SPeakers 90% of your sound

Speakers, in general, are the most imperfect link in the chain. How many of you would put up with 5% distortion in your electronics? Not me, that's for sure. Yet, we do this *every* time we listen to our speakers. The physical transformation from electrical energy to mechanical energy is the devil.

IMHO, the upstream devices (CD/DVD-A/SACD, amps, preamps, cables, etc.) are all pretty good in comparison. The sound differences between a $500 amp and a $5,000 amp is very small when compared to the differences between $500 speakers and $5,000 speakers.

My recommendation? Buy the best sounding speakers you can afford and then spend most of the rest of your audio dollars on very high quality source materials (CD/DVD-A/SACD). The rest of the chain is not nearly as important and suffers from the law of diminishing returns very quickly.

I also disagree that Speakers weights 90% in a system.
Assume the room doesn't change, it's all about system matching. In my opinon, I think the speaker and amp needs to be match before you can make your claim about what's the most important.

I'm a source sort of guy, but then, I own a Linn LP12 Lingo.

Nothing downstream can remove distortion or put back information that was never there in the first place. I've upgraded sources and electronics a few times, but speakers only once. Never had any difficulty noticing an improvement.

I just hate spending good money on sidegrades. When changes to a system don't seem to make much difference, IMHO you're not making a big enough change or you're changing the wrong thing.

Speakers and their interactions with room and system could fill a book. They offer very different takes on the music. When is one take better ? When it lets the music touch me more.

$0.02

Twl: Where do you live (not an address--I'm not sending a henchman) just a zip code--or even a state. I'd like you to hear a really well designed room. I think it would change your mind. No words will--you have to hear it. It really is astounding what a room can do (soundwise that is--not performance wise--a bad one note performer will still be a poor performer, but acoustically he'll sound a lot better)

I could not disagree more. Speakers are very important in a system, but I think they are nearly the least important link in the chain.
I would side with those who elevate the importance of the source. Speakers will never sound better than the signal fed to them. Speaker all sound different which is why I think people put so much emphasis on them, but that doesn't make them more important. The item that removes the signal from the source is the most important whether it is a phono cartridge, a laser, or a tape head. Everything down the line decreases the level of importance.

I am concerned about being misunderstood. Everything in the system is important (which is why we often read drivel about synergy being the most important) but the best sounding system is going to be the one where the source is prioritized.

Nothing is going to add back into the system that was not retrieved in the first place. Speakers cannot add the detail or tonal qualities that the CDP or TT did not first detect.