Which component is most responsible?

"12-18-13: Quad-man
I would rate in this order: The recording..source..pre-amplifier...amplifier....speakers.

The speakers are often the most innocent...unless they're not!

Another way to look at this: all in all the pre-amp in the most responsible."

Its good to see that so many people are giving preamps the credit they deserve. This wasn't always the case. Preamps are often overlooked when building a system. They're just as important as any other piece.

Your system is only as good as the weakest link. You are the weakest link! Goodbye!!!

Sometimes the owner is the weakest link. :o)

I just had this very experience in this past month. I was auditioning speakers, and had tried the Martin Logan Motion 40s, the Sonus Venere 2.5s, the GoldenEar Triton 7s, some 2001-isth McIntoshes, and Aperion T3s. But when my wife and I played Mendelssohn's "Elijah" cantata with full orchestra and 8-part vocal harmonies, the Magneplanaer 1.7s ran away from the pack. They were the only ones that easily tracked the 8-part vocal harmonies in the midst of a fullscale orchestra operating at … er … full scale.

I pay attention to sources, to phono and line level preamps, interconnects, and speaker cables. But they can't fix a lack of phase coherence, cabinet resonances, driver overshoot and ringing, driver-to-driver discontinuities, and in-room power response deficiencies from crossover-based suckout. Those belong to the speakers alone and can't be fixed by upstream components and cables.

The Magnepans are devoid of clarity-robbing enclosure resonances. Also, with their large radiating area and minimal excursion, they are also less vulnerable to inertia-based distortions. Maggies aren't the only speakers that address these problems; other panel speakers such as electrostatics offer the same strengths. Open baffle dynamic speakers, especially those with multiple tweeters and mids also have an advantage here, both in reduction of cabinet resonances and also minimal inertia-related distortions.

The point is, if you want lots of delineation in polyphony, speakers that rely on radiating surface vs. excursion have an inertia-based advantage over designs based primarily on diaphragm excursion.

The best recorded choral CD I've heard is BIS CD-533 "Christmas Music" featuring the a capella male chorus Orphei
Dranger of Upsulla University.
Its not all Christmas music and its not all in Swedish,but is all magnificent. Three male voices alone singing the "Coventry Carol' made my hair stand on end.

Straight up gang, the Swedish Choirs are the worlds best and the BIS label makes the best Recordings extant.

3 male voices is a simple task for decent system... 100 + voices with multiple counter harmonies is not. Carmina Burana is a piece my system struggles with for air and definition in massed chorus passages regardless of LP or digital.