What Matters and What is Nonsense

I agree with many others on this thread that the quality level of recordings is very important. Even if your reproduction system is excellent, it will only be able to faithfully reproduce what was captured on the recording when it was originally made. In other words, the quality of the recordings played is a limiting factor in the overall sound quality of any home music or ht system.
Excellent recordings will sound that way on an excellent system. However, the quality of all recordings will also be more easily apparent the better the quality of your system becomes. Poor recordings will sound that way, even on an excellent system.
I use a laptop running JRiver that sends ripped CDs and 24bit/96Khz hi-res files on a Synology NAS to an Oppo 105 serving as a DAC and player. Amplification is a pair of high powered class D monoblocks driving Magnepan 2.7 speakers. Bass below 40 Hz is reproduced by a separate 4 sub distributed bass array system powered by a 1K watt class AB amp. I believe most members, including myself, would classify my system as good but not excellent.
The main point I want to make is that, even played through just a moderately good system, the quality of the recording largely dictates the quality of the overall sound produced on my system. I’m able to clearly discern the superiority in general of my hi-res FLAC and WAV files in comparison to my ripped CD files.
I primarily perceive the hi-res files as having lower background noise levels, greater dynamics and higher levels of details that seems to result in a more realistic sound stage illusion as well as a better sense of the recording venue.
Some of these characteristics may actually be mostly attributable to the higher resolution level of the hi-res direct to digital recording format but I’m considering this just another contributing factor in the more general recording quality assessment.
I think the variances between recording formats and recording quality would likely only become more easily noticed the better one’s system becomes.
Of course, nobody’s going to completely agree with phomchick’ s list of relative importance of relevant factors in system building since it’s so subjective and there are too many permutations with assigning a relative importance ranking..
I tend to agree on some of his thoughts:
The high importance of buying the best speakers you can afford and a good listening room.
The relatively high importance assigned to elements of the overall recording quality such as the recording room, the mics used, the room and mic setup as well as the equalization and mixing of the recording.
But I tend to disagree on some of his other thoughts:
His relatively high importance assigned to room correction and DSP.
His claims that there’s nothing we music consumers can do about the format and quality of recordings.
     We are all constantly voting with our dollars. If we consistently vote by purchasing the better formats and recordings, the content providers will continue to supply and even increase and improve the quantity and quality of those recordings.

Tim

I also feel that good powercords and interconnects and speaker cable are more of a component in ones system. 

Phomchick,

RE DSD recordings and dynamic range:

You are correct, sir! Check out the dynamic range in the vinyl. Whoa!

http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list?artist=Michael+tilson+Thomas&album=

I am in general agreement with the OP.

Though I think the section about the importance of the recording methods could essentially have gone without saying. I don’t know any audiophiles - "tweakers" or not - who don’t realize the role the recording/mastering etc methods are to the sound of any track.

It’s in the playback system that there is lots of confusion and disagreement.

I myself put the emphasis on the biggest bang for the buck: speakers, modifying room acoustics, and speaker positioning. To that end my cabling is simply "competently manufactured cables, chosen for the task." For instance I have a long run of belden (10 awg, probably over-kill) speaker cables that go under my floors from my source room to my speaker room. (Which must be a frightening to those who believe they need cable risers even in the few feet from their speaker to amps. Imagine the audiophile house of horrors to which I’m exposing my cables!). I use stock power cords, and a mishmash of interconnects. Still using an old Benchmark DAC1 - not even usb!

For me the importance of putting money into good speakers, and paying attention to acoustics, is re-enforced every time I listen to another system employing expensive cables, DACs, etc. For instance I have been auditioning many different speakers for the last couple years or so.
Inevitably the speakers - usually ones well lauded and essentially competing around the same price range as my own - are hooked up to fire-hose cables (or Nordost or whatever), super expensive AC cables, conditioners, expensive CD transports or servers, etc, etc.

And pretty much every time I come home, play the same tracks on my system, it sounds at least as good or better - I hear every reverb trail, every this and that, all presented smoothly, with finess and dynamics.
The tens of thousands in additional expense for cabling and accessories sure don’t seem to show up as any advantage in the store auditions - certainly not enough to overcome good speakers and acoustics.
(That’s also true when I listen to some pal’s systems with crazy expensive Nordost cabling).

So I’m really happy not to have been convinced that I need to have spent time, thought, and MUCH more money on cables and tweaks.
(I’ve seen some people around here actually recommend spending something like 30 percent of your budget on cables!).

None of that is to proclaim that none of the expensive accessories can make a sonic difference; it’s only to say where I find my own money is best spent.

That said: I have in my own experience seen the effects of amplifiers on a system. I prefer certain tube amplification over SS in my systems. Even though we may be talking objectively subtle differences, they seem to play a large role subjectively. I find myself much more drawn to sitting down in front of my system when using certain tube amplification.

Further, at one point I re-did my 2 channel room to do home theater duty as well. This meant switching the usual speaker/listening sofa position 180 degrees. Talk about a rude reminder of the effect of room acoustics!   Once I did that, the change in acoustics made my speakers sound like crap! Sucked out, dry, brittle, you name it. I was utterly despondent as I didn’t even want to listen to anything any more. But I had been temporarily using an old Harmon Kardon SS amp (because my CJ amps weren’t working). A good amp and I’d always enjoyed my smaller systems using it - in fact it had been powering my speakers and things sounded fine before I switched the room around. So it wasn’t the problem, it was the acoustics.

The HK amp went on the blink and I had to borrow another. My pal had an old Eico HF-81 14W side tube amp lying around and lent it to me. I knew nothing about that amp, just wanted sound coming out of my speakers. When I started playing music I was gobsmacked by the sound - big, rich, full, organic. There was that sound I’d been longing for and was used to in my previous set up! My butt was suddenly stuck in the chair listening. That’s all it took to show me I could still get in to two channel audio. Afterward I commissioned an acoustician when remodelling the room and now my 2 channel sounds better than ever.

So I’m certainly an audiophile who can obsess over little things. I’m super sensitive to alterations of tone in my system. But I reap so much more in dialling acoustics and speaker positioning than anything I’ve heard from a cable or conditioner of any type (or other tweaks - and I have had access to many tweaks and high end cables etc).