HiFi Subjectivist ¦ Audio Forum ¦ NVA User Group

We haven't had a Poll for a while so here is an old chestnut to get the juices flowing:

If you were starting out afresh, building a new system from scratch, what would you regard as the most important component and worth spending the most on?

Atm it’s the software- ie Tidal & quality records .

Hardware- speaker components as it’s most likely to be a diy effort

All components are important, you don't want anything to get in the way of the music. Where I would put the most time and research (and potentially funds) is speakers. Once you get the right speakers for you, it's much easier for everything else to fall into place.

Speakers first. Hadn't thought about that particularly but it is certainly an obvious place to start when you are building a new system.

I would have gone for other if that option was available. Other being a skip to dump all my shit hifi in

I'm honestly not sure. I'd probably have to say "Amplification," purely because it's likely to be the most expensive component.

Most money would - probably - be spent on the analogue source. Because it's increasingly difficult to find deals on world class by sound quality turntables, arms, cartridges, phono amplification for reasonable money.

Speakers I'd DIY. At a cost of £1500ish. If I wanted something quick I'd mount a pair of Fane full ranges on a pair of Ikea 2 by 4 Kallax / Expedit.

Amplification, you can get some fine sounding used solid state amps for reasonable money.

Digital sources: certain £30 1990's CD players sound fine to me. As do the cheapo DAC's I've heard.

I use ultra cheap ebayed cables.
Room treatment is in the form of plenty of furniture, which I tend to get free or used.

I've built all of my analogue sourced hifi and I'm busy building it all again only more aesthetically pleasing .

Not sure I could better what I've built , but you never know .

I have my eye on one of these:

I have abstained because I think all components are important and a system is only as good as it's weakest link. Source, amplification, and speakers. How the speakers interact with the room is a major consideration. In this day and age I believe that digital has left analogue well behind in terms of value for money.