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Speakers or amplifier?

The thing is that even at my age my wife and I go to a lot of live performances. I like to have a seat at a live venue in my own home. Sometimes the seat at home is better than actually being at a live venue!

Cheers,

DV
 
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Assuming the use of pretty good and revealing speakers of decent neutrality and which are "happy" in the room they are in though I hear huge differences between amplifiers [...]
Hence I would say that once the speakers are good enough, and well integrated with the room (which is a huge caveat, granted) then the amp becomes just as important.

In the world of speakers “decent neutrality” is very hard to find. All speakers are prone to huge non-linear distortions (in comparison with the relatively tiny non-linear distortions of amps). See the work of Klippel.
 
A post from a fishie in another thread made me think this could be an interesting debate...

Which is the more important to the overall sound quality? Speakers (and cartridge) or amplification?

Discuss:)
Speakers, they have by far the biggest effect on the sonic signature (and therefore subjective sound quality) of a system. I do however firmly believe that every part of the system is important.
 
In order of priority for information retreival:
Recording
Source
Amp
Speakers

In order of priority for character / flavour of the sound:
Speakers and their interaction with the room

You'll see from the above that what you need to achieve is the right balance between these conflicting issues for you, your room and your budget.
Anyone who gives a definitive A or B answer is working from dogma rather than experiential listening.
Also, anyone who gives a seemingly definitive answer about budget apportioning is giving questionable advice. There is, IMHO, little correlation between the ability to convey a musical message and the price tag. This is what makes the hobby equal parts fascinating and frustrating.
 
Speaker + room combination. "Source last" is the correct mantra for digital systems today, you can build a perfect (to all intents and purposes) digital source for no more than £200.
Please let me know about this £200 perfect source. What is it?
 
Very good question. In the old days I adhered to the flat earth policy of source first. At one point I had a mid spec LP12 feeding a Rega Brio & Castle Trent 2s. The change from Rega P2 to LP12 was absolutely massive.

Logically if you have a high quality front end each subsequent upgrade will be more readily revealed.

I also ran an 82/flat cap nap 90 at one point.

Recently I have had a some ATC40's at home (active) & they have been probably the most fundamental upgrade I have done. These are set to replace a Nap250/SBLs.

I echo earlier comments about room being a huge factor.
Equally, if you'd had a poor source, they could've been a massive disappointment. To start from a great source and then buy speakers that make a huge improvement is validating the choice of a great source that enables your speakers to shine.
To conclude, from this example, that speakers are most important is not a logical conclusion.
 
No, that was not the premise. I thought it could make for interesting debate and wondered if the expected "speakers every time" view really would be that prevalent.

Some more food for thought/opinion.... If we take a reasonable sounding speaker, definitely hi fi by most parameters and opinions, but not especially fab and not that revealing or high resolution, let's say Celestion Ditton 15XR's for something that would fit the bill (showing my age big style in choosing those as a suitable example! Not sure what a modern equivalent would be...) and use a good source, then even the amp taken from a 10-20WPC TV set or car audio player would sound pretty good. If you told people that the amp in use was a Quad or Arcam no one would doubt it and most would say that it gave a pleasant enough sound as a starter system.

Achieving bass that goes all the way down, treble that goes right up, reasonable clarity and bass control and with no obvious distortion is very easy in an amp (in a SS amp particularly). It would be difficult to get this wrong in fact! (SET's anyone? :rolleyes:)

If we now replace the speakers with a lets say £2000+ modern speaker known to be uncoloured, transparent and revealing then although it could still be described as "hi fi", and would have greater bass extension, we would probably find it maybe "glassy", "a bit harsh", "rather mechanical", "gritty top end" and pretty poor depth and soundstaging....

The speaker is now very revealing of the amps subjective limitations and to get a sound worthy of the speakers price tag you will need a much better, and more expensive amp. Let's say a £1500 amp for the sake of argument.

To take this argument to the next stage, lets say this is a particularly good £2000 speaker and that with an excellent £3500 amp it is able to REALLY come alive and shine in a way you would only have expected from a £4000 speaker... Now which is more important? Speaker or amp?

The concept of the weakest link in the chain and of "system building" is as old as the hills of course but I guess that what I'm suggesting is that once the source is good, and, more importantly to this debate, once the speakers are truly revealing etc, that all the stuff commonly heard on the lines of "all modern amps are very good and sound similar enough to one another that the speakers is where all the real differences and improvements are to be found" kind of goes out the window!

Again... Discuss... :)

You use only terms that describe the character of the sound of a system. In this case I would suggest that a speaker change would be of more value to you.
If you'd used terms applying to the musical message and the emotion conveyed by the music, the answer would be about a source first system.
By this I mean the musical capability of the components and not the price. I also mean proportionate considerations and not how some people would interpret source first which I would characterise as source at all costs which ends up with an extremely capable source which passes its contribution down the line to components that throw away much of what the source has extracted from the recording.
 
The speakers, each bring a different musical enjoyment to the music depending on what type of music I play and the mood I am in.
Wow. That's a lot of work to change speakers depending on the music and mood. That must be a number of possible combinations approaching the infinite.
 
A brief perusal of the thread on photos of people's systems will reveal many have opted for a stack of relatively expensive electronic boxes and a turntable which then feeds some small 2 way speakers placed wherever is convenient.

i resemble this remark...

despite the fact that experiments with speaker positioning have yielded some of the biggest sonic gains i've experienced, my NYC living room won't accommodate a delicious-measuring pair of giant Revels, so i muddle through with small 2-way floorstanders and spend my dosh on the deck and boxes. (my DeVore Gibbons have a nice, rich balance -- especially at the low volume levels i can get away with given the neighbors -- so i can't protest too much.)
 


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