What matters most? Here's Peter Aczel's take -
2.The principal determinants of sound quality in a recording produced in the last 60 years or so are the recording venue and the microphones, not the downstream technology. The size and acoustics of the hall, the number and placement of the microphones, the quality and level setting of the microphones will have a much greater influence on the perceived quality of the recording than how the signal was captured whether on analog tape, digital tape, hard drive, or even direct-to-disk cutter; whether through vacuum-tube or solid-state electronics; whether with 44.1-kHz/16-bit or much higher resolution. The proof of this can be found in some of the classic recordings from the 1950s and 1960s that sound better, more real, more musical, than todays average super-HD jobs. Lewis Layton, Richard Mohr, Wilma Cozart, Bob Fine, John Culshaw, where are you now that we need you?
3.The principal determinants of sound quality in your listening room, given the limitations of a particular recording, are the loudspeakers not the electronics, not the cables, not anything else. This is so fundamental that I still cant understand why it hasn't filtered down to the lowest levels of the audio community. The melancholy truth is that a new amplifier will not change your audio life. It may, or may not, effect a very small improvement (usually not unless your old amplifier was badly designed), but the basic sound of your system will remain the same. Only a better loudspeaker can change that. My best guess as to why the loudspeaker-comes-first principle has not prevailed in the audiophile world is that a new pair of loudspeakers tends to present a problem in interior decoration. Swapping amplifiers is so much simpler, not to mention spouse-friendlier, and the initial level of anticipation is just as high, before the eventual letdown (or denial thereof).
https://www.hifivision.com/threads/legacy-of-peter-aczel-aka-the-audio-critic.59014/#js-post-658450
2.The principal determinants of sound quality in a recording produced in the last 60 years or so are the recording venue and the microphones, not the downstream technology. The size and acoustics of the hall, the number and placement of the microphones, the quality and level setting of the microphones will have a much greater influence on the perceived quality of the recording than how the signal was captured whether on analog tape, digital tape, hard drive, or even direct-to-disk cutter; whether through vacuum-tube or solid-state electronics; whether with 44.1-kHz/16-bit or much higher resolution. The proof of this can be found in some of the classic recordings from the 1950s and 1960s that sound better, more real, more musical, than todays average super-HD jobs. Lewis Layton, Richard Mohr, Wilma Cozart, Bob Fine, John Culshaw, where are you now that we need you?
3.The principal determinants of sound quality in your listening room, given the limitations of a particular recording, are the loudspeakers not the electronics, not the cables, not anything else. This is so fundamental that I still cant understand why it hasn't filtered down to the lowest levels of the audio community. The melancholy truth is that a new amplifier will not change your audio life. It may, or may not, effect a very small improvement (usually not unless your old amplifier was badly designed), but the basic sound of your system will remain the same. Only a better loudspeaker can change that. My best guess as to why the loudspeaker-comes-first principle has not prevailed in the audiophile world is that a new pair of loudspeakers tends to present a problem in interior decoration. Swapping amplifiers is so much simpler, not to mention spouse-friendlier, and the initial level of anticipation is just as high, before the eventual letdown (or denial thereof).
https://www.hifivision.com/threads/legacy-of-peter-aczel-aka-the-audio-critic.59014/#js-post-658450