@immatthewj i 100% agree with you my system is 25% speakers. 75% electronics! My system is that way and I’m extremely happy
@calvinj , and I am afraid my electroics $ to speaker $ ratio is even more skewed than that. That is partially because my (25 or 26 year old?) speakers are the 2cond oldest components in my system (my subwoofer being the oldest) and my preamp and CDP are the newest (under 5 years old) so inflation needs to be taken into account, but still. . . . And I truly would like to audition some better speakers. . . .
Anyway, I was going to spare this thread any of my audio anecdotes, but this one is just about how much electronics can make a difference even in a flawed room. Back in the late ’90s I was listening to my present speakers (B&W 805 Matrixes which are stand mounted monitors) using a Cary SLA 70 Signature to drive them with, with a B&K digital HT preamp in front of that, and for the source I was using a Carver CDP as a transport to a Muse Model 2 Dac. (All of that stuff has long since been replaced.) I had a sound that I enjoyed listening to, but I certainly was not getting the sound stage I had read about frequently in Stereophile, and sound stage was something I really wanted more of.
Some time in the late ’90s, the Stereophile cover girl and featured pin up was the Mesa Baron amp (I still have that issue, btw). What a looker. Two monoblocks with six output tubes each in one chassis, meters, switches, knobs, rack handles. . . . Anyway, believe it or not, one of the few local dealers had a demo and he offered me a great trade on my Little Cary, and he let me take it home for the weekend and I was to bring it back on Monday or buy it. His advice was to listen (this is where some of the switches come in) in 1/3 triode and 2/3 pentode.
I got this amp home and set up and hooked up and i WANTED to like it. And I truly did. I typed that I never experienced a sound stage before . . . well . . . I was listening to the Cowboy Junkies a lot back then, and this brought Margo Timmins right up in my face. I became a Leonard Cohen fan through "Natural Born Killers" the same time as I discovered the Junkies, and I still remember his voice sounding more menacing and sardonic and right up in my face than ever before and I enjoyed the experience. And up front and personal and filling the room was pretty much with everything I listened to all day Saturday and Sunday.
However, in addition to being right up front and perhaps adding a sensuous quality to them, vocals sounded sort of husky and musky and it made me think of listening to a music in a room filled with cigarette smoke. But this was unique for me and I was transported somewhere else and I initially liked it.
Sunday night I had just about made up my mind to trade my sweet little Cary in for this behemoth. So the last thing I did before I unhooked the Mesa Baron was to listen to Cowboy Junkies/Sweet Jane (I think I may have listened to both Trinity Sessions and the one and only commercially available, at the time, live version).
Then I hooked my sweet little Cary back up and listened to Sweet Jane again--probably both versions. Wow. The sound stage shrunk to the back wall and around the speakers again, and I wouldn’t call this an A/B because taking amps down and putting amps up and hooking and unhooking wires/cables is a bit time consuming . . . but . . . I had read about a "black background" before, but I never knew what the term truly meant until I heard my sweet little Cary playing Sweet Jane after two days with The Baron. Cymbals shimmering in the air and Margo sounding as if her jaw was clenched on a certain passage. . . . Anyhow, the dealer was not thrilled with my decision, but he took it in stride. However, he did make a comment about "how one gets used to an old shoe. . . ."
The reason I related this aural experience is because I intended it to illustrate the clearly audible differences I heard between electronics using the same speakers in the same flawed room.
Although I still own my sweet little Cary, later on I would pick up a couple of truly dynamic and large sounding ARC VTM120s, a second hand Cary preamp (SLP90) that is my definition of what more musical (than the B&K HT pre) sounds like, and add another piece between my transport and Dac, and then, not due to sound but due to reliability, I would replace the ARCs with a stereo amp that I don’t honestly think sounds better, but I don’t have to worry about getting the soldering iron out when I flip the switches on it. And, as I typed earlier in this long winded reply. within the last four to five years I upgraded my digital front end (I wanted the SACD experience) and the preamp (I had been lusting for the Cary SLP05 for quite some time).
In comparison to the rest of my reply, that last paragraph was quite short. But although the audible impressions the other equipment that I just referred to was not as dramatic as that experience with the Mesa Baron, even in my flawed room with my way less than perfect abused ears, with all my equipment changes I heard differences.
Oh well . . . ramble on. . . .