Select Your Less Than Ideal System

Looks like you don't have much of a paper here, with the overwhelming choice being C, to which I add my vote as well. If you included some more "moderates" in your choices you would get much more variety of response.

Learsfool, I might reach the same conclusion if I were looking at it from the outside. I fully expected that choice C would dominate. The survey didn't hold many surprises for me; it essentially confirmed what I was thinking. So that people avoid "jumping to contusions", it would be incorrect to think that the article is going to be about cabling being the most important part of a system. :)

i would like to explain my position because i am obviously in the minority, or , as one would say in statistics, an outlier.

first of all, audio is a very subjective hobby. one cannot second guess another person's perceptions.

terms like "moderate" are vague and ambiguous, unless defined specifically.

as a reviewer , i varied each component in a stereo system and listened to the resultant difference.

the only thing i would assert unequivocally is the importance of the source. it is possible to create excellent sound if one has an excellent source, such as a master tape. it is difficult to quantify the difference in the affect upon improvements in sound when changing twoo components.

for example, there would be a relative change in sound affecting a stereo system between cables "a" and "b", as well as changing two amplifiers. it is possible that a cable change may be more profound than a change in amplifiers. there arte no absolutes.

thus doug, you have posed a rhetorical question which is philosophical in nature and probably has no definitive answer.

only you can assess the usefulness of this thread.

The survey seems to have run its course; thank you to all participants.

E.
Excellent source
Moderate amplification
Moderate cabling
Excellent speakers

I think you missed an important choice.

From the Audio Critic:

As I used to state over and over again in the print version of The Audio Critic, all amplifiers
having high input impedance, low output impedance, flat frequency response, low distortion,
and low noise floor sound exactly the same when operated at matched levels and not clipped.
This has been proven so many times in double-blind listening tests that opinions to the contrary
by the tweako/weirdo element of the audiophile community and by the subjectivist audio press
can be totally disregarded. They just don’t get it.