What makes the biggest difference in your B&W System?

[SRT-10 Viper]

How would you rank priority of elements/components on quality of sound:

1) Room acustics
2) Speakers ( B&W 600... 700... 800)
3) Pre Amp
4) Transport / player
5) AMP
6) Quality of CD source
7) Speaker wires
8) Inter connects

Does the rank change any for 2Ch vs HT?

[Kobus]

I regard myself as a novice, but would say, 1.speakers, 2.amp, 3 room acoustics.
Room acoustics being very underrated.

[krellfan]

My order would be:
1. room
2. speakers
3. amp
4. pre
5 Cd player
6 interconnet
7. speaker cable
8. source material

[aphexist]

For all of these factors let us assume a reasonable baseline of quality. High-level chain-store equipment at the worst.

1. Room acoustics
Easily the most important. A good acoustic space is a blank canvas on which the music can be applied. Since this is the hardest thing to change, and doesn't have the geek appeal of a new gadget, most would be audiophiles reach a glass ceiling of quality when they fail to evaluate their room acoustics as a viable system upgrade.

Which would most enthusiants pick without question?
"I bought some carpet covered panels for my walls."
"I just bought 7-foot tall speakers and 200lb amps."

2. Speakers
It is also important to buy the right speakers for your room. Bigger is not always better when it comes to small rooms. Overall quality and flavor is a personal preference, but good speaker design, drivers, crossovers, driver layout, and cabinet material can all benefit or detract from the sound.

3. Amp
I am a believer that any amp is a great amp if it can keep up with your speakers. I don't believe that amps have a distinguishable "sound." However, an underpowered speaker is a killing point for a system.

4. Pre Amp
This is a complex one because the pre-amp serves so many functions. If you using the DACs, video switching, DSPs, speaker calibration, and bass management for a home theater, the pre-amp is a factor in so many different aspects. If you are 2ch only and the pre-amp acts only as a source selector and volume attenuator it might not be as important.

5. Transport / player
This is a broad category, but let us assume that this refers only to Redbook CD playback. DVD/SACD players have other complex factors, as do turntables. If using only as a transport, this becomes less important. If using the analog outputs, this might go above the pre-amp.

6. Interconnects
Interconnects conduct a low-level signal that is susceptible to interferance and degradation. I believe that with a minimum standard of quality with regard to shielding, connectors, materials, and wire guage, you can attain a near perfect signal tranfer between components.

7. Speaker wires
Less important than interconnects since the signal is amplified. 12ga cheapie stuff for me with banana plugs.

8. Source material
Of course a good quality recording is more valuable than a poor recording. However, this list deals with controllable factors and this is usually not controllable factor unless you are dealing with quality of a vinyl record or recordings that have multiple versions or high-def releases.

[george_k]

I agree with the last 2 posts except I'd put it in this order

6. Source material
7. Speaker wires & Interconnects (you really can't rank these seperately)

I'd think you'd be more likely to hear and inprovement in soundquality if you went from a mediocre recording to a good recording, In my case: Metallica St Anger (bad recording) to maybe Metallica Black Album DVD-A or Audio CD (much better recording).

[stan461]

I go with the george_k list all the way.

I particularly agree that the room is the #1 culprit. I wish we could all hear a pair of 801's (actually any B&W speaker) in a B&W listening room. I'm sure we would be astounded as to what is possible.

Listening rooms are a luxury that few can afford. There has been much research done in this area. Even the proper dimensions are known. But Bose,B&W, Klipsch and others don't sell rooms, they sell speakers. Its such a tough hurdle that everyone seems more comfortable just not to talk about it.

B&W breaks their noggins and backs to design beautiful instruments and we throw them in rooms not fit to whistle in.

[RebelMan]

For me, it would be easy to say that the order of importance is....

1) Recording
2) Room Acoustics
3) Speakers
3) Pre/Pro Amplifier
5) Power Amplifier
6) Playback Device
7) Connections

[bigburner]

I think that 2 further elements need to be added to the list:

9) Power cable.
10) Material used to elevate the speaker cables off the carpet.

[misterdoggy]

I'm going to break with mode and start at the beginning.

1. I think that if you've got a mickey mouse "source", your dead in the water right there.

2. Then if you've got a mickey mouse "preamp/processor", that hurts the situation

3. Then if you've got a mickey mouse "Amp", that muffles the situation

4. Then if you've got mickey mouse "speakers" that doesn't help

5. Then if if you live in a "cement bunker" that doesn't help either

If I have a chain suspending a weight of 50lbs then its support really only counts on the weakest link.

Target = weakest link is the most important thing to change

Most important = EVERYTHING

[xk8boy]

I agree with rebelman, 1. recording is top of the list. I would place room at 2 only slight above speakers at 3. Its unfortunate that both recording and room are the top 2 items that we have little or no control over. As with most ppl, speakers are very high on the list, and would the first to get right on any shopping list. However, room and speaker interactions are important, like speaker size, postion, spikes, etc.

From then on, I somewhat go by the "crap in crap out" camp. Assuming a good baseline of quality. At number 4, is playback devices transport/player. I'm going to put interconnects at number 5. Do interconnects make a big improvements, can't say. do they make a big difference. oh yeah. To me a good pair of interconnects can change the "sound" of your system. At 6 and 7 are the pre-amps and power-amps, respectively. Good pre/power amps shouldnt add nor take away anything from your system. Finally at number 8 speaker cables. I putting speakers cable last, 'cause in real life a change to the pre/power amp will have a bigger impact to your system.

[bigburner]

Relative importance for 2-channel hi-fi:

Quality of recorded material - 50%
Speakers - 25%
Room acoustics - 15%
Amp - 5%
CD player - 3%
Pre-amp - 1.5%
Interconnects - 0.3%
Speaker cables - 0.19%
Power cables - 0.0099%
Material used to elevate the speaker cables off the carpet - 0.0001%

[SRT-10 Viper]

Bigburner, I'm a little new to this hobby, didn't realize how small a role the pre-amp has in 2CH. I was honetly lookind at upgrading my Classe CP500 (Delta Series 2 CH) to a Mark Levinson 320 or 326. Sounds like it wouldn't make a big difference. You might have just saved me $10K+.

Do others agree?

[Pieter]

Verbose and request to move thread

Let’s treat this the way you’d do partial derivatives in math, i.e. change one variable while holding the others constant.

1. Take a “generic” system, can be megabuck or Joe Soap affordable, and put it in different rooms. I think those of us who have moved around a lot will vouch for how the perceived sound changes, better or worse.

Now, settle for a particular room and start acoustically altering its raw sonic signature. Bass traps, first order reflection treatment, diffusion where applicable and scattering/absorption with other furniture.

Play around with speaker placement and listener position, optimize those.

How much has this affected the sound?

2. Stay in this treated/optimized room and swap out the speakers for another set. Everything about these new speakers may be different from the old set. We may have gone from direct radiating floor standers to electrostatic panels or even some or other hybrid. We could even stay with the same brand and series of speaker, but opt for a larger model, e.g. the B&W 804S sounded great in this 4 x 5m room, but the B&W 802D is finding it hard to “breathe” in such a confined space.

We will most likely have to alter speaker and listener location and even re-tweak the room’s acoustics, but suffice it to say that the affect of choosing a different set of speakers can be quite dramatic.

3. We’ve settled in our treated room with the set of transducers we adore, found their “correct” placement and ours relative to them. Our amp of choice is 75W per channel ClassA/B transistor jobby and we like to listen loud. But, there’s a problem, the dang thing clips when the going gets tough. Swap in a 200W per channel – better, no clipping! Been following the new Rotel 1077’s progress, manage to loan one from my dealer and do an A/B between it and my 200W amp.

Is what I hear with the Rotel an earthmoving difference? Or is the bass great and the clarity improved, but the soundstage collapsed in depth? Do I have to reposition my speakers, sit somewhere else and re-tweak my room to accommodate the new amp?

4. From the amp onwards all stays the same - time to change pre-amps. Excepting going from solid state to tube to passive to buffered passive and various other mixes and flavours, my take is that you really have to do some attentive listening to pick up on the changes afforded between some candidates.

5. We’re changing the source now. From the tinny sound of a cheap Universal with nasty opamp output to that separate Meitner or DCS transport and DAC unit, what would I choose? Unfortunately I don’t move among the DCS crowd, so have to opt for something that gives a less real/accurate depiction of what’s on the disc.

6. What’s on the disc anyway? It could be a re-mastering of Menuhin performing the Bach Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin on 78, where you can hear each revolution of the needle dragging through the Shellac. But, who cares, the performance is great. Then there’s that 80’s rock act recorded live with so much dynamic compression it will make you want to cry. Or that early all digital, HIP recording of a Vivaldi violin concerto which can be spun in lieu of a blowtorch for stripping 7 layers of enamel from that front door you’re renovating.

Just when you think all is lost, you’re grooving to Jazz at the Pawn Shop, where performance and recording quality complement one another.

The chasm between what’s a reference recording and what’s bile can be immensely wide, greater than, for instance, the gap separating two power amps driving a certain set of speakers. However, we may have no choice, or say in the matter if we want to listen to Menuhin perform Bach.

7. The most controversial one: cable and interconnects. You can do things with wire and to wire that may/may not make any discernable difference. Talk about fence sitting.

Don’t run a 30AWG cable 60ft from your amp to the speaker level terminals of your sub. Don’t run an unshielded, highly capacitive interconnect parallel to each and every power cable over as long a distance you manage to conceive just because you want separation between your pre- and power amp. Don’t tightly clamp that HDMI cable to the rafter beams with short even spacing separating the clamps and wonder why your picture from the PJ ain’t that great.

What will it sound like if I do what I admonish against above? Don’t know, haven’t tried…

8. Even though the different elements affecting a setup have been listed separately there is the synergistic effect that needs to be considered. You cannot dump just any pair of speakers in just about any room. Also, some amps drive certain speakers and types of speaker better than others. Etc.

When most of the above elements have been satisfied to some extent, it often becomes the “least” important ones that are left “wanting” and the quest to solve their deficiencies becomes rarified and the cost ever more prohibitive.

[misterdoggy]

Everything is "relative" you can't say what's the most weakest thing and then qualify it by saying everything is of good quality.

Because As I learned from this website, its an "oxymoron" n'est pas ?

If everything is good quality then it should work great.

Its ALL important ?

Also to say an Amp ain't that important, I almost choked and fell over. I've got a pair of Krell's that sing, and I'm happy I do. I can hear the difference. Now take the difference between any make of Amp for $7000 to $10000 and I would agree that the difference would be so slight only someone's taste would find a difference. But put a $600 brand X next to that Mark Levinson mentioned above and I think we are talkin about night and day difference. Am I wrong ?

[Kobus]

If everything is good quality then it should work great.
Its ALL important ?
Am I wrong ?

You are right, but it still highlites what is most important.

If everything is of good quality then, as an example, better speakers or room accoustics will make more of a difference than better cables or dvd player.

[jim777]

Bigburner, I'm a little new to this hobby, didn't realize how small a role the pre-amp has in 2CH. I was honetly lookind at upgrading my Classe CP500 (Delta Series 2 CH) to a Mark Levinson 320 or 326. Sounds like it wouldn't make a big difference. You might have just saved me $10K+.

Do others agree?

If you use the pre like volume and input select only, it shouldn't make that much a difference. If you need a pre with digital inputs (the "pre" is acting more like a processor or a "dac/pre"), then it makes alot more importance. In 2ch hifi, often the source is hifi with good analog outs, and that is sent to the preamp. In that case, the amp and the source are important. A cheap pre won't do, but I don't think that Classe is in that category...

like the others said, depends on the whole chain.. what else do you have?

BTW, IMO, the source counts almost as much as the amp; not just 3%

[SRT-10 Viper]

I have 800D fronts with N802 rear speakers, HTM2D center, and Velodyne DD12. For HT, I have a Denon 5085, Clasee CAM/350s amp for front 2 channels. I have the Classe CP500 fot 2Ch (has HT passthru). I have a Denon 3910 for CD/DVD player.

[misterdoggy]

I have 800D fronts with N802 rear speakers, HTM2D center, and Velodyne DD12. For HT, I have a Denon 5085, Clasee CAM/350s amp for front 2 channels. I have the Classe CP500 fot 2Ch (has HT passthru). I have a Denon 3910 for CD/DVD player.

Viper

You got great stuff and "could" be happy already. However, if you want to take a step up in source check out the Ayre D-1XE CD/DVD either player or transport and you will hear sounds you never did before. There are many top brands out there that smoke the Denon. Your system with Classe, B&W 800 series deserve something of the same level. Of course this is only MHO.

[RobP]

The most important factor of all......................... The money to do this hobby.

[RebelMan]

Bigburner, I'm a little new to this hobby, didn't realize how small a role the pre-amp has in 2CH. I was honetly lookind at upgrading my Classe CP500 (Delta Series 2 CH) to a Mark Levinson 320 or 326. Sounds like it wouldn't make a big difference. You might have just saved me $10K+.

Do others agree?

I do not agree. For instance, ARCAM is noted for developing some of the finest CD and DVD players in the business. When I was comparing (by accident!) a pre/pow amp from ARCAM's FMJ series and the pre/pow amp from Bryton's SST series using the same ARCAM CD player, analog connections and in bypass mode the difference was HUGE. No exaggerations! In fact the difference was immediately apparent without the need for a direct AB comparision. I did one anyway just to confirm what I thought I was hearing. The results concurred!

Pre/Pro amps can have a significant impact on sound. I have not found the impacts between like playback devices to effect sound to the same degree.

[StefanColson]

Anybody who honestly believes that a change in interconnects makes a bigger difference than the source when it comes to audio quality deserves a bucket of ice water over the head and a hearty kick in the groin. A bad recording sounds bad - EVERYWHERE, ON EVERY SYSTEM. A good recording generally sounds pretty good - EVERYWHERE, ON EVERY SYSTEM. Without a doubt the most important link in the audio fidelity chain is the source.

After that the room and speakers play the biggest role.

Following these would be your electronics. First the amp, and then in no definite order (it all depends on your ears and the equipment you're using) the DAC, preamp, transport, etc.

Following the electronics would be speaker cables. I don't think there is a significant difference (there are differences, I just don't think it's really worth worrying about until everything higher up in the chain is totally taken care of), but the right cables can help to squeeze the last ounces of performance out of a system.

If you disagree with me up to this point then you are wrong. Period.

Following the speaker cables would be the arguable variables. Interconnects, esoteric tweaks like power cables and devices that lift cables off of the ground, cable burn in seances, ritualistic sacrifices to the audio gods, etc. I've heard an extremely high end system wired up with $300,000 worth of interconnects and power cables, and the same system wired up with $75 worth of quality generic cabling, and the difference was not detectable. If you can hear the difference when it comes to these tweaks I personally think you are fooling yourselt into hearing something that's not there, but do whatever makes you happy.

[Pieter]

...If you can hear the difference when it comes to these tweaks I personally think you are fooling yourselt into hearing something that's not there...

True, very true, but not so easy to turn your ear from the siren's song.

... but do whatever makes you happy.

This it what it comes to when the chips are down, personal preference and taste in a highly subjective hobby tinged with pseudo science.

[misterdoggy]

Anybody who honestly believes that a change in interconnects makes a bigger difference than the source when it comes to audio quality deserves a bucket of ice water over the head and a hearty kick in the groin. A bad recording sounds bad - EVERYWHERE, ON EVERY SYSTEM. A good recording generally sounds pretty good - EVERYWHERE, ON EVERY SYSTEM. Without a doubt the most important link in the audio fidelity chain is the source.

Stefan,
We've had this discussion many times on other threads. I agree with you totally that if the recording is bad nothing can make it sound good.

In fact, the better the source and system the worse a mediocre recording will sound as everything shows up.

I have expensive interconnects, and would have to say that different interconnects sound different. In the words of a friend of mine at B&W UK, "cables can be the point where degradation of sound can take place".

I think "good quality" interconnects are important, but I might have to agree that to dish out insane prices for interconnects might not be worth it. I've got 10% in wires.

[xk8boy]

i think everyone is arguing the same different. which ever path we take in, its our goal remains the same. I'm not going to justify which components is better than another, cause its component synergy that makes a good sounding system.

[bigburner]

This it what it comes down to when the chips are down, personal preference and taste in a highly subjective hobby tinged with pseudo science.

Yup.

[bigburner]

A great discussion but we shouldn't forget that a good song played on the crappiest equipment will always sound better than a crappy song played on the finest hi-fi system that money can buy.

[SRT-10 Viper]

So based on my system... If I replaced the Denon 3910 with the Classe CDP-100 for 2CH, would it make a big or small difference? I would keep the Denon for DVD.

[misterdoggy]

So based on my system... If I replaced the Denon 3910 with the Classe CDP-100 for 2CH, would it make a big or small difference? I would keep the Denon for DVD.

You should listen on your system to several CD players. It really depends on the DACs