Poll time: System Components

[Fretless]

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?

[Latteman]

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

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

[DaveyTed]

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.

[antonio66]

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

[karatestu]

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

[slinger]

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

[Lindsayt]

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.

[Daniel Quinn]

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 .

[George Hincapie]

I have my eye on one of these:

[CN211276]

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.