Poll: Most impactful component

This is great thread!  My answer--I have no idea.  

How great is Roxy's metaphorical assessment of the system? 

Speakers = Body & Voice

Amplifier = Heart

Pre = Soul

I would add that Source = Blood 

For years I fought the notion that the preamp was super important.  Then I got a legitimate phono preamp (Manley Chinook--still own it despite lots of swapping around).  That made me realize that if a phono preamp could make that big of a difference, how about the preamp itself?   That was eye opening. 

Maybe I should be asking myself, What component is the one to skimp on, if you had to? 

My ears are only 51 years old but I can only hear to 13k. My 35yo wife can’t stand the super tweeters I added to our 2 way Altec horn system because she can hear 19k. I have a toggle switch that takes the tweeters out of the system when she listens with me. It’s sucks to have tweeters that you can’t hear. They do seem to add air though. Now I wear earplugs while mowing and riding my Harley to preserve what I have….

Really great discussion and diversity in views. Sadly this really adds to my confusion. I can't decide! I'm fairly new to the hobby. All this information is great.

This hobby is very personal. Then why do we rely on equipment reviews and base our buying decisions on other's opinions? Every system is different. It must take obsessive iterations in YOUR room and YOUR system to answer this question. That's the lesson I've learned so far. Thanks.

I think it’s fair to say most people consider speakers to be the single most important link in a system, I won’t disagree with that assessment.  Over the past year or two I have upgraded nearly every component in my system and the one that made the single biggest improvement excluding speakers was the phono cartridge.  Obviously this only applies to people who play vinyl.