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Got Music? Often people ask: "What is the most important component?" And the answers typically range from 'The Speaker' to 'The Source' to more fashionable answers like 'The Room' or more probable but off topic answers like 'The Wine', 'The Company', 'The Music'. The question really can't be answered because it is a bad, nonsensical question. What is the most important pebble on your favorite beach? [I know, the one that appears in the salad, or the one that gets wedged into...]. The real question is "How do I spend my money to get the best sound for the buck?" and the ancillary question "What is the methodology to use to design the best system at a given price point?" Many people have methodologies that they use albeit unconsciously [one hopes]. These include: Buy whatever components are on sale / the deepest discounts [high discount system]. Buy the cheapest component that people rave the most about on my favorite forums [high raves per dollar system] Buy whatever my local dealer sells that appears in the Sterophile 'Class A' recommended components [randomly paired decent components system]. Buy a new component every so often that sounds best with the current components in the system. [with demoing lots of components or getting great advice this is a fractal system (finds a local maxima), otherwise this is a random walk system] We will try and present a few other methodologies in the course of rest of this issue. Shows |
