The amp is not the most important component in the system. Garbage in - louder garbage out... Also, it's the speakers and the room they are in that ultimately influence what you hear (or not), no matter how good the upstream components.
In any "system", all components make a contribution. I would argue that the amp is the easiest to get right from a design point of view (especially with line level sources). I do agree that a great amp with mediocre speakers will generally sound better than an underpowered amp with demanding speakers...but that's a classic case of not creating a synergistic system. Likewise, the worlds greateast CDP (whatever that is) + a basic amp and speakers is not going to be as good as the second-best CDP + great amp and speakers. By the way, it's worth remembering that any component with electrolytic capacitors in it will probably have drifted out of its design spec after 10-15 years of use... In my experience this impacts pre & power amps the most and the cost of a quality recap may be better employed replacing the complete unit with a better modern unit. -- Phil Leigh ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Phil Leigh's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=85 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=23871 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
