System building

I would be concerned about building a system "around a set of speakers". I too, used to think of "Speakers First" type of mentality. Just to let you know, I have a friend that has a $30,000 system that has $18,000 in a pair of speakers. Unfortunately, he only has around $2000 in his DAC. Needless to say, his system is musically BORING ! compared to my $18,000 system that has only $1200 in an almost bottom of the line Maggies as speakers. The reason my system sounds so much more exciting is because I have $8,000 in my source component. (A Linn Sondek LP12 that started out as a $945 one.) We both have about the same level of guts in our amps though. I learned about this the hard way. When I first was introduced to Linn's HiFi hierarchy, I simply couldn't believe that the source was more important than the speakers or amp. But in time I found that just because a speaker makes a bigger difference, that doesn't mean the same thing as being a BETTER difference. When I first heard of the Brits sinking big bucks in turntables and then using little 16 watt Naim Naits and tiny Linn Kans for speakers, I though they were crazy. But then some years later, I had a system consisting of the Linn Sondek and $7000 of amplification and only a little small pair of $950 Linn Tukan mini-monitors as loaners until my bigger speaker came in. I remember thinking that this would not be a very satisfying system to listen to before I actually fired it up. Boy was I wrong!,I ended up listening to almost everything in my music collection for every evening until late into the night. It was an utter dissapointment to have to shut it simply because it was past midnight. If you want the a music system that gives righteous performance then Source is king, Amplification is second, and speakers should come last. Don't be afraid to sink big money into your DAC and amplification! It will only make your Aperion's sound their VERY BEST that they can sound!. I recently replaced a $500 preamp with one that retailed for $6000 when new (I paid $3000 used) and it TRANSFORMED MY SYSTEM.