SPeakers 90% of your sound

I think Redkiwi brings up a very good point.

However, he neglected to mention the significant contribution that an amplifier (not just any amp) brings to the table. Which I believe has much to do with the quality of that flavor of sound, as well as the flavor itself.

-IMO

Tubegroover, I do understand room makes a big difference. That would be the minimum requirement to enjoy the music. That's why many performer care so much where they perform. If we do put room acoustic as part of system evaluation then I would weight the listening room as 30 to 40% of the sound. I was talking about if one already have an ideal listening space and not comparing components at dealer or someone else's home.
I'm not sure about you but many of us can only treat our room to certain degree with a very limited real estate and especially ojbection from family members. If I live in a mansion like your humble home then I don't mind build a dedicated listening room.

S23chang, my home is quite humble as you note, sure isn't a mansion but will be a bit closer with the added space :) I am building it precisely because of reasons you state, I can't treat any other suitable room to the degree necessary to obtain the effect desired, WAF to be precise. She is getting more real estate and I am finally doing what I have been haggling over for the past 3 years. I'm lucky in the respect that I have the space to do it.

Room obviously #1 Speakers#2 Amp close #3....In my experience, the room clearly makes the greatest difference as well as positioning -- this should go without saying

Surprisingly enough I found the differences between some amps to be quite large -- the differences between Krell and my Primare could not be more obvious.

That said, there are very large variables between speakers which can make them sound very different.