How do you determine how much to spend on speakers

Kraz, now you're in the treacherous realm of matching components with sonic signatures. At their price points, the Bryston and the Rotel have been well reviewed and praised by people here. If you like the sound of the Bryston, however, there is a less expensive 3bST (I doubt seriously you'd miss the little bit of extra power- tho sonically they may be more different than I assume) and a more expensive Rotel cd payer, the 991. From what I have read, the 991 is worth the extra couple of hundred bucks over the 771. There are other good choices at the same general price point, e.g., the Musical Fidelity A3.

I would not skimp on the cd player. Less money in the amp and more in the cd player is usually safer.

W/re the speakers, I hope you can get a good deal. Retail's pretty high. (I like them better than the B&W's too, so imo you're on the right track - but others would disagree, I'm sure). If you have the time, try to listen to some of the other suggestions above, e.g., Spendors, Vandersteens. I do not have either of them, but I think you'll like them too.

In addition to accurate (or pleasing if you prefer) tonality, listen to how well the speakers do at imaging (three-dimensional solid performers in real space), soundstaging (depth and width and placement of the performers in an acoustic environment), and dynamics (responses to large and tiny changes in amplitude - realistic? clean?).

Here's a suggestion: start another thread or two. Ask people in one to recommend a $5,000 system. You'd get all sorts of real world examples. In the other, if you're set on those speakers, or choose different speakers, ask people who have them what they use for amplifiers and cd player.

Take your time and have fun.

Paul

My suggestion is to follow Paul's suggestion.

Sincerely, I remain

with all due respect paulwp, i strongly disagree that the CDP is more significant than the amp. in my experience, just the opposite is true for EVERY system i've ever heard. i would never scrimp on the amp to spend more on a CDP.

there are so few audible diffences among CDP's these days that you need a very high resolution system just to hear them. and with an inferior amp, there's NO WAY the CDP is going to matter.

note: i realize that a $20k linn sounds a lot better than a $50 portable...my comments above refer to decent CD players below $2k.

Well, S2k, if it sounded like I think the cdp is more significant than the amp, then I disagree with me too. Biggest change in sound in my system was when I went from a midfi receiver to a hifi amp. I certainly wouldnt recommend getting an inferior amp. It's just that there are good amps that don't cost a lot of money, like the Bryston 3bST or the Muse 100 and 160. Lots of others, as well as some integrateds that cost even less and I wouldnt consider them inferior.

I do think, however, that there are audible differences in cd players under $2k, and from my pov, it's easier to find an acceptable amp than it is to find an acceptable cd player.

That was another thread, which component is more important, with some people saying speakers, others source, some preamps and a few amps.

This is starting to sound like the choice between "scrimp" and "skimp" - doesn't make a lot of difference.

on a SonyES CD player. Don't buy in this BS about DAC's and
spending money on the source. Lemme put it this way. Even a tin-ear can hear the difference between two different speakers, but it requires a golden-ear to supposedly hear differences between good CD players. Retail, my system is around $25K. Of this I have $8k on speakers, $9.5 K on a digital front end, and $7.5 K on amplification. If I had to do it again, I would probably spend $15K on speakers, $10 K on amplification, and probably $2K on the source. So you decide what I think is important