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

the answer has to do with your total budget.

if your budget is under $20k, then spend 60-70% on speakers, spend 20% on the best amp you can buy, and 10% on a good bang for the buck CD player (or dac with a volume control if you already stream or own files) with a volume control. cheap digital is remarkably good. relative to how bad cheap speakers are.

speaker performance will be the dominant attribute or determent to any budget system. investing in sources is a waste if the speaker is marginal. a great speaker will make everything else much better.

if your budget is over $20k then it’s a total free-for-all on how you do it......assuming you do the speaker part right. you cannot overcome compromises in a speaker.

get the speaker choice right and all the rest is trivial.

in my mega buck system, you could plug my phone into my amps and it would still sound awesome. but throw a cheap/average speaker into my system and it would sound....cheap/average.

Here is how i break it down, 1st top priority is locatinga  speaker that you know you will love. = does not mean spending a  % of entire budget,,,
I don't believe spending over $3K ona  speaker system, as my thors cost $1600 17 yrs ago and now a  new upgraded xover will run ,,ohhh about $1K a  pair = $3K. 
a good integrated amp used,,ohh about $2K, a  excellent ohh about $5K. Tube that is. 
Source, my cayin Cd17 cost new 17 yrs ago, $1300. so you see it has nothing to do with percentages,, Find your speakers, then your amp, them source.  

Hey millercarbon,

You always seem to be a huge proponent of power cables and speaker wires having a huge impact on the sound quality. I'm not saying you're wrong, but James Randi has offered a prize of $1 million to anyone who can demonstrate that $7,250 audio cables "are any better than ordinary audio cables". This was in 2007, so I'm not sure if the offer is still active or not. If I were you, I'd try to claim that prize if I could. Not only would it net you a substantial sum, you'd also be able to crow about being right this entire time. Good luck.

winnardtHey millercarbon, You always seem to be a huge proponent of power cables and speaker wires having a huge impact on the sound quality. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but James Randi has offered a prize of $1 million to anyone who can demonstrate that $7,250 audio cables "are any better than ordinary audio cables". This was in 2007, so I’m not sure if the offer is still active or not. If I were you, I’d try to claim that prize if I could. Not only would it net you a substantial sum, you’d also be able to crow about being right this entire time ...

Randi’s offer was just a promotional stunt.
Do you want to know how Randi really works? Details here.

mikelavigne,

'get the speaker choice right and all the rest is trivial.

in my mega buck system, you could plug my phone into my amps and it would still sound awesome. but throw a cheap/average speaker into my system and it would sound....cheap/average.'


Years of experience have demonstrated this salient point to me too time and time again. Cost is not the issue, you could get great results for <$1000 used but getting good speakers will be critical.

The bottleneck in performance, I think, still remains with the loudspeaker.

As Mike said even his phone will give awesome results. I tried something similar with my Sony MP3 player a few years back and was shocked to find the sound indistinguishable from my Marantz KI CD player. A truly shocking moment in my audio experience.

Everything I knew told me that the CD player simply must sound better - yet miraculously they sounded indistinguishable!

I've never had room/electrical supply  issues but then maybe others are not so fortunate. I don't know.

Here in the UK there were some who were concerned when the standard 3 pin 240v mains plug began to feature half sleeved safety plastic on the live and neutral pins, but I didn't notice any sonic difference. Nor with switchable wall sockets.

My system over the years improved not via CD player upgrades, nor by amplifier up/downgrades, nor by timewasting cable experiments - it was the speakers that did it. Each and every time. It goes without saying that recordings / masterings mattered too.

In general terms the sound got bigger, the bass went deeper and a sense of greater ease emerged as well as the ability to play louder without the sound becoming intolerably distorted.

Almost every speaker upgrade resulted in the existing pair being replaced by a larger and heavier one. If that tend was to continue I don't think my back could handle another such upgrade.

I definitely will need help next time or have to consider using subs, but I suspect they're probably going to need some muscle in shifting too.