Speaker priority: high or low???

Just a note, Paul: It is not tube amplifiers that do not have flat response within the audioband - most do, as do amps in general. It is some speakers possessing uneven or reactive electrical impedance characteristics that will display slight deviations from flat response when driven by tube amplifiers, or by some SS amplifiers that eschew high levels of loop negative feedback in their designs.

I also agree with Beemer. It is not just 1 piece that makes a system, it is how all pieces work together. Spend $5000 on an amp, $5000 on speakers, and $200 on a cd player or $200 on a turntable cartridge, you get crap. An amplifier nor speakers will not make a bad source component sound good. I have heard other people discuss that the most important piece of equipment is the source object itself, be it a cartridge, cd player, dvd player, etc.... A nice amplifier will amplify crap to louder crap. Hook up a pair of NHT superzeros to a Levinson or Classe monoblock amp and you will not get any more low end than hooking these speakers to a smaller integrated amp.

Perhaps we arent audiophiles because we dont believe that everything matters and snicker a little every time we see the word "synergy," but many many people think that speakers are the most important component in an audio system. This is because those of us who hold to this belief have not found very many speakers to like, understanding as I say this that there are thousands of hi-fi speakers out there - they all sound different from one another - and they all have their fans.

I would be content with an inexpensive amplifier like a NAD and a pair of Harbeth speakers, but I could not live with a $10,000 amp and a pair of B&W 302s (or even comparably priced AE Aegis Ones, which I actually like). I am not alone. But most people who agree with me do not frequent this site.

Assuming a certain minimum level of competence, good amplifiers are not hard to find. Most competently reproduce and transmit the signal they are fed - even though they may have some character as opposed to complete neutrality, it is not nearly the kind of character speakers have. Speakers are another story. Most are afflicted with a variety of colorations. They do not have flat frequency responses and their designers rarely know how to account for the inevitable interactions with real life listening rooms. Then there is the material coloration some people hear from almost all dynamic drivers (e.g., those made of paper, polypropylene or metal).

To put it simply, if you believe that flat frequency response and low distortion matters, you should be inclined to believe that speakers are more important because they have the greatest deviations from flat response and the most distortion. If you believe that those measurements do not matter (for example you like tube amps that do not have flat responses), then you might be inclined to think that amps are more important.

Paul

To me, the question was not, "Which component can you get away with spending the least on, speakers or amplifier, and still get acceptable sound?" To be fair, I'll state for the record that I personally feel the best price ratio concerning amps-to-speakers is in reality close to the 50/50 neighborhood in most cases, give or take 25%. I believe audiophiles in general are a little more susceptible to taking a rather perverse glee in describing systems to the unititiated, wherein $250 speakers are made magical by being hooked up to $10,000 amplifiers, than is truthfully speaking healthy or flattering to our credibility with the masses. And the first problem with such claims is that an audiophile should not even be looking to spend as little as $250 on speakers. My proposed ratio only begins to make sense for audiophiles when it regards speakers in the lowest price range they should probably be considering, roughly the $750-$1,000 neighborhood new (if you need less, well, that's why they invented Audiogon).

It is true that after reaching a certain level of speaker performance, amp differences may continue to be appreciated as one moves on up their price scale, while it's also true that after reaching a certain level of amp performance, speaker differences as one moves on up their price scale may begin to place demands on that amplifier which it isn't capable of adequately responding to. But it should be kept in mind that at the ultimate end of the price scale, it is still more difficult and costly to build a speaker which is capable of most fully and accurately responding to the input signal it's fed under any conditions, than it is to build an amplifier capable of most fully and accurately responding to the input signal it's fed under any conditions. (In other words, the amp will always be able to fill this brief more easily and closely than the speaker.) And that is why most speaker designs don't attempt to fully do so in the first place.

But getting back to the original question - Which is the most important component in a system? - Beemer is in truth absolutely right. However, if you look at the question as instead asking which single component of the system has the most *influence* over what the perceived sound of the system will be like, then I think the honest answer is, was, and probably always will be still the speakers. (That is, after the source material!)

Common Audio Sense -- (Apparently) A Minority Perspective

To say that the transducer is the most important part of a system is understatement.

I would wager that most of us would have little problem in identifying speaker "A" over speaker "B" from two rooms away. I would also wager that those of us who believe that the amplifer is what molds the sound of a system would not be able to consistently determine the differences between or identify one quality transistor amp from another in a controlled double blind --- or to conssistently diifferentiate between one high quality tube amplifer and another under the above described conditions. This position, of course, assumes that the amplifiers measure well and are of the same approximate wattage and current ratings as well as input sensitivities.

System synergy? I don't deny it exists. However, all too often it is a euphemism for the equivalent of an equalizer. That is "compensating," for example, for an overly bright forward sounding speaker with a polite and rolled off tube amplifier.

On a more positive note, I do agree, in part, with Beemer. The room is very important and sometimes the only way to upgrade is to move. ;>

Cliff

I agree with Stehno for the most part. You need look no further than the Stereophile review of the $250 pair of B&W DM302 speakers. They hooked them up to a real high end system and could not believe how good they sounded. Any speaker regardless of how low the price, that does not have any big design flaws, will sound great hooked up to a great amplifier.

You will not get the same results connecting an $8,000 pair of B&W Nautilus 802 (or any similar speaker) to an inexpensive amplifier. Not even close.

I sit here playing lp's through my herron phono stage equiped with some new cryro tubes from Brendan at Tubeworld, in dis-belief. Paul is correct, it all matters. The problem is that you just need to sell your cars and kids to play this game. I am down to 2 kids now, I will miss the Honda.

The amplifier is the most important and by a wide margin. Why? Based on my experience, most amplifiers do much more than just amplify the signal. And that's almost never a good thing. In addition, it appears that most amplifiers will only excel in one or two parts (if at all) of the frequency spectrum (bass, mid, or treble) and not do so well in the other part(s).

In addition, I'm a firm believer that a great amp can made bad speakers sound very good. But never will a great pair of speakers sound good when paired with a bad amp.

I believe that there are more character differences and greater deficiencies amongst amplifiers than any other component.

-IMO

Most important is synergy between all the components, followed by the interaction of the room. I've found everything matters.

Paul