What Matters and What is Nonsense

@markalarsen 

I’d disagree about electronics being more important than speakers.  I’ve demoed B&W 804 D3s powered by an Integra receiver running through a Magnolia switchboard and they still sounded excellent, and a clear step up from the CM10 S2s even with what would be considered a big electronics mismatch.  

Can electronics sound different?  Sure, and tubes in particular can introduce euphonic distortion that many find pleasing.  I’ve heard some tube amps that sounded great, and I may play around with one in one of my systems at home, but they’re not necessarily more accurate (which may or may not matter to the individual listener). 

Still, tubes aside, once you’ve found an amp that’s capable of handling your speakers’ load (which will be more demanding for difficult to drive speakers like Revel Salon2s, certain electrostats, or a notorious amp killer like the Apogee Fullrange), you’ve found enough power to drive your speakers to the desired dynamic peaks in your room, and the specs on the amp are good enough to not introduce audible crosstalk or noise, the differences between electronics should be pretty slim, other than DSP features which can have a dramatic effect on the sound.  

The distortion introduced by speakers and room effects will be orders of magnitude greater than that introduced by electronics.  Spend the money on the speakers and the room, and enough on electronics to drive them without limitations.  

I don’t know why I rise to the bait of these provocative posts, but I do. If the OP had just added a small caveat that this is his humble opinion then all would be well. But no, we have an objective position described, even down to scoring each element out of ten. Oh dear.

I have 40 years in audiophilia (I mention that as the OP states his/her 50 years gives him/her some God-given right to be right) and 30 years working in the music industry including much time spent with mastering engineers at one of the UK’s biggest recording and mastering studios. I can categorically state that the OP may be stating his beliefs, but they are no more than that, and by no means are they definitive truths.

Let’s take the mastering studios as an example: very expensive amps, cables and DACs are present. And remember these guys, as mastering engineers, need the most accurate sound from their source. And interestingly different engineers spend different proportions of their budget on different elements. But if you only take the elements in the studio that match home Hifi, none of the engineers would recognize your assertion of truth, and indeed in none of the studios are the speakers the most expensive item from the dac/amp/room treatment/cabling.

And my own system? Having heard near perfect audio reproduction in the studio I knew what sound I wanted to achieve. After endless home demos along the way, only spending when an improvement was heard, I ended up with the following spends:
cdp/dac (34% of the total cost),
integrated amp (38% of total cost),
speakers (14%),
cables/rack/grounding/isolation (14% - and yes, these have made as important a contribution as the speakers).

The sound I have achieved is not as perfect as the mastering studios, but it’s pretty amazing.

The difference is, I would never say that you or anyone, should follow my spending allocation, nor that of the studios, nor that of the OP. Every person is different, every room is different, every system is different. Let people find their own truths and please stop proclaiming yours as THE truth.

duckworp,

Never having set a foot in a studio, save for Compass Point with no music playing, it was interesting to read your short observations of them. I wish you elaborated more on that, but it is probably a topic for some other thread.

Despite agreeing with you 100% on...

The difference is, I would never say that you or anyone, should follow my spending allocation, nor that of the studios, nor that of the OP.

I think you are a bit harsh on OP. I had a feeling he simply made his thoughts public, rather than preaching that is the only way it should be done. More like an advice to a friend who is asking for help navigating. Maybe I misunderstood it.

When I was growing up, I heard that half of your budget should go to speakers and the rest would be divided between whatever sources you chose. It was to be some golden rule. Has anyone else heard of that logic? It just stuck with me and I, not intentionally, happen to have achieved almost perfect equilibrium these days.

@duckworp,
Amen.

When I was growing up you got speakers, amplifier tube or transistor), turntable (stylus usually came pre-installed), speaker wire/plugs, and Singles/LPs. Then in the years afterwards things got complicated.