Jeez guys, didn't anyone read my first post above. You are both right and are both wrong - that's why everything each one of you says is true sounds true enough. What is most important changes with context, namely, system sophistication in terms of accuracy and musical involvement and the sophistaication of listener.
Here's something interesting that may also be effecting your debate, namely, which type of rendition you favor. People who put together accurate-weighted systems can get away with a source that is less musical and tend to favor speakers as the dominating lens in the system. Moreover, although most beginners (assuming a beginner listening mind and pocket book) should look at speakers first - for the reasons I cited above - and people who are interested in accurate-weighted systems tend to stay with that perspective even as the accuracy of their system increases. On the other hand, someone who eventually ends up valuing a system that is "musical" as a factor that overrides considerations of surface accuracy will tend, as his mind becomes more able to experience the music deeply and discern the spatial/harmonic properties of sound that catalyze that progression, will begin moving away from a speaker-is-most-important viewpoint. This person, in a system that is optimized to produce this effect, will find that the source is critical in the final system. That said, he/she will also find that IC's, PC's, room, and, AND THIS IS IMPORTANT, their integration is tantamount (synergy).
If your orientation towards synergy is weighted towards accuracy, then you will most likely stay with speakers as your main way to increase that quality - because speakers like Dunlavy's et al mated with SS electronics and a digital source gives you that - it is a quantitative progression and this grouping of components serves that purpose. If your synergy is towards transcending a bias towards accuracy in favor of musicality, while still maintaining accurate sound, then you tend to branch out towards other components BECAUSE your synaergy requires it. The former is a quantitative approach that focuses on pieces of a system as seperate pieces, staying with the piece that was most important in the beginning and that still is the piece that accentuates accuracy; the later is a qualitative approach that is integrative, focusing, by necessity, on other components and their integral relationship.
Its like two flyers in two airplanes at different altitudes. The one flying lower sees a coastline that is jagged. Higher, the other flyer sees a staighter line of the coast. Both lines are different but they are the same coast. The problem arises when each tries to say that their view is the only truth. The one lower we can understand why he would think so because he has not been higher. But the one higher knows the lower too and, so, should understand why the lower flyer would think the way he does, and should know that that knowledge is altitude specific and that he can keep taliking tuntil he's blue in the face and it won't matter.
You're blowing in the wind twl. You should know better...
People stand on islands in the river arguing about what branch is the truest river.
