Relative component value to overall SQ.

If it’s a simple answer you want, here it is: A- ignore the percentage paradigm (a word not part of my vocabulary until Michael Green showed up ;-). B- Find a pair of speakers you like the most at no more than half your budget (less if possible). C- Next an amp that is well-suited to driving them. D- Then a source component with the $ left, minus the cost of a cheap passive pre-amp IF it will work within the context of the speaker/amp/gain/etc. situation. If you’re lucky, your listening room already sounds good. If it doesn’t, consider acoustic treatment of it part of your speaker budget---the speaker/room is a system unto itself.

With a system budget of $5,000, one can get a pair of Eminent Technology LFT-8b ($2499/pr) or Tekton loudspeakers, ridiculous bargains with very high price-to-performance ratios. A good tube amp (which the LFT-8b, being a mostly-resistive 8 ohm and higher load, loves) is probably out of reach, so a good used 100w solid state (NAD? Adcom? PS Audio?) will have to do. A fine CD player can be had for a grand or so, as can a passable (for now) LP player. Some cheap speaker wire, and you’re done!

Just as with a first wife, you will most likely look back and see the mistake(s) you made in picking your first system.

Ah yes, I somehow missed the qualifying sentence "For simplicity I am leaving out the signal source".

The only other comment I would make is one that doesn’t help (sorry ;-) : The proposition assumes that all comparably-priced "same" components contribute equally to the sound quality of a system. In other words, if one allocates, say, 50% to a pair of loudspeakers, that two very different sounding speakers will both be responsible to the same degree for the assembled systems’ sound quality. It’s just not that simple. And then there is the fact that every speaker "type" (ESL, magnetic-planar, ribbon, dynamic) benefits more from one type amplifier than another, and different type amps come in at different prices to achieve comparable sound quality. If that makes any sense! If that assertion is accepted, the percent formula falls apart.

As has long been said, a chain is only as strong as its’ weakest link. The trick then is to assemble a chain with links as close in sound quality level to the others as possible. Price points are NOT necessarily indicative of sound quality. Two different $3,000 phono stages may not both be responsible for the same percentage of a systems’ quality. Assembling a balanced system is how and why good retailers make their 40 points! Now that many people (not having a good local hi-fi-dealer) are on their own, that's a challenge.