Significance of different components of audio ...


Virtually every component in stereo system is important but in my opinion, the impact is roughly in the following order:
critical
1. Quality of recording
2. Room acoustics, including placement of speakers
3. Speakers
...
important
4. Source (CD player, etc.)
5. Amplification
...
usually minor adjustments or fine-tuning
6. Cables
7. Power line, including power conditioning, cleanliness of electrical contacts
8. Some tweaks and adjustments (vibration etc.)
...
negligible, none, detrimental or unsafe
9. Majority of the tweaks...
This might serve as a guideline to allocated budget for properly balanced stereo system.
Do you agree? What's your opinion? What sequence your experience dictates?
jerzy777
it's all a matter of opinion. i have experienced a major change when replacing a line cord or introducing a new tweek.

in general, i might agree with you, but empirically, unforseen things happen, meaning allegedly unimportant factors exert an affect in greater proportion to what is expected.
I quite disagree with the notion of saying that this and that component is more important than the other. In my opinion, and experience, the entire system is critical.

What is really important is matching, successfully voicing components together. In this aspect, stuff that you consider less important like cables, power conditioning, vibration isolation and such can be most critical. A cable can make or break any system much in the same way a pre-amp can, or why not room acoustics. The impact of these so-called minor things can really make a system shine, or it can strangle it completely.. :)
Thank you again to everyone who contributed to my thread. I must say that I agree to various extent with the majority of statements in it, or at least, I can relate to some of them or understand the point being made. Despite having both revelant engineering amd musical backgrounds and spending over 35 years in building a progressively better audio system myself, I do not consider myself a guru or even an expert. I just managed to built a system (audio components, room and relevant utilities) which delivers the music rather than just sounds.
My objectives in this thread were to receive a feedback to my concept of proportions and common sense in building the audio system. That is, to obtain, consider and explore other opinions, and fine-tune/improve on my approach as a result. More importantly, in our age of "good enough" and "quantity over quality", I hoped, together with other experienced and concerned participants, to provide (or restore) the proportions in what's important in a sensibly assembled modern audio systems. Many newcomers and young prospective audiophiles who had the curiosity (and courage) to lurk outside of the world of ipods and compressed formats, are getting discouraged, confused or just taken by the marketing hype, claims or statements which are out-of proportion, misleading or plainly false, consequently, leading where implemented to disappontment and feeling of being cheated.

If we, music lovers and audiophiles, could collectively help ourselves and do our best to grow in numbers, by bringing in a new generation of audiophiles, we may avoid situation that in a few years all high-resolution formats will disappear, and in a next few years, the only software available will be the one downlodable via PC in ever "improved" formats which compete with each other to devise a better algorithm to cheat the brain better by removing more than 90% of the musical information and still led someone to believe that he/she is still listening to the MUSIC.
Regards,
Jerzy
My List differs:

critical

1...speakers
2...Amplifier
3....Preamp

Important
Source material
Source
cables
Power.....and placement...room acoustics

Tweaks

In my experiance....the critical objects...make or brake the system.....If the speakers or electronics don't match well....you could set it up in Carnegie hall and it would still sound bad.