Thinking back over 35 years of enjoying recorded and live music, I still find that the speakers are the single most important component--provided that one is talking about half-way decent components (say $500+ each).
Next in importance is the room: if you've ever been to a well-set-up recording studio, even a modest one, you'll know what I mean. The pros typically spend as much or more on room treatments than on components. The pay-off is awesome.
I spend 40-45% of my budget on the speakers, 45-50% on amplification and disc player and maybe 5% on cabling. Now I also use LP and listen to FM so there's additional component costs that I'm not including here.
So. . .if someone handed me $20K tomorrow and said it was mine--but only to use on upgrading one of my audio systems--I'd probably spend $1-2K on an extreme upgrade to my digital front end, but with the rest I'd buy the speakers I can't afford right now.
Next in importance is the room: if you've ever been to a well-set-up recording studio, even a modest one, you'll know what I mean. The pros typically spend as much or more on room treatments than on components. The pay-off is awesome.
I spend 40-45% of my budget on the speakers, 45-50% on amplification and disc player and maybe 5% on cabling. Now I also use LP and listen to FM so there's additional component costs that I'm not including here.
So. . .if someone handed me $20K tomorrow and said it was mine--but only to use on upgrading one of my audio systems--I'd probably spend $1-2K on an extreme upgrade to my digital front end, but with the rest I'd buy the speakers I can't afford right now.