can be done to improve it. For sure scratches and dropouts can be repaired the same way Photoshop etc can repair damaged prints but nothing can improve the captured resolution.

You know when you mentioned a $2000 lens I recalled a glossy black and white photograph taken of my sister at school back in the mid 1970s.

We still have this photo and to this day it remains amazingly sharp. None of the many many photographs since have come as close to that one for sheer image precision. It’s almost uncannily detailed and sharp.

Unless I ask her, and unless she remembers, I’m going to assume that it must have been an excellent camera placed on a tripod!

Or maybe the photographer just got lucky. Could happen!?

I can’t help you with the Marantz issue except to say that my experiences with Marantz (1 amp and 2 CD players) has shown them to be unusually reliable products. The only fault was with the CD remote control which needed cleaning and reassembly after many many years.

http://seanolive.blogspot.com/2009/10/audios-circle-of-confusion.html?m=1

The most important part of the stereo is bragging about how much money I spent.

After that, the room.

You hear people say the source? But you also hear people say the speakers. I was a press photographer in College and it's the lens that captures the image on film talking 35mm here. The better the lens the better the image. The body of the camera is essentially a box to hold the film. I would see students in the ’80s and 90s buy the top of the line Nikon for thousands of dollars and shoot with the standard lens it came with.
Eddie Adams the famous Time-Life photographer told me buy a $500 camera and a $2000 lens if you want to capture a good image. I think it's the same with the speakers being the lens and the source being the camera body. Also read that someone was suggested, Marantz I had terrible trouble getting my top of the line $6000 unit serviced after it crashed and burned in the first 12 mo. Has anyone else expended this? I know it's a separate question

I'd call the "synergy" among the components and the cabling the "most important part" of a system.

If I'd put more emphasis anywhere, I'd go with the sources.  "Garbage in, Garbage out".

I think Millercarbon has a strong point. If you change one part of your system it can change everything. If you believe there’s a gap or weak spot that’s probably the best place to start
I recently upgraded my integrated amp - the preamp and amp combo added a DAC snd upgraded my phono stage improving the sound of my streamer, turntable and tape deck. And a friend‘s first comment was ‘I can hear why you like your Sonus Farbers...previous experience was they were analytical and lacking in mid-bass with poor details. Any improvement can improve everything.

The room is the most important part. I’ve had a nice setup in a bad room and it sounded really bad. I would rather listen to a mediocre system in a great room over the highest of high end systems in a terrible room any day. The only exception I can think of might be dipole speakers which do a good job of “removing” the room from the equation. 

Another vote for the room.
It IS the most important single component affecting the sound by at least half or more of what you will hear.
It's also the most overlooked/disregarded.
The majority of us just keep focusing on the gear.
There's a reason someone came up with "audiofool"...

Well, as often, valuable points of view. I'll go counter-culture. Without excellent power amp nothing will sound right with any source, preamp, speakers or cables. After that turntable itself, not tonearm or cartridge, and speakers - any order. Modest but basically good speakers will sing with great power amp, the other way around won't get you anywhere.

Just in case nobody mentioned it already which they probably didn’t - the fuse, be it ever so humble. Another one nobody probably mentioned is electrical connections of all non-audio outlets. And one more nobody mentioned  - how many CDs are in the room.

The single most influential component for playback sound quality is universally accepted as the loudspeakers. It’s been this way for decades, perhaps even from the days of the birth of audio.

No two pairs sound the quite the same, sometimes nothing like it.

That in no way is to deny that individual mood at the time of listening is not absolutely crucial to the received perception.

We all know just how good the human imagination can be. In the right mood (and company) I can easily imagine that my Sony television set sounds better than most of the systems I have heard.

Same thing can happen with the playback system in a club or a party, but only if I’m having a really good time.

Later on it sometimes becomes a puzzle as to how I could have believed such obvious nonsense.

The mind and all it’s tricks seem to be geared towards promoting survival and seeking pleasure, and not always towards discerning any form of truth.

YOU are the most important part, because if you don't like it, no matter what the accessories cost, basically you wasted your money. Those that criticize what you like are not paying for the system nor having to listen to it . . . you are; therefore, listen to opinions, salespeople and do your homework . . . and if someone is ungracious in listening to your system (not talking about constructive criticisms or sincere help), then invite them to go home and listen to what they choose.

Your room, room, and more room impact the sound more than you know. A system is a whole, they work together, power cords impact gear more than any other cable, the wrong power cords and can make a good piece of gear sound like crap. So don’t look at if I change one piece of gear as the only thing to improve your system, start with the room your using 1st and in most cases that will cost far less than a new piece of gear. Speakers interact with the room, how does a speaker sound only as good as your room allows. I see so many speakers on Youtube that are big $$$$ ones and they are in a room that kills the sound of all their gear and money they spent, it is a waste of money in a reverb hard space. Audio is like cooking what spices do you like? To each his own, tubes or Solid State or Class D, H, all have their followers, its what you like for your ear and enjoyment, no reviewer can get your system right for you, learn from experience what you enjoy the kind of sound you like then build towards that goal. We are only 0.5% of the consumer market, so we are a rare breed. Which is why what format we like makes no impact in the big picture of electronic sales. SACD, MQA are good formats but the 99.5% of the buying public doesn’t care, that why they all slowly die out, not that they are no good but most people don’t care, they want portable so a pair of earbuds and a cell phone and they are good to go, along with digital radio streaming. Audiophiles are a hobbyist group who enjoy the art of reproduction and will sit and listen, Boomers are the market when they go the market goes with them. I know of none of all my family and their family nor their friends have as much wrapped up in their home system as the cost of my power cords. They got other priorities, like kids, education, gaming, etc.

For me there is no singular most "important" component.  Rather, there are important choices in the development of a system.

In no special order, type of speaker, i.e. planar, box speaker, K-horn, etc.  The choice here will often lead to amplifier choice for a variety of well documented reasons.

Then there are source choices to be made. Are you a vinyl person, or do you stream, perhaps SACD / CDs acquired over tume.

Are you a tube enthusiast, either amplifier or pre amplifier?

Any of these choices could be the most important to you, but perhaps not me.  Thus, the fragmented nature of the discourse here.

So I will share my most important choice(s).  I am a Maggie fan and that has driven my amplifier choice as well as pre amp.  Others will have different first choices, there is mo right or wrong, just individual preference IMHO.

Obviously that wouldn’t solve the problem.

Years ago, WireWorld invented a Cable Comparator. It accepts several interconnects. It has a shift knob to quickly switch between them

terry9

I did the test. I built a special cabinet to be a Faraday cage, then used theoretically optimal 99.99% pure silver conductors inside teflon tubular insulators which barely contacted the conductors, which were separated by 50mm for near-zero capacitance. ETI connectors. Compared to premium microphone cable with ETI connectors. Difference negligible.

>>>>>Strictly speaking, that is not a scientifically valid test. That’s the problem generally with cable tests and cable comparisons. There are variables that are not accounted for in the test. Examples:cables not sufficient broken in; cables not cryod; cables’’ directionality not accounted for; the possibility of errors in the test system. Therefore I am inclined to throw your test out. 

@tweak1  Terry9, and anyone else who thinks cables are least important:
you couldn’t be more wrong"

So you think that cables are more important than the speakers? Amplifiers? Preamp? Phono? Turntable? Tonearm? Or cartridge?

And what is your evidence? I mean a real test, not a gut feeling.

I did the test. I built a special cabinet to be a Faraday cage, then used theoretically optimal 99.99% pure silver conductors inside teflon tubular insulators which barely contacted the conductors, which were separated by 50mm for near-zero capacitance. ETI connectors. Compared to premium microphone cable with ETI connectors. Difference negligible.

The specific model of epitaxial output transistors, from the same manufacturer, same technology, and same family, made far more difference. As did the resistance of the amp's circuit breaker. Lots of things make a difference, and even cabling does to some extent. But nothing compared to an entire component. And next to nothing in terms of benefit related to cost.

For me it's my ears.  Can't do jack without them.
But so far as the hardware chain goes source components first as numerous have said

For many years I believed it to be the speakers, but after experiencing a hi-end system in a room before it was (properly) treated acoustically, then after the room was properly treated, the difference was nothing short of stunning.
Again, the system did not change, only the room. I think anyone who is serious about hifi and wants the best from the space that their system resides in should correct the space before trying to correct the system to their ears liking.

Room acoustics.

What's wrong with you Denon and your Turntable?
Have you heard another system that you liked?
Personally, I think a stereo system is really just a decoding mechanism. The more information you can retrieve from your source the more information you will hear. 
Do you live in an apartment, condo or home? The reason I ask is, unless you have neighbors that love your music you'll find listening with headphones doesn't break leases. 
With speakers, then its a matter of the kind of music you like, how loud  you'll play the music and how much bass you want. Some amps and speakers do work better together than others, ie - low powered tube amps with efficient horn speakers, high power amps with less efficient speakers like Magnapans. Also with speakers, consider how big is your room and how close will you be to the speakers. But mainly it's the type of music you like that determines which components work for you. Having the most reveling system doesn't guarantee nirvana. Try playing 70's commercial rock records on a reveling system and see what it sounds like. 
Simple answer to your question - an integrated amp like the Outlaw Audio RR-2160 sounds great and has a DAC, internet radio and a FM tuner. With your turntable, try using a felt mat and check out the videos on You Tube regarding the removal of the shipping screws near the motor. (I did on my ProJect and it cut down on the motor noise and the felt mat reduced the static clicks. Also, clean your records and try plugging all your components directly into the AC outlets (replacing your ac outlets with hospital grade outlets helps increase the apparent bass). Have fun and enjoy the ride.