How do you determine how much to spend on speakers

as an owner of focal 726v speakers that i bought new agter reading favorable reviews i would not recommend anyone to purchase focal. a tweeter of my speakers bought in october 12 which are still in warranty gave up on saturday without any apparent reason. it just stopped making sounf while i was listening to bela fleck. i am not a loud listener and mostly my listening comprises of classical, jazz and folk and my volume is never more than 11 o clock max. i wonder what happened to the tweeter. speakers are connected to kenwood kmx 1000 amplifier and a carver pre with nad cdp. ive been listening to my music for atleast 20 years but never has this happened to any of my equipment. even my old infinity's are still going strong. plus the after sales of focal is so pathetic you would not want to know of it. I would strongly recommend that you dont waste your hard earned money on these focal products particularly where after sales is worse than anything even during warranty.

That's easy one. How much money do you have in your pockets?
What a question!

I've moved several times in the past year and the mover 'lost' my stuff and sadly was not covered by insurance. Thanks to the company forcing me to hurry to start a new job.

So...I decided to invest in a home theater system and spent about $1200 at Best Buy on a cheap receiver, CD player and Polk Audio Ti300 speakers that sounded better than the sound bar on my TV. It was better but not great.

The next month I decided to get the tube amp I heard and wanted since 2011. I also bought a decent tube preamp. I then did a little research and found the Polk Audio eBay store selling LSiM 703's for $1000 a pair.

I was lucky enough to find the Marantz CD player the mover didn't get and the Marantz tuner in mint condition I found on Audiogon for $125 sounds good too.

Now it seems all the audiophile snobs look down on those speakers but I heard them side by side to a few other audiophile speakers and IMO think they sound really good. The 60WPC Dynaco Style VTA ST-120 amp and the Akido design based preamp makes those speakers sound sweet. I was lucky to discover that combo.

I'll still use the stuff I bought at Best Buy as part of a home theater system.
For TV sound I think it will be ok but when I want to listen to music I'll choose my 'Audiophile' system.

I think the ratio between the costs of the components changes depending on the budget for the entire system. For example, if I were going to build an audio system with $1000 I would spend about $400 on speakers, $400 on amplification and the rest on a disc player.
If I had a 5K budget, I would spend about 3K to 3.5K on speakers, 1K to 1.5K on amplification and the rest on a disc player.
It seems to me that as the budget increases a larger percentage of the total cost should go toward the speakers.

Older thread - if I was going after a 5K system, I'd start collecting "keepers" to build upon later. Oppo's earlier mentioned at 1K now have 32-bit DAC's and rated Class A, plus Oppo has great support for newbees. Next, I'd determine whether I wanted near field, mid field or far field "sound". Multiple crossover's and multiple drivers can sound a bit congested at near field. That being said, most near field set-up's are two-way speakers with one crossover. At mid and far field, bigger drivers and often multiple drivers/crossovers become more common because the sound smoothes out at distance.

If you know a multichannel active speaker line sound that you like, say the Paradigm Active Series, this may be a savings over separate speakers, amps and more cables. I'd consider buying the two active smaller rear's first, and use them initially as your front mains as a mid field 2-channel system. Later, I'd add a matching musical sub and the larger front main's and center.

For non-active speaker's, I'd also consider the Oppo, the earlier recommendation of a adequately powered integrated amp or "regular amps fed directly by the Oppo (use the Opps volume control)", and add the speakers. This approach builds a surround system off the original purchases. Good topic for new buyer's.