Poll: Most impactful component

Speakers are the voice of the system, amplifier is the heart and the pre is the soul, so I will give it the most importance, because in my experience over the years, an otherwise good system can be ruined by a poor pre. That said, speakers are also greatly important, especially for preserving coherency and dynamics.

with everything right in the chain, it is the speaker that matters the most (along with room of course)

@jjss49 

Reading what you wrote made me reconsider, because I realized that I have changed speakers 20 times over the years before settling in long term, and therefore I voted with my wallet, and over the years speakers were apparently the most critical link.

@roxy54

it is all important of course, after all it is a chain, so the ’weak link’ logic applies

and folks who say it is the source do have a point, the signal starts there, once purity is lost, it is never recovered

but my thinking is, as knowledgeable, experienced audiophiles, we should know how to get the source purity to a very high level, then the speakers (assumed to driven properly by amplification) are the actual ’musical instrument’ that electromechanically transduces the electrical signal to physical music that we hear... so that (and how the speakers couple to the listening room) is, to me, the most important/critical aspect for each of us to get right, and in most cases, the most difficult