Hardest component to decide on

Room treatments are tough for me. They are all unacceptable to my spouse. Comparisons and listening tests are difficult at best. Many products are so different from each other it's hard to get any idea what impact will be in a given room/system.

Spencer

Digital source are tuff for me, differences are so small and yet so large. I am in that soon to upgrade digital source mode at this time. Could be a long process, for me anyway.

Dave

I've got the same dilema as Spencer with room treatments and WAF. If I kept to the physical chain of the system I'd say speaker cables as they can make a pretty big difference, yet the difference they make is extremely system dependent IME.

Marco

Turntables and phono cartridges because it is virtually impossible to get a demo comparison of even two units on a "side-by-side" basis. Side-by-side demos of all other equipment is easy by comparison.

Mr. Kidknow

Room treatments. It takes so long to get them right and it is very difficult to do a comparison since it's pretty bulky and time consuming to set up. It's probably best just to hire a professional and call it a day -- especially once you get into the "built-ins" (e.g., Albert Porter's configuration).

Close behind in difficulty is everything else ;-)