System building; a meditation

System building; a meditation

This is an offshoot of a posting I made in a different thread; that is, what is one’s approach to building a system out of various components that maximizes the sonic attributes of the combination of particular components?There’s been some push-back on “tweaks” but leave that to the side for now. How does one select what components to include in a system, putting to one side budgetary constraints? (the budget thing can be solved in several ways, including through used and through a deliberate strategy to acquire certain components over time that achieve a certain result- my point being, if it weren’t simply a constraint of capital, how does one choose?)

There seem to be a few rules that we abide by- the relationship of amp to speaker being fundamental. The choice of front end –from DIY digital to high end analog is also a choice, but I’ll be agnostic in this regard even though I came up through the LP and still regard it as the mainstream medium of choice, simply because of the wealth of material in older records.

How do people choose the combinations of equipment they employ? Is it happenstance, the gradual upgrading of each component to a high standard or some other benchmark for what the system is supposed to do that necessitates certain choices?

For what it is worth, I don’t endorse one single approach; I went from electrostat listening (including ribbon tweets and subs) to horns, sort of (Avantgardes plus subs) and SET as one choice, but have heard marvelous systems using larger, relatively inefficient dynamic set ups (Magico; Rockport, TG, etc.) combined with big solid state power that left a very positive impression.

How do you sort through the thicket? It isn’t just specs, and listening within your system to evaluate is an ideal, but I’m opening this up to system building in general—what approach do you take? I’m not sure there is a single formala, but thought it worth exploring since it seems to be an undercurrent in a lot of equipment changes without addressing the “why?” of it or how one makes these choices.

I know that we are mired in a subjective hobby, and almost every system is different, even if the components are the same in a different room, but thought this might be an interesting topic for discussion. If not, the lack of responses will prove me wrong. I don’t have a single answer to this FWIW.