It's pretty rare we can start from scratch building a high-performance music system. More typical is when we cobble together bits from different eras or setups of the past to build new temples of sound—we already have a pair of speakers and we update electronics. Or, the opposite.
And I think this is the preferred way to go about assembling truly great systems. I fret for the few who start from absolute zero and choose every component without prior experience: new speakers, cables, equipment. Unless the entire rig is from a single manufacturer, or a trusted and knowledgeable dealer, curated over years of the designer's art, then piecing together disparate bits from companies A, B, and C is a real crapshoot.
Not that that's bad. It just requires us to build, then polish. Set the basics up and then change and modify until it all blends together making music.
Every approach needs work. It's half the fun and challenge of assembling a system.
Build, then polish. It's what we do.
