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Which component has the biggest effect on the sound?

Gerald said:
unnecessary pedantry ,they are of course components upon which the question "which component as the biggest effect on sound" can be addressed .
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Hardly pedantry; addressing imperfections in the room is essentially the same as upgrading any other component in a system, as opposed to selling that particular component and buying a new one.
 
Steven Toy said:
Er, if that is aimed at me I use large(ish) Tannoys, remembe,r not tiddy Focal 1008s on the end of Accuphase amps that are a bit soft in the bass in such combination.
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Hmm, valve amps and big Tannoys. Looks like we got us a Round Earther here.
 
ItemAudio said:
The room can't not be a component . . .
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Okay , have it your way , next time a customer comes in enquiring what to buy , tell him to piss off and save up for a better house with a listening room sufficiently long to reproduce the lowest bass frequencies and suitably constructed .
 
Wow! This has to be the "Five-Minute Argument" of Monty Python fame wherein everyone indulges in the automatic gainsaying of anything posted... :)
 
Gerald said:
Okay , have it your way , next time a customer comes in enquiring what to buy , tell him to piss off and save up for a better house with a listening room sufficiently long to reproduce the lowest bass frequencies and suitably constructed .
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Can't you see that, as with other components, there's a halfway house between keeping what you've got and replacing it entirely? Some rooms are probably beyond help, but most can be improved. Adding expensive new speakers to a compromised room probably won't result in a better sound, and may even result in a worse one.
 
Ideally the bass would like to see an infinitesimally large room, which in practise means not a large room but lots of bass traps.
Keith
 
Steven Toy said:
Er, if that is aimed at me I use large(ish) Tannoys, remembe,r not tiddy Focal 1008s on the end of Accuphase amps that are a bit soft in the bass in such combination.
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No, it wasn't aimed at you (I wasn't even replying to a post of yours), though as you mention it I'd cite Accuphase and Focal as one of the least synergistic, amusical and fatiguing component combinations I've ever heard in my life. I would honestly prefer not to listen to music at all than have it presented in such a manner. FWIW I've also heard Accuphase driving big Tannoy studio monitors and it sounded great, so I'm certain this was just a system-building error, albeit a highly touted one in some quarters.
 
The o/p enquired which component as most influence on sound -

it is an interesting practical question concerning the allocation of resources .

This question cannot be answered if the room is a component , you get the obfuscation and confusion we currently have. Only an idiot would not expect the room to influence sound but it aint a ****in component FFS and it serves no purpose vis-à-vis the o/p's question to see it as one . Im going for a sandwich and a game of computer chess !!!
 
Joe Hutch said:
I disagree entirely with the above.
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:)

Maybe the problem lies in semantics and a potentially misleading thread title... ;)

Had the title been worded "Which of the factors that can influence the sound produced by an audio replay system has the greatest impact on the sound?" (which would not have fitted into the limited field length allotted to the 'Title'), then we would not have got bogged down in the semantics of what elements are acceptable as 'components'. :cool:

I don't blame the poor OP - field length limits, a language with too much nuance, a tribe of fishies who love to argue, etc. have all contributed... :rolleyes:
 
DevillEars said:
Hmmm... This thread is rapidly degenerating into the same "I believe in one God the Father Almighty" series of dogmatic exchanges as the recently deceased "Best Transport Poll" thread - i.e. a thread in which no-one is prepared to:

a) Agree on the definition of what constitutes a "component"
b) Agree on whether or not "biggest effect" should be positive or negative
c) Agree on the definition, as implied in the title, of "sound"

Taking a), one question has to be whether or not the 'room' constitutes a 'component' or is, in fact, the de facto environment for listening. In the same vein, should we also question whether or not 'mains feed', 'equipment support', 'cable elevator blocks', Shakti stones, etc. also qualify as 'components'?

Under b), I've long held the belief that no component can 'improve' the sound of any signal passed though it - all it can contribute to the process is to do the least 'damage' to the sound. Under this umbrella caveat, all 'effects' will be negative, in that they will 'damage the sound'. The best components will do the least damage (i.e. have the 'smallest effect'), while badly designed/built components could do significant 'damage to the sound' (i.e. have the 'biggest effect').

As far as c) is concerned, we've already had posts that differentiate between the effects of components on 'sound' and on 'music'. For me, its all about the music and how a system communicates the music and its various aspects (including spatial aspects such as imaging and soundstaging). I battle to understand the relevance and/or importance of 'sound' as used above if the 'musical' aspects are all addressed.

Until we all agree on the definitions and how they apply, this debate will comprise people arguing at cross-purposes and will not produce any meaningful consensus...

Pity!!
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Can we start a new thread defining 'component', 'effect', 'system', 'source' and 'better'?!

Surely you can distill it as:

Q: What am I listening to?
A: Vibration originating from a transducer, resonating through and reflecting from nearby masses.

Q: What's making the transducer do that?
A: A device that creates a signal and applies gain.

Any influential component or environmental factor is fair game. Not every factor is equally influential - hence the fair question.

However, “improving” the signal is inherent in the system.

You have to 'improve' it with gain stages, and again for a driver to 'improve' it by making it audible. Here an element of voicing is inevitable; very good 'improving' stages can sound quite different. However, passive and digital stages can only make things worse by failing to be completely transparent: very good ones sound identical.
 
Gerald said:
Okay , have it your way , next time a customer comes in enquiring what to buy , tell him to piss off and save up for a better house with a listening room sufficiently long to reproduce the lowest bass frequencies and suitably constructed .
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Funnily enough, I almost did something distantly related to that this morning with a customer from Wigwam! Customer had a room he described as having obvious bass problems and wanted a DAC that wouldn't excite nodes, having auditioned quite a few.

Ideal solution is not to attempt to create a right with two wrongs.

Unfortunately, after a length discussion, it was concluded that the room would have be left largely alone. It's tempting to include 'wives' as a key component having a large impact on a system . . .
 
maxflinn said:
The room must be considered as it's important, but a component it ain't.
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Ignore it at your peril. If you don't understand that room/speaker interaction is a single thing, you'll never build a technically correct system - and you'll probably waste a fortune on expensive equipment that never sounds right.

It's like the busker who only ever sings in subways, or a piano player permanently depressing the sustain pedal . . . it might be fun, but it's wrong.
 
DevillEars said:
:)

Maybe the problem lies in semantics and a potentially misleading thread title... ;)

Had the title been worded "Which of the factors that can influence the sound produced by an audio replay system has the greatest impact on the sound?" (which would not have fitted into the limited field length allotted to the 'Title'), then we would not have got bogged down in the semantics of what elements are acceptable as 'components'. :cool:

I don't blame the poor OP - field length limits, a language with too much nuance, a tribe of fishies who love to argue, etc. have all contributed... :rolleyes:
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The last point is the crucial one!

Plus, of course, people get all ideological about hifi, even if they're a mug punter with no vested interest in the outcome. (You can take it as read that anyone selling stuff will suggest that the stuff they sell is important, whether that be 'conventional' components, or cables, or souped-up computers, or room treatments).
 
ItemAudio said:
Ignore it at your peril. If you don't understand that room/speaker interaction is a single thing, you'll never build a technically correct system - and you'll probably waste a fortune on expensive equipment that never sounds right.

It's like the busker who only ever sings in subways, or a piano player permanently depressing the sustain pedal . . . it might be fun, but it's wrong.
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Yes but it isn't a component.

I'm sure the OP has realised by now, if he didn't already know, that the speaker/room interaction is important, but he sought advice/opinion as to what component has the biggest effect on the sound.

A room, is not a component in the sense that (I think) he means.
 
ItemAudio said:
I disagree with you disagreeing, although parts of what you say I do agree with, and support your right to disagree at all times.

Voices, like faces, are a peculiar example of acute human acuity: we see faces where there aren't faces. Despite the inherent similarity of all faces, every one strikes us as unique. The same would not apply quite as readily to differentiating pianos in different acoustics - although it's testimony to the brain's pattern-resolving ability that you can to some extent. Consider how much information about a recording can be derived from hearing it over the phone.

The bottom line is that everything's pretty good and we're counting angels dancing on pinheads.
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If you have played piano for some time, you easily hear the difference between a Fazoli and a Steinway, irrespective of the acoustic environment. Similarly, a guitarist can hear the difference between a pre-war and a more modern Martin, or hear where Jimmy Page puts down a Telecaster and picks up a Les Paul.

This isn't about 'mojo' or imagination. It's a training issue, regardless of whether that training is formal or ad hoc in nature.

We have listened to audio systems for years. How can there not be a similar learned component to all that listening?
 
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