My speakers are hard to price because they are part of a complete, matched system. I purchased them as demos from the gear's designer, but I also both the TT used. Best estimate is that the TT cost 1.15 times the speakers' selling price. That number is, however, implicitly misleading because mine are active speakers: the crossovers are onboard the amplifier to avoid the spurious vibrational and EMF interference that could result from vibrations within the speaker cabinets.
I want to add an analogy to the discussion of the turntable --it may work for some and not for others. I've been a photographer for decades, going back to the time of large format view camera photography.
In photographic performance (as I see it), the camera has to serve two functions: it has to be light-tight and hold the film flat. If there's no provision for optical correction (movements at the lens or film planes) then the camera also bears responsibility for holding the lens exactly perpendicular to the film. That's about it.
In turntable design, a turntable's responsibilities are similar. First and uncompromisingly foremost, the turntable must revolve at an accurate speed and have sufficient torque to 'power trough' complex passages in an LPs groove. Second, it must center the LP properly on the platter, and finally it must hold the tonearm in a firm and rigid position relative to the vinyl playing surface.
In my opinion, though none of these is even remotely trivial, the list of requirements is relatively short, when compared to the duties of either the tonearm or cartridge.
The cartridge has to decode and transmit the physical input from the groove to the tonearm cable. Implicit in this process is both converting the physical movement of the stylus in the groove to electrical impulses and amplifying that signal. The ratio of movement to signal is of such an order of magnitude that the precision required is of a very high order indeed.
The tonearm has the challenge of positioning the cartridge perfectly in its relationship to the groove and preserving the integrity of the signal so collected in its transmission to the phono preamplifier. It must also provide sufficient adjustability to allow for fine tuning for each individual LP, were the operator to wish to do so.
I don't believe it's a fair statement, or at least not a comprehensive answer, to say that the turntable in any given system can be assessed on its price alone (or its price ratio to the other transducer), if only because the TT's task is so complex, and also because the TT is, actually, a System in itself, as well as as subset of the listening system as a whole. Furthermore, the TT has so many variables: it has to be setup exactingly; the arm, cartridge and cable have to work together in complimentary fashion; and the TT has to match the system perfectly: phono pre, amplifier, cabling, and speakers. That's a heck of a lot to do.
I think this has been an interesting and satisfying discussion which I have enjoyed. I hope this perspective is of use as well.
