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In Reply to: Play back chain - what would you say is the most important component? posted by Heidi2000 on March 30, 2002 at 19:18:54:
I think they are important. But the most important one is the source, second the speakers.Software? well, not much you can do about it, you get what you get, hopefully you get the best.
Room? well, they are very important, but its not "really" part of the audio chain. And most listener have to live with their system (usually in the living room).
Explanation:
Why is source first and speakers second? First, most high end speakers nowadays can produce a frequency range of at least 30 khz and beyond, esp. the one that are made out of aluminum dome etc. Now if the source is bad (ie, a cheap cd player/cheap DAC combo), then chances are you will put the blame on the speakers instead for the sound. The cheap cd setup kills your high frequencies and by the time they get to the speakers, the sound (esp. treble) will be harsh and fatiguing. But this is not the fault of the speaker.
Now to turn it around, if you have the better source, ie, if you are using a VPI aries scout JMW-9 turntable, or the Lin LP12, Rega Planar 9, conrad-johnson phonostage etc. And using a speakers that will only give you up to 20 khz. The sound will be better, because at least you will not be complaining about the harsh highs.
Follow Ups:
Sources are only different if they have some notable kind of euphonic distortion. If you like that, then yes, that's very important and you're right in wanting the right source.But your point about speakers is, I think, somewhat mistaken. Many speakers have "flat" frequency response, but that's very misleading. There are first many ways of measuring frequency response, and it wouldn't be the first time I saw somebody use the measurement that looked the best. Second, the question of "power response, direct signal response, or both" is something that different speakers do differently, because different people like the different options. Finally, the direct/indirect ratio of a given set of speakers IN your listening room, in my experience, is the one biggest issue subject to strong preference I've seen.
So, speakers are NOT that simple. More so than anything but microphone placement techniques, speakers are simply not subject to "1 number" or even "1 set of details" sorts of analysis, there are quite a few dimensions to their performance, and those interact both with very strong and dissimilar listener preferences and with the room the speakers are in.
JJ
Get above a certain price-point and almost all CD players make a decent job of making CD acceptable nowadays; certainly the hardness of the early eighties/nineties has largely been eliminated although ironically blandness has now become the main bugbear.Take a dozen CD players at a given price and in blind listening test the differences would be hardly noticable unless extended testing by `golden ears` was performed.
Take a dozen speakers and straight away you`ll recognise the big speakers from the small, the warm from the cold and those with deep, ponderous bass from those with punchy bass. Listen to electrostatics and it`s my belief you`ll realise that conventional speakers are the most coloured components we use with the potential for the most diverse presentation - quality of cabinet construction being most important.
Just one opinion amongst hundreds though :0)
Best Regards,
Chris Redmond.
It's a tossup... Speakers can make a bad source sound better if not good.. a good source will not make bad speakers sound good.
Amps are a 'can 'o worms'.. usually less important than all the babble would indicate.. save this area as yer final focus.
You also have a few erroneous assumptions.. firstly, human adult hearing sinply does not extend to 20kHz.. males often/usually peak out at 16, less as they age.
Vinyl does Not/Cannot contain any information beyond 15kHz .. simple fact, accept it or not it's true.
Personally I always go for the best sounding speakers I can find/pay for... and don't overlook used as a means to higher quality.
Happy hunting
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