Curious .. What is the compared price of your tt vs spkrs

Nice comments in this thread. I also tend to believe in the weakest link approach.

In my experience upgrading aspects of the turntable can lead to nice incremental improvements in the sound quality, while upgrading speakers often changes the "character" of the sound.
In my system I think I have about the same retail equivalent value on my turntable/preamp as I do on my speaker/amps, but in actual money spent (out of pocket) or current market value, I have spent 3x more on my turntable/preamp than I did on speaker/amp.

It is a difficult question (which is more important, front-end or speakers), but I can say a few things
- I love my acoustat 1+1 ESLs and Golden tube SE40 and they work in my room extremely well. They were not expensive, but "punch above their weight". total retail maybe around $3000 in 1990s dollars ($5500 in today’s dollars using inflation calculator). But it cost me $1000 used when I bought them.
- Even a Rega Planar3 with grado (my first turntable) sounded very good with these speakers and amp ($600 in 2000 dollars)
- Every upgrade of my turntable/pre has been worthwhile and enjoyable. Currently using systemdek IIX-900, RB300, Denon DL301, BAT VK20 with phono board maybe retail value of $5500-7000, but it cost me ~$3000 out of pocket.

Now that I have found my little nirvana with my acoustat 1+1 and SE40, I can easily see myself continuing to spend more and more on my analog front end and might get to a point where I spent >$10,000 upgrading my turntable/pre setup, feeding my $1000 market-value ($3000/$5000 retail) speaker/amps and this would not bother me and I would not feel like I would need to upgrade my speakers to "match" the expensive front end.

Inna ,
Perfect example of room acoustics same show in a bar probly not the same sound ,paco is great ..being around some of the biggest rock musicians in my life and being in the sound engineer field ( which can make quirky seem normal ) it still amazes me the reactions to comments by audiophile elite ( not in this post particularly mostly articles ). There are so many amazing people in this hobby , but sometimes the elite snobbyness can be a real turnoff . Just my simple opinion, i love playing the tunes , mixing them live or in the studio and i love listening to them all by my lonesome 😬 At my house hidden in the norcal mtns 👍 Almost always vinyl

It's the same everywhere, there are many excellent people but some are too arrogant and inconsidering, and this can become 'radioactive'.
I am having a hard time of listening to any digital after analog. 
Playing the tunes and mixing in the mountains..there is something primal and basic in it, direct contact with things within and without.

Thanks inna 
 I have somewhat walked away from the music scene amomg others . I enjoy music in general all music .. I find a zen space when im in my listening room spinning vinyl . I simply had a thought one night " i wonder what percent a person has wrapped up in there anolgue section compared to there entire system" it was never meant to alienate or include anyone . I have a decent system az adagios  mf nu vista and vpj classic etc i though to myself what does a guy with a 250 k set of wilsons use , it never discounted the dp35 denon guy running nht spkrs. My guitar collection .. Well its serious  so i get the extremes and mutiple units and gear . I'm mellow now and just kick back and raise my daughter with my wife . Luckly i still can have a set 2:1 room seperate ht room and my own studio 😬 I rarely get to use any of them lol 

well this gets into another issue but I agree about vinyl.  I didn't set out to be a vinyl addict as a lifestyle choice or a philosophical stance. It doesn't matter to me in the end if analog or digital is better, and I'm sure that in the long run digital will improve vastly (already is). 

But that said, I find vinyl and digital to be very different.  Digital sounds nice to me but artificial, like a carefully manicured golf course that doesn't really look like old Scotland after all.  Vinyl records - a good one, clean and well recorded - makes me snap to and listen, as if the music is being performed for the first time.  Much as I try, I can't explain it.  But it's magical.  

as for the bit about how you start, what's most important in a system, what part should cost as much as what other part, etc etc - I don't really see why there's a hard and fast rule.  What matters (to me) is the discovery, the process of learning to hear and train your ears, and how to buy stuff without ruining your finances.  No two people will, or should, do it in the same way. no?