1) the room is nearly always the only room you got. period. Fiddling with the room is cool if your into that stuff. My preference is to use the other stuff already in the room as the modifying influence. (the junk they sell as room stuff looks like canned ca ca IMO)
2) the argument about DAC and cheap or expensive transports should be in another thread, NOT this one)
3) IMO: the percentage of cost allocation changes at different price points. (An idea not mentioned prior, in this set of posts)
IMO: at LOW ($500 total to $5000 total price point MOST of the money should be spent on speakers, that is more than one-half of all money just for speakers.
At a higher value total spent the speaker portion should start dropping, and the electronics should be more of the total.
As for the folks who are in this 'for real', they spend differently than newbies, because they KNOW WHAT THEY WANT.
Thses percentages are for newbies. Everyone else does whatever the hell they want based on personal equipment biases.
Many of the arguements are from folks who have personal preferences and have had a LONG time to develop them.
I used to have $3000 speakers with $1,500 total amp.preamp then about the same $1,500 for all sources. So the 50/50 of speaker to all else was what I owned. this was back in 1985. (It was about the same 50/50 for me back in 1965 when I bought my FIRST hi end stereo, with JBL speakers, and a Fischer amp)
Today I have $5,000 speakers, and a $4,500 amp, a $4,000 preamp, and $10,000 LP sources, and about $7,000 CD source playback, with another $5K in power conditioning.
So you can see my speaker portion has plummeted!
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BUT any other combination is possible for a wise and well educated audiophile.
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So ARGUING about what is the right amount to spend, for a well educated audiophile who has been in audio for a long time and knows what the want.. is hogwash all around. IMO.
Some folks spend a fortune on one area, some other in another, and they both have good systems, just different, with different priorities.
For newbies, it makes sense to try and allocate the funds.
The one thing I would avoid as a newbie: no money in budget for any afteermarket cables. , no aftermarket powercords. Buy only cheap cables if any. Mogami, or Kimber PBJ, ir BlueJeans, or other cheap cables. Save your money for the electronics and speakers.