Mapman's on it. As I worked through my hobby system that uses a recapped pro audio Crown PS200 to drive a pair ot mellow big baffle Wharfdale Linton 85th Anniversary Heritage speakers and small REL sub (all connected a speaker level with Mogami 3103 cable), the more I reduced distortion on my input chain by improving the DAC, upgrading the interconnect cabling and fiddling with the gain on an unpowered Schiit Sys preamp....the more "musical" the output became!
Those other concepts like imaging and sound stage become more real as the signal cleaned up. Was pretty amazing how much more enjoyable it was without changing the amp or the speakers.