Rate these on order of importance:

Nrchy & Marco, all of the arguements that you are using to prove that the room is most important can be used to prove that the speakers are most important - no matter how good the components are upstream, a poor speaker can destroy for what you worked so hard.

Yeah, but if you eat a really bad pizza no matter how good ALL your components and room acoustics are, you'll still feel like Ca-Caaa.

I never said the room is "most important". I said I agree with Nrchy's comments about the importance of each of the components, which he prefaced with the phrase "all things being equal". I also stressed that the question is absurd if it suggests a disharmony in the stress of balancing one component with another within a system. A poor speaker can indeed bode poorly on the rest of the system, as can any weak link therein. But if you don't have the information there, or if it is distorted or colored in the first place there is absolutely nothing you can do downstream to retrieve it. Stick ANY system you like in a piss-poor room and you will have one horrible sounding system...it simply does not matter how much you spent on it, and how carefully it was put together. Put a pile of human feces (nothing crunchy about that Matchstikman!) on a pizza and no one from any part of the world is going to enjoy it much...yes, I'm sure you will find someone who would still eat it. Again, all of this goes back to Herman's point that was the very first response here, and I will paraphrase him here: What's the f*&king point.....it all matters?! I looked up the word "system" and it has about 47 different definitions in Merriam Webster. But words that come up in many are words like "organized" and "harmonious" and "interdependent". That last one is a good one. "Interdependent"

So are threads like this one (and they are numerous) meant to point out where someone should skimp if they only have a limited budget? If so, my answer to that would be to research things carefully, purchase used from reliable sources if you are comfortable with that, and choose carefully based upon how the individual components work with each other. Always try to audition with your own ears in your own space with your own system if possible. Buying used can make this workable as you can often sell gear for what you paid if it was bought at a fair price. Speakers are tough that way and because they really are quite sensitive to other parts of the system and can be more difficult to deal with, and ship, I'd say try to hear them first before buying. I'd also ask about their expectations, musical preferences, previous experiences. I cannot see recommending to anyone to spend big bucks on one single component and then compromising all the rest of the components. It would occur to me as a waste of money. If they planned on upgrading gradually it may have some merit, but then I don't know that the order of things would necessarily represent their relative "importance" to one another. Speakers are going to be very sensitive as to what you use to amplify the signal fed to them. The room is always going to have an effect on whatever you put in there for a system and perhaps the size and shape and treatments would dictate the kind of system that may work best within it. My home room is sadly lacking and probably my one weakest link and it is NOT a good weak link to have lacking, while I'm pretty happy listening in my workspace (no WAF to deal with at work). I'm no expert here and would leave comments on this to the likes of Mr. Rives.

Yes, "interdependent" really says it all.

Marco

inpepinnovations, I never said anything about using bad speakers. I said that all things being equal, or even close that speakers are the least important.

Many of these threads degenerate into foolishness because of generalizations like that. If a person is dumb enough to put poor quality speakers with their expensive electronics, they get what they deserve!

It is foolish to spend more than 20% of the cost of a system on speakers. They are not by any stretch of the imagination more important than the things in front of them.

I cannot imagine a valid arguement for putting such an emphasis on speakers!!!

Nrchy, how can speakers be the least important if "all things being equal, or even close" is the situation. Some things are more equal than others? Lets at least agree that cost is not the method to determine degree of importance. It might take 40% of the cost of a system on speakers to get an "equal" contribution from said speakers, without stating that they are more important.