Ok this will be a good thread.

Your arguments are approaching the absurd. No one is saying other component consideration isn't important. What we "speakers first" are saying, they impart the greatest impact on your mind. I had one goal when I set out on my audio journey and that was to give voice to the greatest speaker I ever heard. That, in turn, began the best amp, pre amp, and front end search.

Your system will always be limited by the weakest link. Doesn't matter if it is the source, speakers, amp or cables. A $10,000 system will still sound like garbage if one of the main components is a $99 piece of _____. ie, what would a Jadis system sound like with old bose 201s?

who cares about the rest!

oops meant to say...good bottle of wine and hot babe...who cares about the rest!

Speakers, unless you are using "source" correctly and referring to the records or cds that you are listening to. And then it would still be close. The simple reason is that speakers are much less accurate and have much higher levels of distortion than any electronic components, and are therefore the limiting factor. Modern amps, cdps and preamps are just not a problem. Even a little TEAC or Yamaha minisystem sounds fine if connected to a pair of good speakers. It gets a little more complicated if you're talking about record playing equipment and cartridges, because those things can be screwed up, cartridges almost as much as speakers. But, speakers vary so much in what they do, and almost all are colored and distorted in one way or another.

For those who say the listening room is even more important than the speakers, I respect that point of view, but there are some speakers that work well in real world rooms, because their designer takes real world use into account. So, I find the limiting factor in my enjoyment of music is the real source, ie, the work of the recording engineer, because my speakers work in real world rooms.