Ok this will be a good thread.

Gregm, I agree that in many cases, and possibly most cases, there is a single component that is degrading the signal more than the other components in the system. This is obviously the component that needs to be improved first. So from a practical standpoint, as you say, fixing the worst offender can yield a very nice sonic improvement.

Yes TWL and it is always the speaker that degrades the signal the most in any system, so it is always the one that needs the most improvement. You talk of the source having to extract the information, but all is for naught when all that wonderful extraction capability (and addition in the case of vinyl playback) is lost in the degradation at the speaker step of reproduction.
I don't understand how you can say that speakers have the largest influence on the sound but are not the most important element in the sound system simply because they cannot "correct" any problems (if they exist audibly anyway) in the source.

Salut, Bob P.

twl: I agree with your parameters of discussion, here, this thread's context. Simply making a point, concisely as I knew how.

I disagree with you, however, and respectfully, that because electronics are a "pass" through, they somehow are fundamentally different in the context of the value, "important", and even given our parameters here. Your position relies on two assumptions: (1) that electronics only "pass" information, which itself rests upon the assumption that other components do not, and (2) that such "pass-ing" consitutes a perfect transmission from source, or rather, that it should.

First, the only thing "fallacious" is the assumption that any constituancy of matter, any component, can perfectly pass through "signal." While this may be an absolute to aspire to, it does not presently exist in the applications of physics, nor in the practice of construction of stereo gear, the later application dependant upon the limitations of the former. When superconductivity is invented, then we can have that conversation. But, until then, all matter that we rearrange into technology and that we then use as a conduit for energy, in its various forms, is effected by the transference of that medium's transference abilities. In other words, limited transference capability as a matter of course, or a matter of our present limitations of implementation, does not equal "tranmute."

All of our stereo components are insufficient energy transducers, or transmuters, or transferors, or whatever latest action verb we want to come up with to describe the same basic action. We pass signal through these created matrices of matter and that action defines its output. In this sense, all componenets are "euphonic" of actual sound moving through space, in the sense that their imperfect material deviation results in a similar deviation from the voices "accuracy", "musical-ity", etc.

The skill is then in constructing a mix of such deviations into a synergistic whole. And the the question then becomes, if a component is not presently by its nature subtractive towards perfect transfer, then do such "euphonic" deviations that do exist produce an experience that reflects, while not perfectly reproducing the sound absolute, the mind's experience of that absolute; can the whole exceed IN EXPERIENCE NOT MATERIAL THEORY the material limitation of its parts?

My answer is, yes. And I might add, apart from ideas - as in how you put your stereo together towards your eventual experience - my strong intuition is that you do too.

As for source being most important because it does not transfer, the same deviation arguments above apply to it also. As I said, from where you are at, yes, the source change produces the most change, but that does not hold true at all symmetries of system construction.

Bob and Asa, I think I am getting a better handle on what we are really discussing here. I think(tell me if I'm wrong) that we are really discussing whether it is worse to have a signal degrading bottleneck somewhere in the system, as opposed to an information-limiting source item. Am I getting this right?

If so, I will try to address that point, as well as the other ones.

First, Bob, I really don't disagree that often times a speaker has the most difficulty being an accurate component. As I stated in my other post, I feel that all the components are vital to the system, otherwise the system wouldn't work at all. And if the speaker really does suck really bad, then even a great source won't help it. However, most speakers don't suck all that bad that they will mask an improvement in the source. Here is my point: Most speakers will do a relatively decent job at reproducing the majority of the sound. Maybe not great. But the higher priced speakers aim primarily at covering a wider bandwidth, to give true fullrange capability.If your definition of a better speaker means wider bandwidth, then I may agree that going to a true fullrange speaker from a limited bandwidth speaker will give more of a change than improving the source. Notice that I said "more of a change", and not "sounds better" or "more musical". This is an important distinction. I don't have crappy speakers, and I certainly understand the need for good ones. When you make the speakers better, more signal information will be passed, and they will make the system sound better. I have no problem with that at all. I simply make the statement that getting more signal information to the speakers will make them sound better too. But it will do it in a different way. The speakers, when fed a better signal, will respond with a better sound. Also, the signal, when going through a better set of speakers will respond with a better sound.

The question is, which is more important? And this comes back to the point I made at the top of this post. Is the degrading of the signal by the downstream components more critical than feeding the system with a better signal from the source. My answer is they are both important. If you have a real bottleneck anywhere in the system, you have a problem. From my personal experiences and tastes, I find that even lower priced speakers will easily convey the emotion of the music, when fed with a good source signal. They may not give as much detail, or frequency extension on either end, but they will allow the basic emotion of the music to be heard, unless they are flat-out horrible. This is because enough quality information is available to them from the upstream components, that the prime ingredient of the music gets through: the emotional content. When a poor source is used, then often, not always, the emotional content of the music is robbed of its life, and even the best and most expensive speaker cannot restore that, no matter how extended and detailed it is. And this is much more prevalent today than one might think.

So perhaps this is a "chicken and egg" thing, but I still contend that for a given normal system, that the source will provide more "musical" improvement than speakers will. I will grant that upgrading speakers will give more extension, possibly, and greater detail. I think alot of the 2 sides of this discussion relate to the types of source used. At the risk of bringing digital and analog into the discussion, most digital users are more in the speaker camp, and more analog users are in the source camp. This is because there is a greater "delta" in the sound of the source when analog is introduced into the scenario. Up to this point, digital has only progressed just so far. It is not even in the same galaxy with good analog. So for digital users, the differences in source don't seem so great. But when you hook up a turntable, then some shock starts to set in. I hate to bring that into the discussion, but it is unavoidable, and foolish to ignore it.

Asa, I agree, and I stated carefully, that electronics "at best" can pass the signal perfectly, and I did not intend that to mean that the "best" case is ever attainable. It was simply a reference to the best (im)possible scenario, and not the normal scenario. My wording was not intended to imply that the "best" case of perfect pass-through is attainable.

I also agree with your point that system synergy is very important and can be a very large factor in the overall presentation of the music. As are all of the other components, the room, the recording and everything included in the musical experience.

Again, I agree that this may not hold true to all system types and symmetries, especially regarding the case described above, regarding analog and digital sources.

So, at the expense of appearing stubborn in my position, which I probably am, I feel very certain that this position is correct, when all things are considered. I reiterate that the order of importance is the same order that the signal travels through the system, and each component will define what the next component in the chain is capable of delivering, in the "best case". The next component's job is to degrade the signal in the least possible way, and pass it to the next component. Since the source defines the quality of the signal entering the system, it provides the benchmark of what that system is ultimately capable of reproducing. From there on down the chain, there is only a string of degradation, and the job of the downstream components is to degrade it the least amount possible.

Notwithstanding this, I do agree that a horrible bottleneck somewhere down the chain, can destroy a large part of the signal that even a great source is feeding in. In this case, it is entirely possible that removing that offending component and replacing it with a better one can let more of the signal through, and make more of a difference than the source improvement.

Now we come to the quandary. Do we think that average downstream components will pass enough signal to reveal a better source, or do we think that great downstream components will make up for a lesser source? This is the "chicken and the egg". From my experience, the average components will reveal enough of a better source to make a more musical result, than a great speaker or amp passing more information from an inferior source.

I do appreciate both of your interesting comments and points of view, and it has made this a most enjoyable discussion. Bringing any opinion under strong scrutiny is always helpful to one's self-evaluation regarding said opinions.

TWL, I agree with your statement about good arguements about held opinions to be helpful in gaining more knowledge. I suspect, however, that we are going to continue to disagree on this one - too bad that you had to bring up the digital vs analogue comparison, though.
Still, I think that we are both striving to reproduce (or perhaps create) musical moments with our audio systems, but since we start from different premises, we use different means to achieve them.

Salut, Bob P.