Which component is most responsible?

Nothing is possible unless your speakers can accurately reproduce the signal it is fed. If they can do that then the rest is found in set up and electronics. Not necessarily easy, but possible. Order of priority of electronics Amp to match speakers, source for producing a signal and lastly a pre-amp. Lots of folks like the last first, likely because its effect is more subtle than the others. Personally I think it is easier to fit a pre-amp into and existing system than the others unless you are buying/building a really high end system and the subtle stuff is going to be critical.

the preamp is the key to the sound you are describing.

Happy Listening.

Awhile back I started a similar thread. For me, the holy grail was a clear spatial separation of the first and second violins in string quartet recordings. My premise was that the problem was inherent to my speakers (magnepan 3.7Rs) due to the side by side arrangement of the ribbon tweeter and the quasi-ribbon midrange.
I got a variety of suggestions from power treatment to other speakers, even headphones. In the end, the solution was realized by a preamp upgrade. You may find that you will find the biggest improvement by replacing the weakest link. In the end, every component in the chain has to be up to the task. Speakers can't recreate a spacial relationship that your CD player smeared, but the reverse argument is equally true.

This has to come from the source or else nothing downstream can put back what was lost. Massed chorus music and complex full orchestra passages are extremely challenging to the entire audio chain so that it all needs to be right or else muddiness results... much easier to get distinctness with a few "voice" lines than many competing voice lines