Why we (often) upgrade the wrong things (first) and ignore the important things

Thank you @hilde45 for sharing this, I agree 100%.

The old adage;  buy the speaker for the room and then buy the best amp for that speaker is a solid foundation with which to build a system. EXPENSIVE  cables come near the end. 

That's exactly how I built my room. I started with some basic components (Schitt, Rotel) and speakers I already had. My room, my former home office, was terrible sounding with serious limitations. I then spent two years experimenting and measuring, trying different approaches to room treatment and speaker placement. 

When I got to a point where I I could enjoy the overall sound, even with some remaining issues, I began to upgrade components. I could hear differences easily and went through 3 amps, four preamps, 3 DACs, 3 streamers and various cables before arriving at my present component group. The room finally deserved new speakers, which I got just a couple of months ago. 

I continue to tweak room treatment and speaker placement but the sound I've achieved is very satisfying. 

I never saw a room treatment that looked sexy to me. A vintage Yamaha receiver with 20 buttons and meters, however.... 

You can never go wrong with...

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/uUQAAOSw1B9jDXVd/s-l1600.jpg

DeKay

Great comments! Glad you are liking the suggested video.

I disagree that audio is subjective. 

Something that comes up constantly in audio forums is the claim that sound quality is "subjective," usually deployed to shut down conversation or excuse any result from any equipment. 

But if that were really true, we wouldn't be able to have these discussions at all — and clearly we can. We read reviews, take recommendations seriously, update our views after a demo or a careful listening session. That's not what a purely subjective domain looks like.

What people usually mean when they say "it's subjective" is one of a few things: individual listeners have different sensitivities and preferences (true, and manageable), the variables are hard to control (also true, but that's an experimental challenge, not a metaphysical wall), or the causal chain from equipment to perception is complicated (absolutely — but complexity isn't the same as arbitrariness).

There's also a large scientific literature on psychoacoustics and listening preference that converges on real findings about what most listeners find pleasing, fatiguing, or accurate. That literature exists because the domain is tractable.

So "subjective" in audio mostly just means "I'm not going to control for those variables right now" — which is fine, but it's an admission about methodology, not a deep truth about sound. Once you account for room, recordings, listener sensitivity, and stated preferences, there are genuinely better and worse ways to achieve good sound. The conversation we're already having proves it.