i want better sounding speakers

Just to give you more excuses to pout: in my very humble ( hah ! ) opinion you shouldn't even be considering speakers at all. You should be listening to sources.

To paraphrase a great writer ( humble, yah ), a man who is tired of his music system is tired of life. If you want to hear more life, you need more detail and resolution at the source. You do not want to hear an ordinary source through a super amp and speakers which bring out every little bit of ordinariness.

Good stuff which is not there at the source cannot be magically restored downstream. I say go listen to some digital sources which cost what you are considering spending on speakers.

Then go listen to the speakers you really want. But take your present source with you for the listening session ! See what you feel about the difference.

Happy hunting !

tobias I dont like you !! I hate it when i get schooled -you are completely corect i have auditioned some great speakers but they all had great amps and pre amps I will start at the source thank you for all your posts I am going to to go over some other threads- life was so much easier when I thought bose was the end all be all(just out of curiosity how long will it take to get stereo nirvana)

Jesseo1, you never get there. If you did you would be deaf, dead, or in love with ( obsessing over ) something else. The journey is the destination, to coin a cliché. And the gear makers know how to get you no matter what you have.

But it need not take too long to come to the point where you think, every time you listen, "How come I get to have sound this good?" and you are sorry when you turn the rig off :D

Just remember--source first, then downstream. Biggest step you can manage each time. Cables come last.

School's out! Go play! :)

I think the order of the upgrades depends upon what will get you personally the biggest incremental improvement. Unfortunately speakers, source and amp are all critical at the end of the proverbial audiophile day. I have heard about excellent sounding demos of great speakers with IPODs as the source and great turntables with low grade electronics and speakers. Starting at the speaker and working back to source and then amp does not seem like too bad a way to go if you know that you've got to eventually make all three stops. It's all fun.

As far as the hardware part of it goes I believe speakers leave the biggest "thumbprint," followed by amplification (the phono cartridge could be in second place if you're an LP kind of guy). Source material is, to me, a huge culprit when it comes to variability in the sound that reaches the listener. But the king of good or nasty influences has to be the room you are listening in. In the case of my recommendation (Tyler Linbrook Monitors) I would advise against them if you must put your speakers right against any wall.