Like most, our quest for great music has been an interesting journey. From reading, testing, experimenting, listening, discovery - many hours spent (some may say lost) fine tuning our listening experience to maximize our enjoyment of music.
In the past few weeks, I have come to reconsider the old adage of starting the audio quest with speakers and then working our way backwards. While I understand the theory behind spending the most on speakers first, I believe we all have been doing it backwards. My experiments/experience now has me firmly in the camp of starting with good power above all else, then working our way forwards. By starting with a power plant and good power cables on each component, one can actually allow the system to work near itās maximum capacity from the start. Then when a component is swapped in/out, it will also work near itās upper level. For all the cool gear Iāve tired over the last few years, I wish I could now audition it all over again with proper power to see what it can really do.
And these gains do not need to be on a super high end system to be heard. My little desktop system consists of a pair of PSB B5 speakers, generic speaker wire, Teac AI-301DA, USB from computer. Nothing super fancy, just a nice near field setup that was transformed with the addition of a P3 regenerator.
If you havenāt tried any power components, maybe itās time to hear what your system can really do?
I guess its the old proās and conāsā¦on the one hand as you say starting from power enables the full potential of every componentā¦on the other hand if your budget is limited and you start with a basic optimization of several thousand $ while listening to smaller speakers for 5 years vs. listening to bigger/better ones without a regenerator for this timeā¦not sure what most would prefer.
I guess itās a question of the period between initial purchase and upgrading the setup.
If one is on a limited budget and can only afford the basic setup, then you start with a basic setup. But if one is thinking of an upgrade or has money they want to invest in a system, power would be my first consideration. And the idea that all your components should be of the same level otherwise one is wasting the potential of the highest component - what better way to improve the overall system then with the basic building block that powers everything. One could buy lower cost components that run at maximum potential and sound great or spend more money on a component that will be operating at a fraction that it could and sound ok.
I always simply upgraded the weakest part of my system when the budget allowed a change. It didnāt matter to me if some part of my system wasnāt able to show itās full potential when other parts of the system werenāt of sufficient quality yet, at some point in the future they would be. Keeping a system ābalancedā thru out itās life costs more and when upgrading you really want the rest of the system to allow accurate A/Bāing of a possible upgrade.
@dlw5065: Certainly a P3! A Potentially Provocative Position. And Pro-Power Plant as well! (or as I like to call it, a āRegenā)
Preposterous Premise, Probably - with respect to overall investment - except that I do think that some less expensive systems and Class D amps may benefit from regenerated power more obviously than more expensive components with ābetterā internal power supplies, or at least, power supplies that are less affected by AC.
Just not sure that if youāre starting from a system such as you describe, that there is any guarantee that lesser components will result in overall better sound by spending on AC to begin with, vs. putting that same money into speakers or other primary building blocks. Especially if the lower cost components āsound greatā alreadyā¦
The type of Speaker is huge. Not $ but rather type.
I went the wrong direction with Goldenear, now moving towards Zu. The sound is completely different. The lack of crossovers changes the sound much more than any electronics upgrades do.
I think that is a good observation. There are a lot of different speaker topologies you could spend $X on, and they would be enormous differences vs. anything AC could do.
Call me old school, but I still adhere to speakers and sources top priority. One fallacy perhaps is the notion of what to spend the most money on, which I might quarrel with. Itās always been less a question of whether I spend the most on my speakers and more a question of what I want from them and the best choice among many different design approaches to reach my goals. Iād have to say it doesnāt matter how much I spend on power conditioning or cables if the business end of the whole system isnāt cutting it. I adhere to sources as top but equal priority to speakers. IMO it again doesnāt matter how much money I lavish on power conditioning and cables if the signal in isnāt to my standard. I admit I do in the case of sources equate price with quality, just my empirical observation, and I pour a ton (well, as much as I can afford) on my analog and digital front ends.
When Iām satisfied with the front end inputs and the speaker end, everything else follows.
For me the Electronics came first. Whether it was a Cartridge choice back when I had Vinyl or my Adcom Preamp/Amp choice. CD Player or Tape Deck back in the day. My Speakers always came last and were always Homebrews since High School. Being a Tech, Iām always more interested in what all those electronics boxes are doing. The Speakers will either elevate what come out of all those Electronics boxes or expose their weaknesses.
Now if you are on a seriously tight budget, yes Speakers first followed by what ever Electronic Boxes you want to plug into said Speakers. Later, when budget get better, invest in better electronics, keep the Speakers. If you notice no improvement, make sure you can get your money back. Thatās it. If you notice an improvement, then welcome to the Rat-Hole !
Interesting. Iām new to the forum, but Iām not a power source convert. Yāall think itās worth spending thousands on power conditioning and special AC power cables? Coming from the electronics industry, Iāve never seen a convincing explanation for why the component itself canāt clean up its own power.
Anyway, as yāall said, budget matters. Fifteen years ago my Paradigm Monitor 20s and Rotel separates were way more fun than not quite being able to afford a power conditioner :D, and thatās more system than most people would even appreciate. I didnāt own a system worth more than $2k until my late 20s. Even if I could find a used P3 for $1500, it would have to literally be magic to be more satisfying than adding a good sub to my current system.
The big picture matters and its ingredients do matter because they make it. At some point I went for one of those all-in-one systems from Naim Audio, but still I needed to select good speakers, speaker cables, and a decent power cord to get the best out of it. We have a few active forum members who have Devialet, and PS Audio Strata. Again, they had to do their homework to get the best of what they have, be it the speakers, the cables, LAN, etc. depending on their budgets, living spaces, quality of power feeding their systems, and personal preferences. Moving to separates added more complications with interconnects, multiple power cables, and power regeneration, irrespective of whether the source is digital or analogue. But experimentation and overcoming challenges is part of the fun of this costly hobby
(or as I like to call it, a āRegenā)
