Cables that cost more than the speakers?

In my experience, which is limited, I have noticed a couple of anomalies: 1) great electronics can make a crappy speaker sound better than you would think. 2) sometimes inserting a superior component in your system, even if it is a mismatch dollar-wise, may have a greater impact in a marginal system . This "revelation" came to me as I have been without several key components at various times due to upgrading or repairing something. While doing without my normal components I would have to substitute with inferior quality pieces. Even though the sound was not as good it was still enjoyable because of the other superior components remaining in the system. Does this make sense?

Yes. The notion of a chain being only as strong as its weakest link does not really apply to audio systems, in my experience. Because it seems that you can always improve the sound of the system by strengthening ANY of the key links, even the strongest one. ----dan

Another question: Would most of you agree that better performance would likely be had in an otherwise identical system with ~$17,000 speakers and ~$3,000 cable rather than $8000 speaker and $12,000 cable. I know it always depends on the specific system but who would start out with the latter configuration?

I don't think you can use any formulas because the retail cost of cable has little to do with what it costs to make and almost nothing to do with how "good" it is or how it sounds. They charge simply what the market will bear or what they can get away with. In addition, cable is so highly system dependent that, in any particular system, it is easy to see how a $400 cable can clearly outperform a $2000 cable. Given the above, I don't see how super expensive cables are almost ever worth it. Even when one finds one which performs well, there is probably another which is significantly cheaper that will perform just as well.