APL NWO2.5 ?

Audiosu 12-25-06
My sincere suggestion to you: Upgrade to NWO-2.5 first before spending money in amplifier and speakers. Use NWO, which is a recognized SOTA source, as base to see if further upgrading is necessary and appropriate.

Chungted, I have had the NWO2.5 for a couple of months now and I would agree 200% with your comment. Buy the best source first and then work back towards the speakers. Only then can you know for sure how up to snuff the rest of your gear really is. For example, my Dynaudio Temptation speakers are now at a completely different level of performance with the NWO2.5 as souce.

I would go one step further though and say get Alex's unshielded minimalistic silver core cables because they allow the full performance of the NWO2.5 to be communicated downstream through the amp and speakers. Once you have a source as magnificent as this you should want to extract every ounce of its performance and his cables do this. However, if your source (or amp or pre-amp) have deficiencies than his cables are probably not the right move as they will highlight the brightness, edginess, grain, etc. like a spotlight.

Buy the best source first and then work back towards the speakers. Only then can you know for sure how up to snuff the rest of your gear really is.

The inverse is just as true. Moreso if you ask me.

Agree with Drubin.

Speakers first.

Good point Drubin...in reality every piece of the chain is important to an optimal result.

The way I interpreted Chungted point, which was the basis for my response, was given an existing system (without regard for how it was put together) one is best advised to optimize from the source back to the speakers. Why? Because so many audiophiles switch out speakers, or cables or amps, or pre-amps, in search of better sound, when in fact, it is their source that is the weaker link in the chain.

Anyway, to each their own, there are lots of ways to nirvana in this hobby/obsession.