My horse has probably long been dead....
I will wholeheartedly agree that EVERY item in the chain from the alternating current to the speakers is very important in the sonics of any given music system. In some ways, ALL OF THE COMPONENTS ARE EQUAL. They are all equal in the sense if you are missing any one area of component, you get NO sound at all. No power cords, no sound... No source, no sound... No preamplification, no sound (or you get just BLASTING sound.... and I consider CDP's with volume controls as HAVING preamplification built into them).
So in a sense at the MINIMUM extreme, all of these components are equal.
Now when dealing with World Class music systems, I would argue that all of the components are also equal at this MAXIMUM extreme. In these systems you hear every weak link. This may sound like Voodoo, but in World Class Music systems, AC, Power Cords, ICs, Speaker cables make HUGE differences. Same with preamps, amps, and sources. Having a weak link in a world class musical system can detroy the sound compared what it would sound like without the weak link. If you do not think I can get a world class source to dramatically change in sound quality with the change of a power cord, you have not done enough experimentation with power cords in a world class system with a world class digital source. You have to hear the effect to beleive it.
So in a sense, at the MAXIMUM extreme of hi-end components all of the components in a musical system are equal.
What we are dealing with is somewhere between the MINIMUM extreme and MAXIMUM extreme. In this area we are dealing with degrees of GREY exist.
In my last post, I was dealing with the most apparent example that could show that speakers are what one should build a system around. One does not build a system around a source per se... because most sources will at least match most amps and speakers. Most of the trouble with sources is matching them with the right preamp.
In any given system, a source or speakers or whateve can be one of the most critical components for the high sound quality. This is what most of us have... pretty good systems, and we are not starting from scratch. So in our systems it is really a judgement call as to what component is most important or plays the biggest role.
On a side note, I firmly beleive that PREAMPLIFICATION determines much of a systems end sonic signature. Does this mean I think the preamp is most important? NO. But I would argue that most systems have their sound screwed up by their preamplification. Too many folks do not really see the value of having a world class preamp. In a lot of ways the preamp is MORE important than the source. Why? Because the preamp controls what signal ultimately gets to your speakers. Combine a world class source with a crappy preamp and you will get crappy sound. Combine an average source with a world class preamp, and you will get much better sound than combineing a world class source with a crappy preamp.
Anyway, because Sources are not nearly as system dependant as speakers or amps or preamps, I cannot rate them as being the most important part in a system.
However, anyone who says that sources impact a system sonically more than any other component (thus are more important), have not done much experiementation with preamplification. Because with a low quality preamp ANY SOURCE is going to sound bad (no matter what AMP or Speakers you have).
I think I have buried my horse.
KF
