How much does power amplifier really matter comparing to other hi-fi components?

50% gear/cables, 50% room treatment and speaker/listening position placement.

That is not COST, it is the importance and true perspective of a TOTAL system.

The cost of gear and cables can be 100% of the cost, but it's still only 50% of the sound. By putting 5-10% ($$) in room treatment you can reduce your gear cost buy 50-75%. The sound can cost a lot of money or VERY well spent money. The well spent money part, usually comes with a lot of poorly spent (learning) money through the years. :-)

I look at it like this TOO.. 300hz and down gets a certain kind of control system (bass control system) fed from an active preamp (integrated or separate), power amp (class Ds), cables and speakers.

300 hz and up gets a very well made versatile valve power amp for 8 months out of the year and class ds for the HOT summers where I live.

When I was finished with one system I was still under 10k and everything was new or freshly gone through and or moded up.. Room included. The front room my wife's system.

I could add in 15K speakers that I have, but the 1500.00 speakers with the brand new cabinets I purchased for 200.00, work as good because of the room size and type of speaker. I could add a 8K preamp I have but the C20 that cost me 1700.00 total with a complete rebuild, and on and on and on....

The NUGGET from all this is:
I can build a 60K system or a 8K system. I have both... 50% is still the room.. at 5-15% of 8K. LOL :-)

ROOM first, speakers second. I'm sorry I work backward than most people. Then the power amp matches the speaker and the room temp issues.. It's a BIG issue where I live..

Source is source pick what ever you like for your Karaoke Christmas hootenanny. :-)

Regards

It all matters...if you did a mashup of all the above posts you would find that "it all matters".  

Assigning percentages to components is a fool's errand, you may like to think about it in those terms, but you'll never match it as you move forward.

My simple rule of thumb is that any component that is a transducer requires more dollars.  That would be speakers (signal to sound), cartridge (squiggles to signal), cd/dac (digital to analog). 

After that you pick the order of spending, but it all matters!

Regards,
barts

This guy trying look for good advices and you send him out like drunk girl looking for quite place to sleep a frat house. but it not your fault because op give very little information.
take money you pay for speaker- Raidho and how much you have leftover. That the question is what do you have after purchase the Raidho? That good speaker I have that in workshop system I just cover that tweeter when use machine because ribbon no like dust.

It is a system and the system will only be as good as the weakest link. You can have the best amp but a bad pre-amp and the pre-amp will not let the amp shine. I my self would consider the pre-amp a little more important than the amp. If you have a budget and have to compromise some where in the system chain the pre-amp would be my last to compromise.

I forgot to mention with amplification ,never skimp on quality- power for on transients dynamic range on peaks can be 10 x 
the power in milliseconds and your speakers will dictate the efficiency and what’s required ,balance,quality,and quantity of necessary power . I always look at thepower supplies 
and capacitor reserves on any products , for tubes most important 
theQuality of chokes and powersupplies , and ample size,
in Solid state ,my Coda for example has a potted 3 kva transformer which is Huge ,and over 80k in capacitance , and over 120 amps short term on demand current ,  that’s why it’s important to see the quality and exactly what’s under the hood , just keep this in mind ,and digital at least 2 linear power supplies ,which my M3 Bricasti dac streamer has, 3 even better ,like on their M1,m21 
two good size linear power supplies is ample and my streamer board is included ,with ample filtering and low noise.