Ok so base on my research and experience, if you had $5000 dollar, taking into account diminishing returns, this would be how one should allocate budget for a streaming based mid-fi system:
Speakers: 2000 (40%) Power Amp: 1000 (20%) Pre Amp with room correction capabilities: 1000 (20%) (or allocate to physical room treatment things. Everything else (20%) DAC： 500 Streamer: 200 Cables and interconnects : 200 (not much audible difference so long as not use the shittiest ones) Stands: 100
This is based on that
Speaker matters the most, then suitable amp = room acoustics/speaker placement, then perhaps quality of the DAC’s photo stage pair with a decent DAC chip, then everythig else is probably less than 5%.
I mean, we can argue all day on whether cables are snake oil, but I think for most people it is just about the most efficient resources allocation giving a budget constrain.
snarky answer: spend it on live performances
/s
I’d be quite happy with my Sennheiser HD-6XX headphones and the Schitt hardware.
My room audio is an Adcom GFA 5400 (Nelson’s “great effin amplifier”) into a pair of original Polk Monitor 7A’s with no-name speaker cables as big around as my pinkie.
Interconnects matter, so I had to keep switching them until I was okay with how they sounded. I had to accept that I would always think I could hear a difference.
Same with power, I took someone’s suggestion and Google’d “hospital power cables”, then got the heaviest, shortest ones. I stopped there, because I’m not rewiring the house. Best I was willing to do was a dedicated line/breaker and power-isolating each component from the others.
Then the “one stupid trick”: hanging the speaker cables with loops of fishing line.
This controls the skin capacitance and electrically decouples them from the carpet/floor.