The best way to design an audio system.

If you start with a large and diverse collection of "great" music, then within reason, whatever else follows is gravy. Which is not imply that people don't have very strong opinions about gravy.

Wally an Sean seem to have it right.But flexiblity for whenever the inevitable urge to chenge out tsuff is important.I would like to get more efficient speakers and go with a smaller,more refined amp than my 6L6 based Mesa baron.But the fact that it's twelve ouput tubes can be switched to triode/pentode in thirds allowing very different sound and power (90/120/150 wpc) makes me loathe to give it up for just when i have found the 104 db sens "Horns of my dreams", a deal that can't be past up on some insensitve speakers with diffcult loads will inevitably be offered up.I therefore end up holding on to stuff longer thnI should but that pisses me off too.Whatever i do I remeber that Murphy was an optomistic 'Phile.

Sugarbrie: I knew you were kidding to some degree--so was I. I guess satirical comments don't always come across that way in text only.

Though lacking the experience and expertise of the respondants thus far, the beginning of my audio journey nontheless encompassed a lot of their suggestions. My current system replaced a mass market one, so I lacked a usable reference for how an audiophile system should sound or how to go about building one. I had sold audio gear years before, but hadn't followed the market for quite some time. Recognizing those short comings I layed out a plan of attack.

In order, though some of this overlapped, the steps were:

Education - Auditioned a wide variety of components, especially speakers, to learn what was available, where my tastes lay and what seemed to satisfy them. Read everything I could lay my hands on including Audiogon, Audio Asylum, the audio news groups and both professional and amateur reviews. Asked questions at every opportunity of anyone who might respond. Learned quickly to take it all with a grain of salt, too...

Consideration - Thought through the short and long term expectations of the system with an eye toward an upgrade path. Using the auditions as a baseline a general budget was decided on, as well as how much to spend on each component. One issue that complicated things is that I rent my home. The room is always subject to change and that had to be factored in, too.

Confirmation - After the above was reasonably well lined out there were more auditions, again mostly speakers, this time focused on a defined set of desired traits. Once the speakers were decided on the rest of the gear selection literally fell into place.

Acquisition - Buying half the gear used kept the budget under control and allowed for upgrades to items like cables and tweaks. Being patient and waiting for the used gear to be offered for sale was the hardest part, but it literally saved me thousands of dollars.

Retrospection - The end result has met all expectations and has proved to be a good foundation for future improvements. But perfection is hard to acheive.

Were I to start over a few things would be different. More of the budget would go into the source components and speaker efficiency would get greater attention. Monitors with subs would also get consideration.

One -tion also needs mention. That is procrastination. Upon reflection, I over analyzed everything in an effort to avoid making mistakes and made some anyway. Today I'd be more apt take the plunge and fix the errors along the way. Even a mildly mismatched system would have been better than the extra three years I endured the mid-fi system!

Well, because I am not an old timer I hesitated, but after learning nothing new here, maybe I am on the other side for this topic. To choose a system, I would try to audition as many types of systems I could, like esl, planar, dynamic, high-efficiency, headphones, turntable, CDP). Second, I would think about and be extremely honest w/ myself about practical concerns, like money, S.O., amount of self-energy I would like to put in to my system(some systems need more energy than others), what sort of buying I am comfortable with(e.g. dealer, used, internet). Third, discover what speakers I enjoy from the system type, within the relevant practical concerns that have a tonal balance that suits my room. From there pick the component from the type(speakers, amps, preamps, source, cables)that has the fewest sonically reasonable options. Usually that is the amp, because whatever speaker you choose will only be happy with a limited number of amps. Last, like others have said, room treatment is very beneficial. There are a lot of ways to put a system together, and the philosophy is whatever works for you. Better answers come from more specific questions.