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

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.

By far the most expensive part of my system is the room.  Whatever you do, if you truly care about the outcome and not just being able to say "I have a cool system", then put a good amount of money aside on acoustics and some money and time into learning how they work, and learning how to do measurements and interpret them.  

Your spend on speakers as Al pointed out is going to be heavily impacted by your desire for deep clear bass. I personally, and studies have shown bass has a huge impact on perception, so I would not ignore this.

The speakers and room provide the vast majority of your impression of your system assuming competent amplification and source.


If you are going to include vinyl, you can't go cheap. Good vinyl is expensive and that leads to a different question, do you consider yourself a "vinyl" person or you mainly in the digital realm and quite happy with it. If you are in the digital realm and quite happy with it, then there are many competent DACs at reasonably prices you will like, and you could even look at integrated with DAC built in, though that makes upgrade tough.  If you are vinyl guy, then you may want a DAC that recreates more of that vinyl sound and that is going to cost more.

So .... back to what Al started. Tell us what your approx spend is, what music you like, and what you think about your "sonic" tastes.

The percentages in the magic formula change according to the size of your overall budget.  One size doesn't fit all.

It is true that, all else aside, it will cost more to get extended quality bass and quite a bit more for that in a large room compared to small.

That is because the amp and speakers both must work much harder to deliver extended bass and even more so for bigger rooms. 

I forgot to add in laptop and mic for measurements. Most already have a laptop and you can get a good mic for $75. You might need more for Room than I spent. My room was already pretty dampened and restricted on what all I can do since it isn't dedicated. IMO speakers and room are your most important considerations. Invest the most in speakers you like it's easier to upgrade the other items unless you have enough money to get everything you want at once. 

For my system.
1. Speakers $10,000
2. amplification including DAC $4000
3 .Source digital <$1000
4. cables<$200
5. Room $300