Quote Originally Posted by jbangelfish
Demo as much as you can both ways and see for yourself. When people say that an amp cannot make a huge difference, they are just wrong. Take an inferior underpowered amp to drive the finest speakers and the speakers will sound like crap. Take a great amp and drive some cheap crappy speakers and you'll be surprised how good they might sound. There is an ass-backwards approach to building stereo systems today that I will never understand. Without a good amp, you have garbage. Do your demos and see for yourself.
Bill
Sorry, man - I have demoed it both ways on dozens of occasions. If you have "cheap, crappy speakers", you'll get cheap, crappy sound no matter what you drive them with. If your amp is underpowered, then I agree with you. If you don't have enough power to drive your speakers, you'll clip and that sounds terrible. My comments were made under the assumption that power wasn't an issue. I have yet to find a pair of cheap, crappy speakers that will sound good with any amp you can name. The speakers make much more difference in sound than any other piece of gear. Only the software and the room make a bigger difference. Anyone that builds a system around a solid state power amp is going about system building all wrong. Find your speakers first and then fit the amp. The people I've talked to that are the most disappointed with their sound is the ones that have their hearts set on some monster amp with huge heatsinks and then can't afford decent speakers. OTOH, if they put their bucks into great speakers, they can drive them with a cheaper amp for awhile and get 90-95% of the sound they're looking for. I only say all this because I've tried it both ways in various systems for various people and it's never failed.