“Speakers don’t matter as much as we think they do…”,.
They don’t matter any less either. They merely deserve the same amount of respect all of the other components in the arrangement should receive, but regularly not the lions share.
I firmly believe as I stated previously so long as an assignment, or verdict on any speaker’s prowess contains subjective evaluation (s) there can be no absolute determination of true performance (better, or best) regardless their cost, style, or design topology.
the one point a particular speaker can make is on the bandwidth itself and how much of it is revealed, i.e., speaker a being full range can develop more range than speaker B which is a restrickded range unit.
as for speakers making the greatest impact on the presentation I’d offer change the amplifier topology from SS to Tubes and then tell me things have not significantly changed.
albeit, many aspects of a system alter the sound and presentation, not merely the speakers.
Anyone in this devotion for anytime at all will see it does not take ‘world beater’ uber priced transducers to knock you off your seat with their presentation, now and again.
I strongly advise anyone to allow good sense lead the way and not some mysteriously arranged pie in the sky chart which denotes how much money goes where, if an audio rig is to be on balance.
Acquire a quality signal, maintain that signal’s integrity and match closely the power demands of the speaker with an amp or amps, address the room acoustics as is feasable , and many speakers will open the doors to excellent listening sessions without the need for extravagant expense at the end of the signal path.