Oh, come on sunbeam! You know exactly what I mean. You coined the pointless concept "source only", which is what I'm objecting to.
sunbeamgls wrote:- A good musical source is wasted by a system that contains other components that destroy musicality
False, as there are virtually no components that "destroy" musicality and the quality of a good source is never "wasted". That's why it's possible we can recognize and feel the skill of a master musician through a telephone that previously recorded a kitchen radio playing a song. Terrible reproduction, but humans have an amazing ability to cut thorough the crap and recognise the essential qualities of the source material. The exact same thing applies to HiFi.
sunbeamgls wrote:- I am not the exception, I agree with source first (I do wonder how many times I have to re-type this before anyone reads it)
Hardly, as then you wouldn't try twisting concepts with the invention of "source only".
sunbeamgls wrote:- I'm writing about small differences is source quality vs large differences in supporting components, not a rubbish source vs very good supporting component
Irrelevant - the magnitude of differences does not matter, as what the source does is completely different than what other components do. You are stuck in the idea of gradual loss of quality in each step, but in reality the losses are not of the same nature and therefore not interchangeable or tradeable.