On 1/2/04 1:37 PM, in article 8UiJb.195924$8y1.640799@attbi_s52, "Robin"
wrote:

The most distorting element of a hifi is not the amp, not the recording
or the tansfer to digital.

Its the speakers.

I have to disagree. I think in order of impact, you will have:

1. The source material (the music recordings)
2. The room acoustics
3. The speakers
4. The amp
5. The preamp
6. The source player

And provided that there is nothing wrong or mismatched with the previous
things, that should be the "in general" rough order.

This also means that if you spend a lot of money on speakers, but have
highly clipped/compressed recordings - it is wasted money. And if your room
has a lot of bad resonances that aren't tamed, speaker money is watsed
money. And so on.