Setup vs. Amp/Preamp choice?


Which do you value more?

I've read endless questions re: which amp, preamp,or integrated is best with which speakers. I believe most of that discussion is nonsense for most equipment. True, there are certain electrical synergies between amps and speakers that are important, and preamps certainly sound different. But the absolutely critical factors in determining what a system will sound like are: 1. your own likes and dislikes and 2. setup. I have heard great gear sound terrible and average gear sound fantastic - it really depends on how things were set up in a particular listening room. I've heard people describe a particular integrated amp as having as small soundstage - In my room and with my speakers, the soundstage was vast. I've heard people describe the sound of certain gear as shrill or unlistenable - Well perhaps it is in their setup, but what does that tell me about how it will sound in my room?

Many of you who ask for advice about gear place inordinate value on subjective opinions of individuals with varying tastes, hearing ability, prejudices, rooms and setups. That is completely absurd: The only way to judge how a piece of equipment will sound is to test it in your room after proper setup. And small changes in speaker placement can make a huge difference. So stop running around like a bunch of maniacs who have to switch equipment every few months in search of nirvana, and concentrate on setting up your system properly. That's where the greatest reward is (for everyone except dealers).

Do you agree?
msratty
Uhrn. . . seems the garden variety messianic personality is live and well on Audiogon.

Once again, we are being regaled with "absolutely free" advice, of the most generic variety of course. A promise to cure us, long suffering audiophiles, instantly and painlessly, from compulsive audio purchasing, the most devastating symptoms of our horrid DAC (Degenerative Audiophilic Chorea), is invariably implied, if we only had the sense of following the true truth (updated version 4.1), blessedly promulgated by the latest born again audio-guru, in the guise of Msratty in this particular case.

Even better, we should flop and squirm in awe!

And no, as my 56 birthday is only 2 days away, I shant seek aprobation by asking the rhetorical "You agree?" I am unfortunatly slowly losing the need for emotional sucker. . . a clear sign of an aging brain.

Saluti a casa!

Guido

PS. If the reader were somewhat unfamiliar with DAC. . .

"Sometimes erroneously referred to as Audiophilia Nervosa by some uninformed audiophiles and unrepenting tweaks, DAC is an extremely debilitating hereditary condition. It was first identified and discussed in 1989 by a team of European neurologysts, audiophiles and tweaks lead by Gavronsky and Pugnetti of the Pio Istituto Don Gnocchi in Milano.
See: Aloysius Q. Schmaltzenstein Gavronsky, Dr. Luigi Pugnetti (M.D.) et Al. Environmental triggers and sex-linked predisposition in late onset adventitious Degenerative Audiophilic Chorea (Acta Medica Refutata (preprint), vol 35, No. 4, pp. 435 - 459. Appenzell, 2023).
The authors describe DAC as a acute disturbance of the central nervous system, usually having an onset in very early middle age and characterized by involuntary muscular movements, uncontrollable usage of credit cards, increasingly severe and expensive delusions, disastrous lapses of financial common sense, and general progressive cognitive deterioration, accompanied by often mewlings, drewlings and ritualistic genuflection and prostration in front of any gleaming audio component.
DAC attacks the cells of the basal ganglia, clusters of nerve tissue deep within the brain that govern coordination, as well as the cortex, which is expected to govern common sense.
The onset is insidious and inexorably progressive; no treatment is known.
Psychiatric disturbances range from personality changes involving compulsive purchase or modification of audio equipment, in the abscence of which the sufferer experiences apathy and irritability, to manic depressive or schizophreniform episodes when away from one's High-End Audio System for any significant amount of time.
Motor manifestations include flicking movements of the upper extremities, hands reaching uncontrollably to one's back pockets towards any credit cards and compulsive signing of any audio-related sales slips, a lilting gait whenever in front of high-end audio stores, and motor impersistence (inability to sustain a motor act such as tongue protrusion), unless ever-more-frequent and progressively expensive and outlandish upgrades to the patient's audio system are applied.
In 1989 the gene responsible for the disease was located by Schmaltzenstein-Gavronsky and Pugnetti; within that gene a small segment of code is, for some reason, copied over and over.
Expert genetic and audio consultant counseling is extremely important, since 50% of the male offspring of an affected parent inherit the gene, which inevitably leads to the disease if the subject is exposed to any high-end system worth of such an appellation.
An autosomic recessive form of the disorder likely also exists, but is very rare, according to the scant epidemiological studies of DAC, as far less females than males are affected. The prognosis is rather bleak. Sufferers invariably end their days divorced, in dept, indigent, increasingly semicatatonic, with a silly grin on their faces, while immersed in a permanent REM state, dreaming of evermore extravagant system upgrades."
Randomized House Dictionary of Improbable Sciences, Electronic edition. (Copyright 2030, Randomized House)

PPS. Bottomline: Dear Msratty, please leave us kindly suffer in blessed peace! Thanks, G.

Sweet jumpon' jelly fish Guido!

.....so I'm guessing tums & Tylenol can't touch that!
Based upon the nature of the responses Msratty has obviously struck a nerve. Although frankly, I not really sure why. It's not as if the OP said anything radical and I don't think he was impolite or overly aggressive in his tone. Could be that what he said is obvious to the point of being trite. But sometimes the obvious needs to be said. I peruse the virtual systems section and I see some incredible systems that, at least visually, appears to really well setup for stereo playback. At the same time I also see any number of systems that are comprised of quality components, but look to be poorly setup. Looks can be misleading, but I'm thinking of examples of wide dispersion speakers placed in front of wall of full length windows in an uncarpeted room. Or what about the big Wilson where one speaker is jammed in a corner and the other is at the interior corner of an L-shaped room? And of course there's my fav, the Dynaudios recessed into a closet. It's possible that all these systems sound quite good, but they are clearly not optimized. It's a legitimate comment to question the owners of these systems priorities.
You's right Jim, no cure nor palliative treatment. . . perhaps in the future there will be gene therapy for degenerative audiophilia nervosa, according to the latest work by Schmaltzenstein-Gavronsky and Gigi Pugnetti, , but the treatment is likely to be even more expensive than the indulgence, so. . . why bother fixing something that makes us happy?

G.