As many of us have found out the hard way, when it comes to hardware it is the loudspeakers that have the greatest effect. From planars to monkey coffins to open baffles there are no bigger sonic differences to be found in audio equipment.
The funny thing is that in spite of the large sonic differences to be found, they all claim to be attempts to be accurate. It would be interesting to see whether there has been any convergence in high end loudspeaker sound in recent decades, because there are still
All you can do currently is to decide which compromise you find easiest to live with for now. For me it was a case of finding a sound I liked (clean, quick and expressive mids) and only coming to recognise much later what compromises were involved in getting that sound with that product (nothing much below 70Hz).
It will be a great help of you have a good idea of what you like est eg deep responsive bass, expressive midrange, clean detailed treble etc. You are unlikely to get all 3 at any price! Such a manmade device doesn't yet exist. So choose your compromises carefully for long term satisfaction.
Amplifier differences are far smaller at least in my experience with NAD, Marantz, Naim, Creek etc. The Naim was the one which stood out with immediacy at the price of a mild tonal washout.
The funny thing is that in spite of the large sonic differences to be found, they all claim to be attempts to be accurate. It would be interesting to see whether there has been any convergence in high end loudspeaker sound in recent decades, because there are still
All you can do currently is to decide which compromise you find easiest to live with for now. For me it was a case of finding a sound I liked (clean, quick and expressive mids) and only coming to recognise much later what compromises were involved in getting that sound with that product (nothing much below 70Hz).
It will be a great help of you have a good idea of what you like est eg deep responsive bass, expressive midrange, clean detailed treble etc. You are unlikely to get all 3 at any price! Such a manmade device doesn't yet exist. So choose your compromises carefully for long term satisfaction.
Amplifier differences are far smaller at least in my experience with NAD, Marantz, Naim, Creek etc. The Naim was the one which stood out with immediacy at the price of a mild tonal washout.