Ok this will be a good thread.

Oh Marco, Marco, you've found what you were looking for...

Threads, like all iterations, change, and particularly when they go along this long. I don't detect that much divergence from the original inquiry, at least not one that would require your police-ing, and particularly given that there was a recent and significant time gap since, er, last YEAR. What's the matter, Marco, got up this morning and just thought you'd found a nice egg to crack, and so took the chance, just to juice that lizard (you know, the one in the R-complex part of your brain), just to make you feel more like a "me" today, because its anonymous here and you feel like you can be more of a "me" absent your peers' physical proximity? Did it make you "feel" better?

Marco, a seed for your search...

twl, what chemical-electrical "signal" derives from a synapse firing in the mind of the singer, into the electrical "signal" of the mike, through the electrical "signals" via stereo components, to the chemical-electrical "signal" in you?

Energy transference, or tranduction, or transmutaion, or iteration, et al, by any other name...

Fear of Change; desire to make others conform to your ideas; the ego juice when you vent on that egg. Does that sound a little closer to the originating causal "signal" for your, er, help, Marco...?

Mark

Asa - Do not arouse the wrath of the GREAT and POWERFUL OZ! You may just think you were outing a mere mortal the likes of all of you, but you are sadly mistaken: I AM THE GREAT AND POWERFUL OZ!!!!

So let me try to pose the original question in an entirely different way....let's take this to the extreme: You are destined to live out your life on a desert island. You have your existing collection of music, be it vinyl, digital, or both. The island happens to have 120V dedicated power service, and a centrally air conditioned "Listening-Hut" custom built by Rives and equipped with dedicated circuits and cryo'd Porter-Plugs. You have absolutely no one to impress with your expensive and fancy hardware, your exquisite obsessive taste, your pride in ownership of the very 'best of the best'. It is just you, your music collection, the island and the listening hut for the rest of your days on this earth (we'll assume the rest of your life is catered as well....no, the caterer doesn't see or hear your system either, meals just show up on the beach). OK, so here are your choices:

You get a system consisting of Walker Proscenium Turntable, An Audionote DAC5 with some suitable transport, your very favorite amplification of choice (the choice of amplification remains consistent through the two choices), and a pair of vintage 1976 Radio Shack speakers to listen to all that on. We'll call this the "Source" system.

Your alternate choice is headed up with one of my all-time favorites, the Kenner Close-and-Play turntable (suitably wired to run through conventional power and amplication and graced with a BMI Whale running power from those incredible Porter-Plugs), a bone stock original 1984 Sony Discman D-50 with the stock RCA cord adapter and AC transformer, feeding into that wonderful amplification you chose (Lamm perhaps), and this time running through a pair of Calix Phoenix Signature speakers. We'll call this the "Speaker" system.

OK, so your doomed to listen to one of these two systems for the rest of your natural life.....which one would you choose? Remember, it's just you and your music.

THE GREAT AND POWERFUL OZ HAS SPOKEN!

.....oh, and pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!!

Marco

Cute Marco---and highly eloquent. Still, I don't know if you bringing psychology, literature, your aim,steam vents is even a greater departure from this thread or some kind of oblong mirror held at all of us, reflecting our own digressions.

Speaking of threads, perhaps another thread can be started relevent to how people treat threads......

Now, back to the discussion!

Marco, damn, no bites. I bow to you; man out from behind the curtain.

And thank you - very funny, I laughed out loud.

On what you say, its content, it is a staw man not deserving of the cognitive agility applied to it - but I do get your point and will respond there.

[First, please see my 1-13 response as context.]

Yes, it is true many people choose things, and here stereo things, to impress other people (actually to induce covet-ing), but we can't let their decisions decide ours, speaker-first or not. That disposes of scenario #1. Second, we can't let bad judgement, or the inability to learn, be a reference point for our decisions either (Calix horns wouldn't be my choice to illustrate your point #2, but anyone who pairs them with Radioshack has a pers se learning disability...) - which takes care of #2.

The answer: the middle path; neither and both. At each level of learning the most "important" component changes. What your response reflects is that you exist where you believe all components are important. But that is the response of someone who knows what Calix's are (BUT, have you tried the cryo's versions?!!). What produces "important" in your mind is not what produces "important" in someone coming off the Radioshack curve.

Each person is different, of course, but, generally speaking, different components become more important at different places on the learning curve. Personally, I think that every component is important - while also recognizing your point that many poeple use this argument to compare the twice cryo'd Whale versus the thrice - but, finally, as for purposes of discussion, I can't let that person's orientation act as a delimiter my own, as I'm sure you don't either, in practice.

Oh, by the way, you went off topic there. :0) That's called a performative error in an argument; meaning that your response undermined the premise of the point you were originally trying to make. But, you know, it doesn't bother me. As I said, iterations can be fun...

The god in me is one with the god in you. I bow as well and we are as one, in harmony with the great earth and sky. Oh yes, and I am indeed off topic, undermining my self-confessed, steam-venting post as it were. I do love the verbal jousting, and really do enjoy a personal take on any discussion. It's cooled down now in Seattle and my Prozac has kicked in so I'm calmer and gentler now, but none the wiser (insert little smiley-faced icon here composed with a semi-colon followed immediately by a dash and finally an end-parenthesis to indicate my easy-going state of mind and that the previous statement should be taken somewhat humorously).

As far as the scenario I proposed, I had thought it was a rhetorical question myself. I'd go with the "Source" system needless to say. I wasn't suggesting mixing Calix with Radio Shack, those systems are exclusive of each other. The contrast of the two is exactly the point. As far as the specific choice in cost-no-object speakers, go ahead, choose your own, I'd still go with the "Source" system.

Yes, yes, weakest link in the chain, all components and interconnects are important. Balance....synergy..and all that! I agree with that, but that wasn't the question Mark. At least not how I interpreted it, and I am THE GREAT AND POWERFUL OZ, let's not forget! Which ONE SINGLE component is most critical in reproducting music well in a 2-channel system? Since the overwhelmingly common response falls into one of two camps, that is where I staged the scenario. Indeed, as I think you infer in your post, perhaps the question is just ludicrous, perhaps the hobby is ludicrous?! Heresy, I've gone and committed Heresy right here on Audiogon. Yes, I did enjoy your 1/13 post Mark, thanks for referring back to it to give me that reference.

If you laughed at my previous post, check out the link to the humorous piece I wrote a while back (which goes to the point of my committing heresy). I'll refer you to the recent thread here since it contains the link to the piece and a disclaimer/warning for reading that piece as it may offend the feint-of-heart, and or rigid-of-morals....you've been warned! Keep in mind that I'm poking fun at myself here too...I'm a self-confessed audiophile, but I am in a twelve-step program to quit!

Marco