Rate these on order of importance:

the amplification system. tubes rule!

Matchstikman, if you have crappy speakers with a great source the end result is still crap.

If you put one bad ingredient on your pizza you are going to have a bad pizza not matter how good the rest of it is.

I would suppose the following order of priorities:

1. Quality music and recordings (garbage in, garbage out)
2. Room acoustics
3. Line conditioning
4. Amplification
5. Speakers
6. preamp
7. source
8. cabling and racking needs.(a tie)
9. Furnishings. (leather vs. clothe, etc.)

I put line conditioning above all other electronics simply because sometimes one really doesn't know exactly what they are buying until the AC noise has been properly addressed (or sometimes improperly addressed).

-IMO

5, 1, 4, 2, 3

5-1-4-3-2