The most important piece in a stereo system???

I think all of the pieces are equally important, so I think that you should start with one piece that you really know and like the sound of: (speaker,amp, pre-amp,or cd player), then build the rest of your system around it to get the sound that you are looking for. One piece of equipment in your chain can drastically change the sound you are seeking, so audition carefully around the piece that you have selected to start with, and when your finished, you will have a sound that you should truly enjoy.

The most important component is the weakest link component. Could be anything from cables(not likely but possible) to input source to speakers to your room's accustics.

One disagnostic I use is to purchase a very good set of headphones. This elliminates the room, speakers, amp, and some cables from the question. If the headphones sound much better then your speakers then you have a weak link in speakers or amp.....

Got to separate the variable.

Try think of the stereo system as a human system; which part can you say is the most important ? Can you compromise an eye or an ear and still call it a good system? I think you will then get your answer !

Preamp! Don't skimp on it. I wouldn't have thought it before I got into this hobby, but my preamp upgrades have offered the most obvious improvements in sound (Arcam Alpha to Bryston BP20 to Sonic Frontiers Line 3). To answer those who voted for front-end, I believe the 'garbage in garbage out' arguement but I've found the difference between a good $1000 player and a good $6000 player more subtle than such a price difference for other components. As for speakes, I've found speaker enhancements offer the biggest change in the character of the sound but not necessarily the quality - excellent speakers with crap electronics will merely show how bad the electronics are. My friend had B&K electronics drive a pair of Nautilus 804s and the sound was so harsh I was keen to leave the room. Overall, I've found every component matters - I've found my money best spent on a system with roughly equal expenditure on all components and cabling accounting for no less than 20% of overall system (System is YBA CD1a, SF Line 3, Blue Circle BC2s, Audio Physic VirgoII, SPM Ref interconnects and FIM Gold Speaker Cable).

If I had to pick the single most important component I would say the preamp. Why? Because this unit is responsible for taking a very small signal that is passed to it from your source and accurately conveying this information to the amplifier. The preamp also adds gain to the signal before feeding it to the power amplifier so any inperfections at this stage will get multiplied by the amplifier no matter how accurate it is.

My friend who is an engineer would say that the component closest to the source is the most important. So if you listen to CD's than the transport/DAC is the most important. I believe that you can get good quality CD players for reasonable prices and that buying a more expensive CD player does not make that much more of a difference. There are diminishing marginal returns with CD players that increase exponentially with price. Therefore, I don't recommend investing too much money on this component relative to the whole system. My friend would disagree.

An audio dealer in my area would say that the source is what's closest to your ears. That would be the speakers. They are important so its hard for me to argue against this.

I would suggest not focusing on what is the most important component as this argument really does not work well in building a synergistic system.

For instance, take my previous argument about the preamp. If the preamp excels at accuracy and linearity, but the amplifier does not then the system will not reach its potential. If your source ,say CD player,has a bad preamp section then we have a problem again.

First, decide what room you what to build your system in and make sure the room does not have any major flaws. Next, compute a budget for the entire system and audition different equipment that you are interested in. My personal recommendation is to consider Vacuum tubes. They have a musically involving sound. This is especially true with SET amplifiers.

If you decide to go with tube equipment make sure to go with a tube pre and power amp. You can run into impedance mismatch problems with a SS amp and Tube pre or vice versa.



Hope this helps