And the biggest influence on sound quality is...

tomcarr

Funny that you post this. It has been my experience over many years that matches yours. The quality of the recording and engineering/production makes ALL the difference in the world. Garbage in, garbage out. It does not matter how resolving the audio setup can be, a bad recording will sound bad. Conversely, a very high quality recording that has been produced and engineered well... will make a good system sound sublime. I don't doubt that the quality of the component will make a difference. But in my experience the recording itself makes a bigger difference. My two cents...

@mark200mph

“My ears. Have fun with it all and the experience”

I would agree most people would leave this out of the discussion. And yes if your hearing is deficient, you may not know it without a hearing test and you can do something about it by getting hearing aids. Also it was mentioned that the recording is something you don’t have control over. I would disagree since many individual albums have different pressings and some have been remastered. Therefore one may able to get a better recording. As far as CD or streaming, yes there are versions that are better recordings than others and many are better resolution as well.