Circling back

We've established the obvious truth about sources. Information lost, ignored, or distorted can never be recovered. But that doesn't mean the answer to our riddle of which is more important, sources or outputs, has any clearer answer. For, as I hope will soon be obvious, even if you successfully capture all that is buried in the recorded media, it still can be altered or lost along the way to your ears. Let us assume for argument's sake we have managed to capture the lion's share of information from the source. Now, we begin the perilous journey through a maze of wires, capacitors, semiconductors, and solder, in our quest to reach the shores of the loudspeaker with most of what we started with. A tough task indeed. What happens if we pick up unwanted baggage along the way? It's instructive to remember that harmonics can be added, and sidetones can be generated. Or the opposite, where a few bags of info fall off the transport. We could spend days stressing over the potholes and pitfalls presented by electronics. Instead, we'll look at the far bigger highway bandits; speakers and rooms. Stay tuned.