Do you belong more to souce first or to speakers first school of thought ?

Sometimes comparing different pressings is like comparing different turntables/tonearms of the same brand. Quite illuminating. And I mean comparing all first pressings from different countries.

Amp first approach is less common but I can understand that. To a degree I would follow it too because I want to use tube amplification, though not necessarily SET, and some speakers just won't sing with tubes.

I think, I almost fully agree with what Mike said, generally speaking.

Yet speakers are passive components compared to the source and amplification.

I have an impression that the more experience audiophile acquires the more he appreciates the importance of the source, even given the same recording quality of the material. I used to be more speakers first guy but no longer, now I am more source first guy.

And the higher end your system is the more important source is, as Mike said.

I suggest a wild assumption that everyone here does have brains. Any objection ?

But speakers are the soul of a system and in this sense they are always the most important element.

This source/speakers match is a very interesting and complicated subject by itself.

Matching doesn't mean efforts to literally directly compensate, it usually requires a lot of thought and experimentation. It is easy to completely screw up the sound, to throw it in disarray. But I would guess that, generally speaking, your choice of table/arm/cartridge/phono stage should not be too different than your choice of speakers. The idea is to make the speakers sound their best, not to make the speakers sound the way they don't really want to sound.

So, in the end the source might be more important but you choose speakers first and upgrade them last. At least, that's how I see it.

I bought my modest speakers 25 years ago but the sound that I have now is light years away from what it was. Everything else was upgraded.

We are not interested in garbage, we are talking about excellent or better source and similar level speakers.

Recordings also often have a lot of distortion.

I think, if the prices are adequate, $30k speakers/$70k the rest is an excellent balance. Just match it all well.

Wrong. Get the speakers you like most and put them in whatever room you've got. Next year you might move to a better place with better listening room and you wouldn't have to replace speakers.

What Ralph didn't add to that and I will - It's also got to be tube preamp! He thinks exactly the same, including about phono preamps, but simply decided not to say it.

That's certainly true, generally speaking, but first it is not always easy to determine the weakest link, and then by changing any component your change the overall balance, so you might upgrade but not get better sound or improve some aspects of the sound and make others worse. This is a form of art, I would say.

In my case, I think I know that the weakest links are cartridge and speakers, though they are not weak links, so I have no need to upgrade, only a moderate wish.

That's the advantage of any great source component - it will work just fine in any room where there is enough space to put it in. You always have to deal with resonance control, though.

Actually, there are people advocating amp or preamp/amp first approach. I understand them, especially if they talk tube equipment.