SPeakers 90% of your sound

I'm a source sort of guy, but then, I own a Linn LP12 Lingo.

Nothing downstream can remove distortion or put back information that was never there in the first place. I've upgraded sources and electronics a few times, but speakers only once. Never had any difficulty noticing an improvement.

I just hate spending good money on sidegrades. When changes to a system don't seem to make much difference, IMHO you're not making a big enough change or you're changing the wrong thing.

Speakers and their interactions with room and system could fill a book. They offer very different takes on the music. When is one take better ? When it lets the music touch me more.

$0.02

Jafox, your point about preamps is well taken. My own Klyne was a surprise. Not too many people seem to know about it, it was hard to find and hear, yet it was several times better than a best-buy Copland tube preamp in my system. In other words, the obvious choices weren't the best, either musically or financially. Of all components, the preamp seems to be the one which is toughest to upgrade.

I also take your point on moving a system to a new level, which you did when you got your Clearaudio Reference and which I did when I moved from my LP12 Valhalla to a Cirkus Lingo. I discovered some component changes will just do that, move the music to a new level, and start you on a new round of upgrading because the potential of the system seems so much greater. It's important to mention that this potential appears in the power of the music to touch and move, and of the system to keep you involved hour after hour, up late spinnig discs and buying more.

I am now at the point of examining room acoustics very carefully, before I do any more component upgrades, or I may not hear enough of the difference in an upgrade to decide properly. I think now that the better the system, the more difference the room makes.

Dburdick, change "assuming you had good electronics" to "assuming you had a good source" and I'm with you all the way. Speakers should certainly be upgraded. It's a step in reaching balance. But IMO they should not be upgraded before all the upstream equipment has been upgraded first, starting with the source.

Of course, if you luck on a component you want badly but had slated for two upgrades from now, then finances and availability, not sound, may dictate the choice.

I do agree that room treatments may not help very much when your speakers cost $50. Unless those fifty bucks were very well spent indeed, which of course is what I wish you and everyone here. I do not think it is good spending, ever, to have $1000 speakers with a $500 CD player, unless a stroke of luck was involved.

I should add that to me, "good spending" means getting the most musical satisfaction for the hard-won dollar.