The second most important link.

 

I think that after the proper room (given that the music played is of good quality), the most money should be allocated first to the amplifier, secondly to the speakers, and then the rest of the chain.

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If everything is relative to the extreme:

• A cheap amplifier driving great speakers, will still sound bad and quite often aggressive, as the speaker will let the bad amplifier sonics pass through. The listener will get annoyed… very fast.

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• A great amplifier driving average speakers, will sound quite decent with lots of authority, as the speakers will be “man-handled” and forced to their very best abilities by the good amplifier. Speakers limitations will be clearly defined, and put to light for the active listener. Overall listen-ability is good.

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• It's not uncommon in HiFi shows, to see little speakers being demonstrated with top notch electronics, often costing multiple more times than the speaker themselves. The people conducting the demos are completely aware this basic fact.

 

I remember once seeing a Kef LS50 demo, where the system cabling cost more than the speaker itself. They used the big and expensive Parasound JC1 mono block set, and a Parasound JC2 preamplifier for the front-end electronics. Easily $22K worth of gear to drive the $1500 bookshelves!!!

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It was no wonder everyone was very impressed with what the little LS50 could do.

Yet, they never played it very loud, keeping the small 5" woofer limitations from being too obvious.

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Well done guys. I fell for it, and bought a pair of the LS50’s.

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I sold them rather quickly afterwards... (shame on me, Kudos to the salemans )