Do you belong more to souce first or to speakers first school of thought ?

so many here have completely ignored the question. It was NOT what is most important, it was what should come first.

Nothing is "most important" because it is a SYSTEM. It is the weakest link idea. The SYSTEM can be no better than the weakest link so again, nothing is the most important.

However, we can pick a logical place to start, and that is most definitely with the speakers. They must fit the room and they must be capable of doing what you want them to do i.e. what do you value most because unless you have mega bucks you can’t have everything. You want to play AC/DC at live levels or more interested in string quartets? etc..

Once you have speakers that will be able to do what you want, and that will work in your room, then you can start figuring out what kind of amplification you need to get them to perform, and then you can focus on getting a source that is at least as good as the rest.

So once and for all let’s just drop the ridiculous idea that one part of the system is more important than any other 

Spend $30000 on speakers and $70000 on the rest. 

no budget for cables?

Spend $30000 on speakers and $70000 on the rest. 

no budget for cables?

@grislybutter  (do you miss being called "Brown Bear"?), I suppose one could interpret that as 30k for the speakers (wow, I wish I could do that!) and then "the rest" would entail all of the electronics, speaker cables, interconnect cables, fuses, power cords, and all else assorted what-have-you one might deem necessary that is in front of the speakers.  One might even include room treatments as part of "the rest," although in the context of this thread, I realize that was not part of the topic.  But you know how these threads wander.  (I am going to go on record as saying I have personally never tried any exotic fuses, but I am curious.)

@immatthewj I was being sarcastic. I can't count these 0s.

@immatthewj I was being sarcastic.

Ahhhh . . . I should have known.