Which is the most important part of a stereo system?

The room embeddings exceed any electronic design potential S.Q. of speakers or any other electronic components in almost all case....

Acoustic embeddings wins all....

Speakers cannot work rightfully in a bad room, at the maximum potential, without mechanical vibration/resonance controls and in a too noisy electrical grid...

Any acoustic engineer will say the same thing...

« Audio is the active communication between the room of the house and the room of your head. Simple» -Groucho Marx



Electronic design is generic, and the same for any room....

But the interaction between the room of the house where the speakers are amid many other things, and the room of your head, is not generic, it is totally indiduated and absolutely unique.... It is from this communication between the 2 rooms that any S.Q. is or is not what it could be.... The resonance/vibrations controls, and the noise floor of the house and room increase or decrease greatly also the S.Q. But the communication between the room acoustic and your ears are the main factor....

Anyway all these 3 embeddings are totally particular in each case....Electronic design is generic, an electronic component need to be embed to express any particular working of his own.... The factors that will influence the working of any electronic design are EXTERNAL to it: another interacting connected gear, the electrical cables of the house and room and all electric appliances, the vibrations and the many sources of all interactive resonances, all that will transform amy electronic component giving to it an individulized behavior and a variable qualitative workings....( i even forget humidity, temperature and the electrical grid in a particular city)

At the end the evaluation of the S.Q. of any working electronic device will be communicated to you by the room acoustic....

No amplifier speak by himself.... the speakers are translators...

The room only speak by himself to your ears....


«If the room speaks, then my ears too»-Groucho Marx

« You said it Groucho, not me» - Harpo marx

Controls over the information-synesthetic embeddings field is perhaps a little bit too much to ask for when people dont even properly embed their audio system in the first three dimensions.... :)

You are from the future indeed.....

Your subconscious. Final answer. The one variable you can’t control. 😳

Too deep to be attented and controlled in my first 7 years of audio experiments for sure...This is the information field.....But I think that you know that.... :)


I think that this variable cannot be controlled the way the others  embedding's variables can be, but it is possible to create bridges that will open more the mind toward a better reception of the information... I will attempt it someday....

Your Ears.

7 years ago this answer would make me cold.....Now it seems the most clear revelation from my last years journey in audio with the experiments about embeddings an audio system...


Speakers+Room+ Ears are ONE......

You seem to be implying that the gap between different systems is smaller than the gap between different rooms.

First thanks cd318 for your kind observation and attention to myself and posts...


But you underestimated what I say, and unvoluntarily misrepresented it...


You underestimated my argument because it is not about room treatment but about 3 simultaneous embeddings...And room treatment is only the point 3a, there are other 3 points: 3b,1, and 2.

These 4 points grouped in 3 parts define what I called the embeddings of any audio system...


You misrepresented my argument because, it will need a fool or someone who delude himself, to negate differences, great ones most of the times, between a low cost system and a highly costly one...

My argument is simply this: the difference between most audio systems is big, but not big enough most of the times to compared with an audio system rightly embedded according to the rules pertaining to these 4 points in 3 part embeddings...

If there is 3 rungs in the scale going to low, mid, and high, any electronic component pertaining to a rung of this scale is different with another on the same rung...But rightly embedded anyone of this element go from a rung to a higher rung entirely if it is rightly embedded with the 3 implementation protocols and parts pertaining to each one of these 4 methods :


1-The mechanical environment of each electronic component (vibrations-resonances controls)

2-The electrical grid of the room and of the house

3a-the "passive" room treatment with materials absorbant and reflective ones

3b-the "active" acoustical space modifications with reflectors, Helmholtz resonators, Schumann generators,etc
(We must not confuse room treatment 3a with acoustical space modifications 3b.)


In the universal race to upgrade and buy the ultimate high electronic components, people forget or ignore the right way to implement an audio system... The proof of that is simple: most people think that a better dac or amplifier or speakers will give to them the better sound magically by itself...The entire marketing industry promote that....Marginally someone speaks, generally to sell something, about vibrations or room treatment...Rarely about these 2 on the same page or article...And this 2 points are only half of my argument (4 points in 3 parts).. Then most people are unconscious of this fact: the real experience of an audiophile musical event is not the results of the electronics components only and "per se" but by far the results of a rightful implementation of them... The proof of that is easy to make....Which do you want: a mid system in an ideal room and house controlled environment ? Or a high cost system in a bad house room environment?

My most important point is that it is possible by homemade methods and materials or with very low cost products to create a complete relatively good implementation that will transform any audio system into his ideal peak potential working function...At least then projecting it on another rung of the scale quality ratio/ price...This is my experience and good news...Interpreting that like a negation of the difference in quality between for example an amplifier like my Sansui versus a Top high end ZOTL Berning amplifier( I dream to buy one) is simplistic...There is differences between electronic components...But it is not the important half of the story...This is my point...I live happy now with my Sansui...Guess why?


My best wishes to you....


" My car is bigger than your male organ" Groucho Marx

Which is the most important part of a stereo system?

I wish someone had clearly told me the answer at the start of my trip in audio...That would had spare me money and time...


The most important part of a stereo system is not any of the electronic components, turntable, dac, computer, amplifier, speakers....( For sure choose them with care but after that forget them, dont upgrade, and begins the thinking process with what you owns)


The most important part of a stereo system is invisible to the eyes but very audible to the ears...


The most important part of a stereo system is these 3 embeddings for any stereo system whatsoever :


1-The mechanical environment of each electronic component (vibrations-resonances controls)

2-The electrical grid of the room and of the house

3a-the "passive" room treatment with materials absorbant and reflective ones
3b-the "active" acoustical space modifications with reflectors, Helmholtz resonators, Schumann generators,etc

(An important remark: Room treatment with absorbant or reflective materials and non conventional acoustical space modifications with Schumann modified generators and controls with Helmholtz resonators or different resonators and reflectors are not the same thing. We must not confuse room treatment with acoustical space modifications.)

This is what I learned, a good electronic component will work like any other good electronic component, and the upgrading of one will never rival with these three embeddings right implementation; absolutely no comparison in increasing S.Q. with an upgrade of any electronic component...

Embedding a system is the way....The Tao of audio....

Dont buy anything before thinking about that and experimenting....

The good news is that it is possible to afford Hi-Fi at low cost, buying used, vintage or simply low cost good components... I know I did that...It is also possible to create homemade low cost solutions for all of these 3 embeddings...I know I did precisely that... 

The most important is the embeddings not the brand name of the electronic components at all ( for sure we all have our likings but it is only anecdotal interest, because they are plenty of very good electronic components)...

In simple word, your ear is the only true guru in audio and you must seriously listen to him ...

My best...



" My ear know more than me" Groucho Marx