Speakers are the first piece of the puzzle


Hello All!

This is aimed at understanding one particularly prominent posture on mapping out how to proceed in amassing a great audio outfit with speakers being the most significant ingredient, and initial purchase.

From the Audiogon pages alone, if you read between the lines, one can find that there are several approaches for how to erect an outstanding audio system as to which component should be the initial or by some accounts the largest system investment, or both everytime.

IMHO, The predominant system establishing camps are speakers first, amps first, or sources first. in deference to topologies such as panels vs cones, tubes vs. SS, analog vs. digital, as those preferences are options within options.

For the record, I’m not a card carrying member of the ‘speakers first’ organization. And see an eventually proud highly resolving great sounding system as a work in progress which begins where ever and endss when ever.


So, lets get to the lightening round…Questions:

1. why do you feel any system should begin life with speaker s the first building block AND its greatest investment?

2. which speakers were your first system build?

3. How long did you keep them?

4. were later speaker systems brought in prior to any other ‘component’ changes?

In other words, has the ‘speaker first and always’ theme been your blueprint forever, or at some later point, reveal itself as a much better plan?

tremendous gratitude for all the input.
blindjim

Showing 2 responses by willemj

The crucial concept here is that of masking. The component in the chain with the greatest imperfections will mask the imperfections of the component with the least imperfections. Hence, focus on the component with the greatest distortion, the largest deviations from a flat frequency response, or the greatest noise.
It is all about relative error. Distortion of even an affordable modern DAC is ultra low, and so is noise. Frequency response is amazingly flat, and better than the 0.2 dB limit of human hearing acuity.
Solid state amplifiers are usually almost as good, and do not deserve much attention either beyond three issues that plague some: excessive input sensitivity, load dependent frequency reponse, and insufficient power. But it is not hard to get these right for a modest budget.
Speakers are horribly bad by comparison. Distortion is often hundreds of times worse than for electronics, and frequency response similarly and audibly deviates from flat. A few dB plus or minus from 100-10000 Hz is already pretty good, but clearly audible. And that is in an anechoic chamber or in the open air. Put the speaker in a real room, and things get even worse. Such deviations are so large that they will completely mask any  imperfections in the electronics.
Therefore, the audiophile obsessions with electronics and cables is completely misguided, even if profitable for dealers. It misappopriates resources into areas where they make no contribution, and denies resources to where a real sonic contribution can be made: speakers in the room.