SPeakers 90% of your sound

Dburdick, change "assuming you had good electronics" to "assuming you had a good source" and I'm with you all the way. Speakers should certainly be upgraded. It's a step in reaching balance. But IMO they should not be upgraded before all the upstream equipment has been upgraded first, starting with the source.

Of course, if you luck on a component you want badly but had slated for two upgrades from now, then finances and availability, not sound, may dictate the choice.

I do agree that room treatments may not help very much when your speakers cost $50. Unless those fifty bucks were very well spent indeed, which of course is what I wish you and everyone here. I do not think it is good spending, ever, to have $1000 speakers with a $500 CD player, unless a stroke of luck was involved.

I should add that to me, "good spending" means getting the most musical satisfaction for the hard-won dollar.

Sogood51, we agree on some things, even without beer. With all due respect to those who say that components that follow a source can't add any thing to improve upon what is retrieved by the source, I agree (though the future of digital might change this), but, by the the same logic those components (including the room) can contaminate what has been retrieved by the source. Furthermore, sources are just as inadequate, in that they can't improve upon the components that follow. While there is some logic to the cliche' "garbage in, garbage out", its the garbage out, regardless where its introduced, that is of concern. In the end its system synergy (including room) that makes or breaks a system. I am of the notion that rooms and speakers tend to have the most shortcomings, the most complicated interactions and the greatest challanges. In that regard, I suggest one determine their imediate, short and long term budgets. Find the best available room and purchase speakers that are compatible with that room, offend you the least, and work back from there. Generally, as one's budget increases (and hopefully without a reduction in good sense) the shortcomings of speakers and rooms become less dramatic, and the shift towards preceeding components becomes more relevent.

Excluding the room, out of all the components that make up a system, the amplifier is far and away the most underrated, has the most shortcomings, and faces the greatest challenges.

The fact that everybody thinks it's the speakers is PROOF! that it's really the amplifier ;)

-IMO

TWL,well put.On the subject.I would say 40% speakers,30% analog front end,10% room,20% the rest.I don't mean prices.Sometimes it is necessary to use $10000.00 amp.to make the $3500.00 speakers really sing.Serious room treatment is the last step not the first.Of course, there are "dead" rooms;but then nothing will help much.

Stehno, I don't know for sure, but I suspect you might be right when you say that amplifiers may be the most underrated componenet. It seems to me as though many beginners underestimate the importance of appropiate amplification. I still think speakers should dictate amplifier choices, and at the risk of being repetitive, work back from there. I can understand why many feel that a preamp/control device or source is the most important, because those are the components that they tend to have the most tactile relationship with.