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A stupid question for which there's no sensible answer.

I know, I know. At least I've labeled it properly.

Here goes: of the following elements of a system, how would you rank their influence on the sound? In other words, generally, which would someone want to upgrade or prioritize, and in what order,  if all of the following pieces were inferior to an amp/preamp and speakers they were happy with? Power cables, connector cables. speaker cables. streaming source, music source, dac (I vote for this one as #1), room treatment, speaker placement, type of chair, earwax quotient, what you ate for lunch, etc.

I hereby give my permission for everyone to tell me this is an idiotic question since the real answer is: it depends. (But I did put a "generally" in there somewhere). Anyway, I prefer that we debate this based on what we've experienced when we've tinkered. So I guess I'm really interested in anecdotes.

m669326

Showing 2 responses by hilde45

hilde45's avatar
hilde45
5,261 posts
 
Giving license to this forum to call your question "idiotic" is like giving license to gravity to pull things down!

I would say "it depends" but it really does depend -- on *how* inferior those other things are to your speakers and amp. And how they are positioned in your room. Because as many have said, even a $100,000 system can sound terrible in the wrong room.

But let’s assume that all the other elements you mentioned are at least decent. I’d say the DAC or the source would make the biggest difference. I added an R2R tube DAC to my existing system before anything else. A DAC that cost $1.1k replaced a $170 DAC and all of a sudden...magic.
hilde45's avatar
hilde45
5,261 posts
 
@larry The first guy to respond was most definitely not doing that. What is your opinion on the question? 
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