What should I upgrade next?

I was very hesitant to post here, as I'm usually unsure which end of the chain (the TRANSDUCERS!) to change first. But I'm damned-sure it shouldn't be the amp! I'd lived with those same big NAD amps for 10 years, and borrowed an Audio Refinement Complete integrated to quickly compare. Well, the difference was substantial, but of course the big NAD had more headroom, which might be needed, depending upon the efficiency of the speakers I might have selected. NEVER buy an amp until you've finalized your speaker selection (sorry, KT88).
My upgrade process started with finding the best speakers I could afford that sounded great IN THE ROOM! This was the hardest, and LEAST predictable part! Once accomplished,
I soon heard MORE digital artifacts from the old Rotel 855 CDP, as well a lack of transparency from the NAD preamp.
The borrowed ARC Integrated smoothed things out, but lacked sufficient bottom end for the 4 ohm woofers in the selected speakers (Parsifal Encores).
I tried bigger power amps (Acurus) as well VAC tubes (WOEFULLY non-linear!), and finally settled on used Aleph 2 monos, which had great slam and an utterly beguiling midrange with the Encores. Next it was clear that the preamp was too veiled and dirty, and Alephs are a bit tricky to drive, so I chased a used Aleph P. What silence and soundstage! Now the amp/speaker chain was perfect! Nordost Red Dawn XLR and cables worked fine.
Of course the now GREATLY exposed digititis of the old Rotel 855 was overwhelming on most Redbook, so I performed a year-long set of comparos between the Rotel and: ADCOM (lacking musicality), ARCAM 9 (lacking PRAT), the ARC CDP (too rolled off up top), and the Bel Canto DAC (WAY too lean and white-hot up top!). This was getting exasperating. Then I followed a few suggestions and tried an EC EMC-1 MkII, and was astounded at the result! Everything then fell into place! After a while I decided the system was still a little too lean on MOST less-pristene
CDs, so an IC search filtered out the Red Dawn, HT Pro-Silway, Siltech, and finally found an ideal match with the Discovy Essence. Screwing around with dedicated AC and PCs lately has been nice, and maybe is giving me that last 1-2%. I'm not sure. Doesn't REALLY matter, although we all chase the holy grail, eh?
My point here is to note the upgrade path. Yours may mirror mine....
Knowing a bit about old ADS and Braun designs, I imagine that your speakers have a woeful "saddle" shaped curve, with an uneven, hot treble, and a loose, over-ripe bottom; your pre, as suggested earlier, is not really transparent; nor is the 2600, but it'll do for now; the CDP I don't know about, but probably sounds flat, hifi-ish, etc.
Changing ANY of these components first might give you a decent improvement, but you want to try to reduce the chance of having to change the same part more than once!
I NEVER would have known the bass slam of either the speakers nor the CDP if I had kept that ARC integrated, as nice as it was! If I had been satisfied with the ARCAM 9 because it had a great midrange and cleaner treble I would have never noticed it's two left-feet until the speaker/amp chain was installed.
I understand those that suggest you use the GIGO route and start with a new source. That would probably work.
Nonetheless the variability of speaker-transducer and room-loading permutations is VASTLY greater than that of sources , amps, or cables, so I have to recommend that you
start your hunt by finding much smoother, musical speakers that sound great IN YOUR ROOM! Don't worry TOO much about fine-tuning the damping until you get the other components in place, but do make sure you have a fairly even frequency response that pleases you. Yes, your pre and amp's shortcomings may come into blatant obviousness, as SURELY will your CDPs, but then you can do things in the order I suggest worked efficiently for me: find the amplification that makes that speaker really work best (it might be even a nice EC4 or a cheap ARC, or whatever separates you like) and THEN chase the most musical front end you can find. Finally use cables to
filter the spectral tilt to your liking. The odds are that you may then only replace one item again, and if you're luckier, like me, you'll get it right the first time.
It took me two years, but assembling a $30k system (for $17k used/demo) that I probably won't upgrade for at least a decade has been VERY satisfying. I'm grateful to the many A'goners and dealers who helped along the way.
Use your ears as the best judge, and take your time...especially with speaker selection. I know that lugging speakers home to set up listening sessions is a lot of work, but believe me there's no other way. The subsequent decisions can be just as difficult, as many artifacts will be more subtle as you go, but at least the demo-ing will require less weight-lifting!
Have fun, and continue to ask questions along the way.
Ernie

It's Sunday, Tiger's on the tube, and I feel in the mood for writing a manifesto.

Ah, the classic divergence of opinion on how to best approach the upgrade situation has emerged here: Front end first? Amplification first? Or speakers first? As can be seen from the above posts, a seemingly good case can be made for all of these solutions. Front end: If this is not providing a high-quality source signal, nothing else that follows will be able to make good sound. Amplifier or Preamplifier: These are the heart of a system - if they are choking off the source or shortchanging the speakers, you'll never get the performance they may be capable of. Speakers: The most important, the most variable, and ultimately the most personal determinant of what kind of sound will be produced, they'll make the biggest change the most quickly. And you know what? All of these presumptions are absolutely true (and that's before even getting into cables)!

So what to do? The conundrum is, that although the whole ball of wax must work together as a system where each element is clearly important, you (and for the most part, all of us) can only upgrade one step at a time over an extended period for practical reasons. One implication that this "system paradigm" portends for the three approaches outlined above - and it is equally true for all of them - is that no one element that you may upgrade along the way is going to be able to give of its maximum improvement until the whole job is completed. And since that is so, then the arguments that go, "You must upgrade this before that, otherwise you won't get any benefit/be able to live with what you hear" become somewhat less than useful to contemplate, in that because they are substantially true in all of the examples, they are therefore by definition also fairly circular in nature.

So we need a better philosophy to guide us in how to proceed. Fortunately, there are some mitigating factors here that will work in our favor. Firstly, while it is true that a lone improvement may either show up a weakness somewhere else, or be largly masked by one, it is also quite unlikely that any legitimate upgrade will actually make the whole system perform worse overall. Secondly (and this contains the exception to the preceding rule that proves it), certain subsystems within the larger overall system are more important than others.

The subsystems, in order of importance: 1) The listener/family (if applicable)/dwelling space subsystem; 2) The listener's musical-sonic preferences/listening room size and layout/speaker type and size subsystem; 3) The speaker/amplifier/speaker cable subsystem. (More subsystems follow: 4) The amplifier/preamplifier/interconnect subsystem; and so on.)

The exception I referred to, which results directly from the ordering of these subsystems: You'll notice that each subsystem, in order, contains within it factors that exert a determining influence over the next ranked subsystem. (For instance, subsytem #1 contains "Who is the listener?", which determines the musical-sonic preferences contained in #2, as well as "What is the home like, and who lives in it?", which in turn determines the listening room factors also contained in #2, and so on.) You'll also notice that choice of hardware is subservient to higher-ranking factors in this hierarchy, and that subsystem #3's ranking implies that the interaction of the speakers with the amplifier (and their connecting cable) is the most universally important subsystem having to do strictly with hardware - which it is (it's always in play, and is the most highly interdependent). So the exception to the rule (about no supposed upgrade making the whole system worse) has to do with upsetting the overall hierarchy of importance of these subsystems, or violating compatability within a subsystem. (Some examples - Choosing: a listening room that interferes with one's family life; a speaker that isn't suitable for use in the room available; an amplifier that isn't suitable for the speaker chosen, etc.)

There is one other factor that makes a rational decision about how to proceed easier to arrive at. Since, in all liklihood, you are going to eventually want to upgrade every piece of gear in the system, it is wise to take into account the future need to be able to meaningfully audition components in your own home, within your own system context. This means that a clear and revealing window, through which one can view unobstructed prospective upgrades elsewhere in the chain, will be of great help in assembling the total system as it progresses. This, in turn, argues against heeding the "Don't choose downstream components that may reveal weaknesses upstream" cautionary warning. If your downstream components aren't capable of revealing the flaws of your upstream gear, how can they be of any help in auditioning new gear to correct those hidden flaws? (Again, a clearer downstream window is unlikely to make the musical experience worse overall, provided there is not a debilitating speaker/amplifier mismatch created, even if upstream flaws are made more clear along with the music.)

By now, anyone reading (who is still awake and following me!) should be able to tell where I am headed. If you combine the necessities created by properly observing the natural hierarchies (of the subsystems relating to lifestyle, musical-sonic preferences, and gear-interdependency) with the provision for auditioning future upgrades, then you will conclude, as I do, that the first choice to made is the speakers, followed by the amplifier (and cables) to drive them, and so on back to the source.

In the case of the original forum question above, I would assume that the #1 subsystem (listener/family/dwelling) has already determined which room is the listening room. The #2 subsystem (listener preferences/room specifics/speaker appropriateness) then comes into play, determining which speakers in general are consistent with both the room and the music that will be played in it. To take the case of the above-mentioned Maggies as a for-instance, the room would need to be large enough to place dipole radiating speakers well away from the walls, small children running through would not be advisable with large lightweight panels present so far out on the floor, and the listener might well be better off preferring chamber music or acoustic jazz to grunge or electronica. If, after narrowing down the choices at dealers or friends, and hopefully being able to audition some of the possibilities at home, the Maggies are indeed chosen, then subsystem #3 (speakers/amplifier/speaker cable) would be the next to receive attention. To promote harmony within the subsystem, the needs of the afore-chosen speakers would have to be catered to - in this case, a low-efficiency speaker mandating a higher-powered amplifier, which would probably mean solid state at the buyer's price point. Then, speaker cable could be auditioned to find the best synergy within the subsystem.

Now that these first steps have established the "clear window" needed to proceed with choosing the rest of an upgraded system, focus can be put on auditioning preamplifiers next, then maybe digital front end components (which form a subsystem of their own if separates are chosen), cables to connect each step, and so on. When a system that is an order of magnitude more revealing than what it replaced has been established, more productive attention can be paid to the various "tweaks" available, now that the tools exist to better evaluate their performance cost/benefit ratios within the system.

So, speakers first and work back from there, but not because speakers make the biggest difference - rather, because choosing them most directly involves the factors highest in my hierarchy (the home and the people who live in it, the music the listener prefers, the properties of the room the system is in), and because this ordering best facilitates making intelligent further system choices through auditioning down the road. (BTW, all of this does assume that the top factors - the home, the family, the preferences, or the room - will not be changing in relevent ways during the time the system upgrading is in progress. This is obviously not always the case, and could be a major cause of a total system reconfiguration.)

Ironically, Audiogon itself, which helps so many of us "live beyond our means" when it comes to improving our systems, can also be responsible for some interesting detours regarding system planning. I know there's been a couple of times I've deviated off point when a piece of gear I was going to look into later popped up on the 'Gon at a hot price. After beginning with my speakers in 1997 and slowly working my through three amps, two preamps, two rounds of cable upgrades, a new CD player and then a new digital separates front end to replace it, two new cartridges, a new standalone phonostage, a new tuner, a CD-R recorder, two new power conditioners, new headphones and an outboard amp to drive them, and different supports and racks, I'm getting near to beginning again at the speakers and amp, but have delayed that upgrade pending a move (while still jumping on a new remote preamp deal recently to audition against my older manual one). I've definitely found that this approach has aided in giving restraint, direction, consistency, and predictable results to my upgrading process, as well as permitting me to enjoy both my music and my gear buys the whole while. Best of luck!

P.S. - Of course, this baby took me so long to unload that now I see Subaruguru has gone and posted basically the same advice before me. As Gilda Radner once said, never mind...

How is going from NAD to Audio Refinement or Accurus even an upgrade?? These are all budget components and are not much of an upgrade at all. Since the electronics in these systems are hardly being upgraded, I can see why these posters think the speaker should be first.

If you spend $1500 on a used preamp and amplifier (like Conrad Johnson, Bryston, McCormack, Rogue, Blue Circle, etc, they will be at least two or three full steps above the NAD in quality; and you will then find your speakers are fine for now.

Sorry but I still disagree with you " speaker first " people. Since I am a experienced technician employed by the largest broadband company in the world. I can accurately tell you that " garbage in is definitely going to give you garbage out " It is quite obvious if you use the cable television signal as an analogy to the signal your speakers will get. If we receive a poor signal from our satellite, when then feed that poor signal into our head end equipment, them our head end needs to do more work to process and amplify a already poor signal. Then it is sent out to our fiber nodes, which sends it to our amplifiers. The poorer the signal the more work our amplifiers need to do, to give the appropriate amount of signal, which then travels to the customers tap. Which then goes through a splitter, and eventually ends up at the customers TV. I should also add that as signal travels it degrades, and loses strength. Hence the need of our amplifiers, and yours in your system for that matter.

Now, think of the cd or LP as the satellite sending the signal. Think of the head end as your source cdp or turntable. The preamp as your fiber node, the amp as our cable amplifiers and so on. If your following me then you know the end result of my analogy, your TV ( in my analogy ) is the same as your speakers in your stereo systems. If my cable signal at my TV sucks, it is not going to do me any good to go out and by a high end digital TV and expect my picture to improve drastically. In fact my new TV will only show me how bad my signal really is. So tell me, how is it possible to upgrade your speakers and expect a noticeable improvement in you system? If the rest of the system is garbage, you will only hear your garbage better.

I rest my case.............

Let's try a little example here. Given $3-$4k to spend on this system let's say you can put it into the source or the speakers. I don't care what source you put into this system, my contention is that I'd much rather hear this current system through a pair of Silverline Sonatinas or Vandy 3A sigs than the ADS speakers with an Ikemi or even a used Audio Aero(same would hold if the amp or pre were replaced instead). Get the speakers right and the rest will follow. Improving electronics will surely improve what you hear out of your speakers, but they cannot change the physical design and overall character of a speaker(hence the example above), which is why you should get that right first. Best of luck.

Tim