Develop a hierarchy for phono playback

@whart wrote

So, my response should not be taken as a "rule" to apply to others, but rather, where I got the biggest uptick, once everything else was primed for it.

I think that last clause is important: all other things being equal, the closer to the source, the bigger change can be expected when something is upgraded. Errors there are going to be magnified going down the chain of reproduction; a "perfect" loudspeaker can only reproduce the imperfect signal from a poor cartridge etc. This assumes all components are roughly of the same calibre, and if you do have a "weakest link" it must be addressed first.

I’m not @lewm, but "recant"? Seems to suggest that not following fixed percentages is heretical!

@theflattire You can have the greatest TT/Cart ever but running it through a mediocre phono stage only gets you mediocre.

The same argument applies to each component further downstream until you get to the speakers (or hearing aids!) But what does it profit you to have great speakers with a lousy source?—you just hear well reproduced errors. And each step along the chain may magnify the errors it receives from above, so that by the time that signal gets to those speakers it is quite degraded. That's why I say the source is paramount.

But this assumes that all components are roughly equal in quality. The weakest link in the chain makes for a bottleneck, and if there is one, it should be addressed first. This year has seen me replace a cartridge, phono stage and pre-amp. Each made a difference, but you'll be glad to hear the biggest difference came with the phono stage. I'd say that was because its predecessor was letting the side down, not because a phono stage is automatically most important!