What is an appropriate speaker value relative to the rest of your system?

[Musicmansweden]

Originally Posted by Still-One

That weakest link theory was a marketing gimmick started by a company that only produced turntables at the time.

That statement is really true and somehow very funny. Scottish humour?

[Mikado463]

Originally Posted by 2fastdriving

I'm confused...i agree with you about the speakers being the overall most important determination in a system's SQ, but your story didn't seem to back that up. You said the guy could NOT tell a difference after hooking up cheaper gear and bought them anyway?

I think a good speaker will reveal what good (or bad) gear can do. So he shouldn't have bought those speakers if a receiver can sound just as good as a Mc stack through them.

Originally Posted by hobie1dog

I'm just not going to bother responding to that.

LOL, I think Marc got snookered with his audio fool analogy 'hooking up cheaper gear' for we all know that $$ alone does not make everything 'better' !

[cma29]

Originally Posted by Grasshopper

Question- say with a $25k, or even $50k budget, what is the appropriate % allocated to the speakers?

I've seen it both ways, where folks get the most speakers they can afford, so say 75% of the budget in speakers, or the flip side where most of the budget is in gear, leaving much less for speakers.

What is your "ideal" speaker budget allocation as a % of your overall system?

My speakers represent about 40% of system total cost

[DonBattles]

As much as I can hide from my wife

[DonBattles]

And for my serious answer I'm at about 38%. That however wasn't planned, it just happened that way in the end

[mulveling]

As it stands now, going by actual prices paid, I'm at 22% (not counting tubes, extra cartridges, spare arm wands, etc). That will be going down (upper teens) with some upgrades incoming to other parts of the system.

I'm where I want to be with speakers for a long while; going larger or smaller is risky because these Canterbury GR work so brilliantly in the room I've got, and play perfectly to my tastes. So the best options for upgrade are upstream.

[Formerly YB-2]

Was ~25%, but has dropped to <10%. Am speaker shopping.

[Mikado463]

Originally Posted by Formerly YB-2

Was ~25%, but has dropped to <10%. Am speaker shopping.

gonna buy some 'Bose' Glenn ?

[PHC1]

I would say the most important is buying as much speaker as you can afford but it has to be an appropriate speaker for your listening space. Not too big. So many times you see people plunking tons of money on speakers that are really meant to be used in much bigger acoustical spaces. Not good. A pair of smaller monitors that can be augmented with a sub is a much better way to go because you have control over the bottom octaves and not have to deal with muddy, boomy, unruly bass that ruins the whole experience when your speaker just doesn't like the constrains of your room. As far as supporting gear, if you can't afford a nice amp today, buy one that is 20 years old, the amps from 20 years ago will still sound great today if it was a good amp to begin with. Same with preamps. Digital would be the exception but there are plenty of DACs and CDPs that are still very musical today if not the latest statement in resolution and transparency. Key is to find a musical sounding DAC you can buy for next to nothing. As they say, "Rome wasn't built overnight". Piece it together as the budget becomes available.

[For The Love of Music]

This process is dynamic as the system seems to evolve more then anticipated at least for me, currently speakers are at 22.53%. These numbers are good to know and along with keeping record of budget, buy/sell, hours, other, allows you to see how other factors increase or drive down the percentages - although at that point, it may be too late.

Like many have said, you can get more with less playing with treatment, incoming power & distribution along with tweaks. Lots of good gear out there, especially after going to RMAF. In the end, its all about you and no one else. (well maybe your significant other, if it is understood by them that you have an illness :-)