Good point, BigJohn. I think that they are each links in the chain. Another way of saying this - your system is only as good as the weakest part of the signal chain.
If you've got a crappy recording, an underpowered amp, interfered interconnects, a pre/pro with a software glitch or flimsy paper coned sattelite speakers in resonating boxes, you wil have a degraded signal - and no amount of great speakers, perfect amplification, awesome source material or stellar interconnects will make up for some other crappy portion of the system...
But that gets us back to studying sociology (the obvious).
