Do you belong more to souce first or to speakers first school of thought ?


It is more complicated in reality of high end than either/or but still we have our preferences. This is a never ending debate, so let's never end it.

inna

Spend $30000 on speakers and $70000 on the rest. 

no budget for cables?

@grislybutter  (do you miss being called "Brown Bear"?), I suppose one could interpret that as 30k for the speakers (wow, I wish I could do that!) and then "the rest" would entail all of the electronics, speaker cables, interconnect cables, fuses, power cords, and all else assorted what-have-you one might deem necessary that is in front of the speakers.  One might even include room treatments as part of "the rest," although in the context of this thread, I realize that was not part of the topic.  But you know how these threads wander.  (I am going to go on record as saying I have personally never tried any exotic fuses, but I am curious.)

Speakers first, always. Only you have your ears, specific musical preferences in what sounds good and the environment they will live in.
Go with the objective of buying something you can live with for decades, source equipment will always be swapped as improvements or budget improve.
Had my first pair for 30+ years and cycled through 4 systems and they just kept sounding better.
As for GIGO, you can't drive great sound thru bad speakers but the opposite holds true. Great speakers will always sound good and make the most of the source.
.