Good cd player and a great DAC or great cd player?

I've heard the argument for putting most of your money into your speakers before. Often the people who advance it say that speakers are the most critical part of the sound system, but they don't say why. Or they say, well, that's the part that actually moves the air. Or that the speakers are responsible for some large percentage of the total distortion in the system, 35 % for example. I believe these arguments, with or without the distraction of figures, miss the point.

Ritteri, I agree with you that a separate transport and DAC are definitely not a guarantee in themselves of good reproduction. I even think, like you, that unless there is a compelling reason to get a two-box system ( a reason such as an upgrade opportunity too good to miss, or a combination which your ears tell you beats everything else at the same price ), then a single-box player is a much better bet.

You may choose to develop a system around a pair of wonderful speakers, but unless you can immediately afford to purchase all your other components at the same level of performance, you will then wait for your upgrades as you listen to the weaknesses of your upsteam units in horrible clarity. Whereas if you have a fine source, upgrades downstream will progressively reveal what a fine buy you made at the start. This is why it makes more sense to start building a system at the source.

Joyelyse, I too would like to hear how the Ikemi turns out in your tests, if you get the chance to post !

Tobias: Reason why most people state to put most of the money into the speakers is due to the fact that mankind in general has yet to master the physics of sound reproduction. We can store,decode and transmit a signal that is therotically close to perfect in the digital/analogue line level realm, but we cant do this anywhere near close to the same level on the output(speaker/transducers themselves)stage which is what we actually "hear".

Its a well proven fact that the speakers, their placement and the actual room acoustics are the absolute most critical part of ANY system regardless of price. I would rather take a killer set of speakers placed properly in a well set-up room with a minimal money invested in source and amplification from a price point of view then get average sounding speakers with better source and amplification. I personally think that budgetwise anywhere from 50-75% of the money should go into speakers that match up accoustically to the room they will be going into. If your budget is in the real world area of about $5-$10k that would mean investing about $2500-$7500 on the speakers themselves with about $2500-$5000 left over for source,amplification and cabling. I sure as hell know you can get incredible sounding transducers for $2500 no question. And $2500 leaves alot left over for good quality source,amplification and cabling.

Hell if the budget is less than$5k(say $2500 total)I still know that there are real good speakers in the $1250 range. And $1250 is still plenty for a high sound quality source and amplification, still leaving enough for some good cabling. But once again, most of the budget NEEDS to go into the speakers no question. They are the theoretical weak link in the chain.

Agree with Ritteri. While I do believe that all links in the chain are equally important, I desided to build my system around speakers. Why? Speakers set the final limitations on your system: even "cheap" CD player usually can do certain kinds of music quite well, but being harsh on complicate orchestral pieces. But if the speakers become "bad" for you, it won't be good on any genre. My 'old good' NAD CD player sounded pretty good with new Revel M20 speakers (on most genres). But I hardly imagine my new Moon Nova (I consider it as a very good source) would benefit to the sound being coupled with old-cheap Mission 702 speakers.

really wouldnt suggest dropping alot of $$$ into a digital source right now.

things are changing too rapidly and the deprecation is horrendous. ie the philips 963 ($400 new) can take on any digital cd/dac of 2-3 years ago in $2500 range.

i would look at the marantz sa 8260 or the sa12/14...the redbook is incredible and it has sacd ( the redbook is damn close to the sacd).

the musicality is unusual in a digital source at any price. would suggest bying with a warranty... there have been TOC / transport/servo problems.

the sa8260 can be had for $700 to $800, definitly worth a audition.

hope that helps !!!

mike

I didn't say that good speakers should never be used with a less-good source. I said that given a limited budget and an upgrade plan like the (excellent) one Conscious has, he is making the best decision to spend as much as he can on the source first. In this way he will get the most pleasure over the long term.

It's a fact for me. A good source with ordinary downstream gear is more listenable than the opposite. Where I worked years ago setting up turntables, it was easy to hear. We had the cheapest monitor equipment you can imagine, and you could still easily tell the difference between sources of different quality. When a really good turntable, a Linn for example, came in for a checkup, it grabbed everyone's attention.

Upgrading is expensive. It makes economic sense to buy everything in your dream system right now if you can. But if you have to plan to get there over ten years, then I say plan the fewest changes you can, and start with a great source.