Is there a magic formula for spending on components in a system

There is no magic formula. Theres advice from fellow music loving enthusiasts. But I don't  believe in spending alot of your resources on cables.But that's my feelings. 

I am with you on that..... My best....

Many tell the tale of the magic formula. It is said it is buried high in the Andes, or maybe in the deepest Amazon, then again quite possibly on Mt Doom, in any case you will know you are close when you trip over a unicorn and fall into the Fountain of Youth.

There is no magic formula but if you want someone else with expertise to determine it for you consider an integrated device that you can just add most any speakers to.

A good example is the Bel Canto c5i which has high end sound and everything most any one might need already built in for a very reasonable cost, especially used.

Many other good ones also.  Just find one with the power and features you need. 

I wouldn’t lose any sleep over this one. Here’s why. I’ve actually built whole systems using the preferred approach of budgeting equally to each part- speakers, amp, source, wire, tweaks. Even at a very modest budget level it pays big time to budget significantly for tweaks and wire.

But here’s the thing. With one of those same budget systems I then upgraded one interconnect to something that literally doubled the budget of the whole system. That is, put a $1200 interconnect into a $1200 system. Most would predict this is a waste and would hardly matter. How could a $1200 system possibly show what a $1200 interconnect can do? Well I am here to tell you it can! That one wire transformed that system!

Its not something I recommend or would do. Just saying. Good to know. Because maybe you come across a killer deal on a "Grail" type component. But the rest of your system is way beneath it. Who cares? Sad truth is, all these guys saying Source or Speakers or Amp, they are all just repeating what they heard someone else say, or what worked for them. Its not like they performed some exhaustive comprehensive comparison. Which even if they did well guess what? That was them. Not you. So who knows? 

Frankly I was a lot happier tripping over the unicorn. A beautiful Mermaid brought me to the surface and gave me mouth to mouth, and I could swear there was a little tongue before the angels whisked me off to heaven. I never did find the magic formula. But the music here is to die for.