Amp more important than speakers?

GEE- You mean all amps DON'T perform alike? I'm shocked! Comparing Rotel and ARC? PLEASE!

The happy/MOST EFFICIENT path to the best results is room 1st, speakers second, amp third and then the rest.

Other orders can work well also as long as the end results are in synch, but will likely take more time and expense to optimize and results may not be as good.

Back when I practically lived in "high end emporiums", we were "grooving mightily" to all ARC electronics and top of the line Thiel speakers, when someone came in who wanted to audition a Rotel amp. After the Rotel amp was inserted, with ARC pre and Thiel still in the lineup; the soundstage collapsed.

Hardly surprised. But if you kept the ARC components and swapped in a pair of Radio Shack speakers, the soundstage too would have collapsed. So this proves nothing other than a fool implementing an audio system for either instance.

Want to comment on Blindjim's post. I don't necessarily disagree with your front-end-is-most-important position, though I think I'd side with many here who suggest it's about all the pieces and how they sound together.

You suggest speakers don't factor into sound quality as much as they do bandwidth. That sound quality relies on the signal path. I would argue that better build quality in a more expensive speaker will lead to a better sounding speaker, as things such as resonances are dealt with. More expensive drivers will outperform cheaper ones, allowing the use of less intrusive crossovers. And on and on it goes...

To say that speakers do not manufacture a sound, they just allow it. And that they will exude what they receive and not change it. Personally I agree that the incoming signal must be of high quality, but speakers simply do have their own colorations. Get a high quality front end and play them through two different sets of speakers - the sound will almost surely change.

If the VR4 was simply an open window to what came before it in the chain, then surely it would not require the specific front end you heard that day in that second room. Instead, any well made front end should sound great with those speakers (assuming adequate specification matching). I think it must have been something with that front end and those speakers together that caught your ear. And who knows...probably the cabling and the room too. Just my two pennies.

Jafox, why not keep the ARC and throw away the speakers?