SPeakers 90% of your sound

Twl: Where do you live (not an address--I'm not sending a henchman) just a zip code--or even a state. I'd like you to hear a really well designed room. I think it would change your mind. No words will--you have to hear it. It really is astounding what a room can do (soundwise that is--not performance wise--a bad one note performer will still be a poor performer, but acoustically he'll sound a lot better)

I could not disagree more. Speakers are very important in a system, but I think they are nearly the least important link in the chain.
I would side with those who elevate the importance of the source. Speakers will never sound better than the signal fed to them. Speaker all sound different which is why I think people put so much emphasis on them, but that doesn't make them more important. The item that removes the signal from the source is the most important whether it is a phono cartridge, a laser, or a tape head. Everything down the line decreases the level of importance.

I am concerned about being misunderstood. Everything in the system is important (which is why we often read drivel about synergy being the most important) but the best sounding system is going to be the one where the source is prioritized.

Nothing is going to add back into the system that was not retrieved in the first place. Speakers cannot add the detail or tonal qualities that the CDP or TT did not first detect.

IMHO the room can only hurt you not help you. In other
words we spend all of this money on equipment to achive
a natural tonal balance when a bad room will just throw
everything out of whack.. lean or thick.

Without a good neutral room one will never know what
the true capability of speakers or anything else should be.

My "guess" is:

70 room and speakers (they have to work together)
30 other (with all being equally important)

Rives, I live in east Tennessee. Don't worry, I've heard quite a few good rooms. I've been in audio as a consumer and on the other side of the counter for over 30 years now. Thanks for your interest, though. I do recognize what a good room can do for a system.

Note that I did not say that a good room is not important, but I did say that it will not make up for an inferior system.

I too am very much a source kinda guy and yet I find that I have prefered a wide range of components in every link of the chain except preamps......so few seem to bring on the musicality that I have enjoyed over the years. Once this is right, I then focus on the sources.

I agree with Tobias. I had a Linn LP12 for 18 years and it sounded great. But then I started "moving up" with electronics, cables, speakers, etc., and the difference was less and less than it had been. Then, I moved up to the Clearaudio Reference TT and it trounced the living daylights out of the Linn in frequency extremes extension, far more low level resolution, a more neutral tonal balance and a much much darker background. And surprise surprise, upgrading the other links started to make a huge difference again. Differences between my BAT VK-P10 and Aesthetix Io phono stages were very evident.

Even putting mediocre speakers in the system resulted in a phenomenol presentation. Tonality changed dramatically of course, but the sound was still quite impressive. Going back to the Linn would not have been as tolerable. So for me, it really is all about the source.

Now the only thing left is to get me out of this 18'x13' basement room and into a decked out room that Rives is talking about. There needs to be some optimization with speaker placement in the room but the amp/speaker link too needs to be matched very well .... almost to a point where these are considered one unit.

John