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This rant was provoked by a dialog on a list involving endless questions about what to upgrade next, and how many significant digits are required to get good sound from your hi-fi. It was further inspired by a speaker experiment involving $40 worth of parts - one which rendered surprising results - reminding me once more that you never know where the next gem will be unearthed.

The three categories below are an attempt to define a systems architecture hierarchy. Please don't take these categories as gospel. It is not my intent to tell you what's important as much as to convey my general philosophical stance on how I approach my hi-fi. The goal is to stimulate dialog.

1. First order effects - high level systems architecture:


This includes but is not limited to:


1. Your amplifier topology - single ended, push pull, triode, pentode, feedback/zero feedback, cap coupled, direct coupled, trannie coupled, series feed / parafeed transformers, OTL, etc.



2. System architecture



• High sensitivity speakers vs. low sensitivity
• Multiple drivers with active crossovers and multi-amplification vs. passive crossovers driven by a single amplifier
• Full range drivers


3. Tubes vs. solid state



4. Your listening room and its treatment



2. Second order effects - parts quality:



1. Transformer core material: M4, M6, cobalt, permalloy, amorphous, etc.
2. Replacing garden variety potentiometers with stepped attenuators or tapped (transformer) volume controls
3. Capacitor and resistor upgrades



3. Third order effects- tweaks:



1. Cables
2. Power cords
3. Equipment stands

This third topic has been the subject of more flame wars on Usenet than perhaps any other topic related to audio.

Certainly, the lines blur and one can focus on first order effects to the extreme - running lamp wire for speaker cables while running unobtanium Telefunken transmitting triodes made in the 1930's into amorphous core iron for example.

While I'm not advocating a singular focus on getting first order effects resolved prior to paying any mind to second and third order effects, it does pay to take pause and perform a sanity check - asking yourself whether a $3K interconnect or a $5K cartridge is indeed the best solution to your current problem. While it may be the case, I'm arguing for approaching the problem globally - considering your long term goals, and only then arriving at a decision.

An argument could easily be made for "promoting" equipment stands into category 2. These are not strict guidelines. Parenthetically, it's worth noting that as we further improved our turntable bases the differences between high quality stands diminished.

Being handy with a schematic and a soldering iron, I of course have more control of my system than many audiophiles do, and the old adage "to a man who's only tool is a hammer, every problem appears to be a nail" most certainly applies here. If you don't have a soldering iron in your toolkit, then more problems will appear to be checkbook related than they might otherwise appear to be.

Of course, those few lucky individuals with deep pockets can approach the battle on all three fronts without feeling the dent in their checkbook. To the rest of us with mortgages, car payments, and college tuition for our children, it pays to take pause and better understand how best to allocate limited resources. None of this is to say that you can't pour money into your time machine (hi-fi) but rather to stop and think about the most effective way to do so.