Ok this will be a good thread.

Speakers, unless you are using "source" correctly and referring to the records or cds that you are listening to. And then it would still be close. The simple reason is that speakers are much less accurate and have much higher levels of distortion than any electronic components, and are therefore the limiting factor. Modern amps, cdps and preamps are just not a problem. Even a little TEAC or Yamaha minisystem sounds fine if connected to a pair of good speakers. It gets a little more complicated if you're talking about record playing equipment and cartridges, because those things can be screwed up, cartridges almost as much as speakers. But, speakers vary so much in what they do, and almost all are colored and distorted in one way or another.

For those who say the listening room is even more important than the speakers, I respect that point of view, but there are some speakers that work well in real world rooms, because their designer takes real world use into account. So, I find the limiting factor in my enjoyment of music is the real source, ie, the work of the recording engineer, because my speakers work in real world rooms.

From a speakers first guy, as I said above, record playing equipment, ie turntables, tonearms and cartridges can be as inaccurate and as idiosyncratic as speakers. And the bad cartridges and bad cartridge-tonearm interfaces have no charm, unlike some wildly inaccurate speakers that people still like. But, unless you're talking about bad upstream components, which shouldnt be bought at all, rather than less good, which come down to pricing, speakers obviously make the most difference, except for the recordings, of course.

A good recording of a good performance can be made unlistenable through a bad cartridge or a bad speaker. I havent heard a cd player or amp that can do that much damage.

LOL. Let's see, up above, Onhwy61 says "great music is still great even on bad systems," with which Asa concurs. I'm not sure I would go that far, saying that really bad phono cartridges or really bad speakers can make even a good recording of a good performance unlistenable, whereas I've never heard a cd player or amp that bad, so bad that a good recording would be unlistenable. I've heard lots. Even a cheap portable through headphones is enough to enjoy a good recording. But there are speakers and phono cartridges that do real damage.

Now, if you don't care about accuracy, then you don't care about high fidelity. "Fidelity" - get the idea? Expressiveness is for the performers, and maybe the recording engineers. HiFi components are supposed to let us hear what the recording engineers intended for us to hear of what the performers did.

Paul

Asa, all you said was "you're right, ohn," right after Onhwy61 said what he just said. I don't think I disagree with either of you at all. I just said that there are speakers that can make even great music unlistenable, just absolutely destroy it. But, I've never heard an electronic component that could do such damage, which I think is relevant to the subject of this thread.

I enjoy music in cars too. Those little cheap speakers arent trying to do anything creative to the music, just pass it along as faithfully as they can within their limits, obviously FR restricted and dynamically compressed. That's ok, not really damaging.

Paul