What was your biggest priority?

My biggest expense has been source material. Most expensive component was CD player, next Amp and Preamp. My speakers are home made, so not as much money spent there unless I count my labor - then they would be on top of the list.

Speaker/room is the highest priority. Then source, followed by pre/amp required to achieve proper SPLs musically.

I built my own room,to accommodate my system. If you do not have the room it is A waste to upgrade. The room can not show of the potential of the system with out it. If you are blessed with A good room,then I think that the speakers are the most important link in a system. They have the most change in sound than any other part of your system. Once you have the first two then you can really judge the rest of your system by tring other components to your liking. What ever is your listing preference is. They only have to please your ear, no one but yours. The argument will go on for years about the best components. Its what your ear tells you

LONG. The biggest priority is reproducing music. Nrchy's question relates to how we see the system reproducing it. However "priorities" does NOT equal "where does hard-earned cash go". I have found that, whatever each one's priority (mine was speakers &pre -- because, respectively, that's what my ear communicates with /the control centre of the system), a LOT of our cash is gobbled up by ELECTRONICS, esp amps. I find electronics OUTRAGEOUSLY expensive when the system goes beyond a certain level. Not so with speakers: there, I find that they lack in the reproduced RANGE (and in phasing) i.e. few speakers under giga$ applications are correctly full-range. BUT, we can achieve pleasant sound IF we drive them well enough (because, as many have noted, speakers are "weak" & full of inefficiencies).
Is it the speakers' fault for being so "mid-tech", inefficient, or whatever it's called? I don't know, but have you noticed that many speaker upgrades are accompanied by an anguished cry for help: "how do I drive these beautiful $6k XYZ Monitor Ref 69 MkII???" Try explaining that it may take $16k of amplification...

My electronics cost 35% of total main system (incl.cables & supports of course) and I have THREE sources, cdp & TT being in the "expensive" class. I.e. if I had only ONE source, electronics would hit ~50% of total investment!!! Just because I am ambitious enough (or silly enough) to want trick my ears into believing they're listening to a symphony orchestra!??!
BTW, it's not finished: Add direct power lines NOT because the sound is better (which it is) but for a practical purpose: I couldn't KEEP the amps ON, the draw on the normal house circuit was too HIGH on power-up. Let alone switch the airconditioner on at the same time -- ha!
So, were electronics my biggest priority? By deductive logic, no, but for practical reasons, that's where the money went. Indeed, not the amps: the POWER SUPPLY of said amps.

What's the point of arguing about, say, a Kharma ceramique's price/performance ratio, when you have to spend even more to drive it well enough to ascertain said ratio?

Albertporter, arguably, has a very well balanced system. Yet his latest thread (if I remember correctly) was AGAIN on electronics -- power amps. NOT his speakers! We have people here tri, quadra, penta-amping speakers, people with a COLLECTION of amps (and corresponding cables, and chords, and sockets)...to drive speakers. And they're not nut, IMO: they have the means, technical or otherwise, to implement a system. Focal point? The electronics, of course.

Pitie, as in French.

I'm side-tracking, but if we cannot "petition the Lord with prayer" (as a proverbial singer said) can we at least petition the manufacturers to research S/THING -- or Siemens, Philips, Sanken, Wima, AT, Motorola & similar garage industries (sic) that produce many of the components that go into our electronics, to take PITY on us?

Oh manufacturer, pluck thou the cap's murderous paw, and deliver us from the transformers' wrath; and liberate us from current stabilisers sting and free us of resistors' temptation. And deliver unto us, your humble servants far removed from the notable Mr Gates, FARADS rather than decimals thereof... ("Kyrie eleisson" is probably appropriate -- or "RIP").

Sorry this is long. I feel strongly about the subject, if you haven't noticed :) Clink!

Enjoying the music.