It's attention, not money, we should budget

In my office system my $1000 speakers have $12K combined speaker cable and amp (all MSRP). The magic ratio is a bit off here.

More attention to the music, less to the equipment, is my suggestion.

Over the long haul (and it has been), the old 3-thirds (speakers, amplification (pre & power or integrated), sources) has more or less held true in my experience of 55ish years....

This is taking into account new, used, diy with very little 'room', since there's been a lot of them that I/we haven't owned.  And most were 'problematic' ( i.e., "One copes as best as....")... ;)

The later ones' (early 80's and beyond) have responded decently to analog eq and later digital correction.

Best 'splaination:

I am not afraid.

*L*

Allocating per-device price percentages is not really different than allocating per-device costs.

The tendency of folks on this site to discuss revolving through the kit in their chains suggests that the common fixation on hardware won’t always bend well to predictable slices on a pie chart, eh? 😉

Bring me any good DAC (or turntable - neither need be expensive), any decent amp of ~200 wpc (4 ohms), wire of your choice minimum 18ga, and I assume my speakers and my music files (or lp’s) will do the rest just fine. There’s no physical room treatment other than typical furniture. However, if I moved the system from a specious, solid concrete (including ceiling) dwelling to drywall etc., I’ve no clue how “transferable” my results would be. Obviously YMMV depending on such environmental factors and on individual psychological sensitivities.

When I started, it did not seem intuitive that my expenses graph would become an upside-down bell curve (= sharp valley between the actual music and the transducers). Price and percentage rules may not to work well (sometimes) for this very reason - they can set you up for highly skewed expectations when you try stuff out. Just my anecdotal opinion.

Wise thread!

+1 OP

Perfectly rational point made by the OP.

But in reality, we cannot rationalize with a rule something that pertain to gear design, our own ears/brain measures and habits , the room acoustics, the mechanical control of vibration and resonance , the electrical noise floor controls of the gear-room-house , all these factors vary too much with our own various needs between one another to be ruled by a rule for all so to speak...

My only rule is we must go for the ratio S.Q.high % versus the lowest possible  price % ... But many people here can indulge themselves without these limits...Someone able to buy many spots cars and take holidays in Paris will se mee as a poor looser here ...

Then which rule ?

The only rule is illustrated by someone owning one of the world system able to compete at the highest level : mike lavigne...

If i understood him correctly , his dedicated room cost him more than his gear system....

The only rule is then what i spoke about after my acoustics experiments ( at no cost for me for one year full time ) Acoustics sciencve rule the gear not the reverse... Psycho-acoustics rules with material physical acoustics everything in audio , even gear design ultimately depends on it as illustrated by the last revolution in acoustic on par with the transition from mono to stereo : the BACCH filtrers of Dr. Choueiri...