Picking components -warm / bright which is righ?

When you choose components in a system how do you choose? Do you offset one type of component with the oppposite in another? For example, lively, bright speakers with a warm tube preamp? Or all components of the same type?
With the low cost of digital amps, I'm leaning towards mellow, forgiving speakers which will add some body to the lean, detailed sound of digital.
As recorded music gets to be better quality, the trend seems to be stereos designed to be less forgiving of any faults in the chain. Which is great for perefect recordings but renders a lot of music unlistenable.