Nice comments in this thread. I also tend to believe in the weakest link approach.
In my experience upgrading aspects of the turntable can lead to nice incremental improvements in the sound quality, while upgrading speakers often changes the "character" of the sound.
In my system I think I have about the same retail equivalent value on my turntable/preamp as I do on my speaker/amps, but in actual money spent (out of pocket) or current market value, I have spent 3x more on my turntable/preamp than I did on speaker/amp.
It is a difficult question (which is more important, front-end or speakers), but I can say a few things
- I love my acoustat 1+1 ESLs and Golden tube SE40 and they work in my room extremely well. They were not expensive, but "punch above their weight". total retail maybe around $3000 in 1990s dollars ($5500 in today’s dollars using inflation calculator). But it cost me $1000 used when I bought them.
- Even a Rega Planar3 with grado (my first turntable) sounded very good with these speakers and amp ($600 in 2000 dollars)
- Every upgrade of my turntable/pre has been worthwhile and enjoyable. Currently using systemdek IIX-900, RB300, Denon DL301, BAT VK20 with phono board maybe retail value of $5500-7000, but it cost me ~$3000 out of pocket.
Now that I have found my little nirvana with my acoustat 1+1 and SE40, I can easily see myself continuing to spend more and more on my analog front end and might get to a point where I spent >$10,000 upgrading my turntable/pre setup, feeding my $1000 market-value ($3000/$5000 retail) speaker/amps and this would not bother me and I would not feel like I would need to upgrade my speakers to "match" the expensive front end.
In my experience upgrading aspects of the turntable can lead to nice incremental improvements in the sound quality, while upgrading speakers often changes the "character" of the sound.
In my system I think I have about the same retail equivalent value on my turntable/preamp as I do on my speaker/amps, but in actual money spent (out of pocket) or current market value, I have spent 3x more on my turntable/preamp than I did on speaker/amp.
It is a difficult question (which is more important, front-end or speakers), but I can say a few things
- I love my acoustat 1+1 ESLs and Golden tube SE40 and they work in my room extremely well. They were not expensive, but "punch above their weight". total retail maybe around $3000 in 1990s dollars ($5500 in today’s dollars using inflation calculator). But it cost me $1000 used when I bought them.
- Even a Rega Planar3 with grado (my first turntable) sounded very good with these speakers and amp ($600 in 2000 dollars)
- Every upgrade of my turntable/pre has been worthwhile and enjoyable. Currently using systemdek IIX-900, RB300, Denon DL301, BAT VK20 with phono board maybe retail value of $5500-7000, but it cost me ~$3000 out of pocket.
Now that I have found my little nirvana with my acoustat 1+1 and SE40, I can easily see myself continuing to spend more and more on my analog front end and might get to a point where I spent >$10,000 upgrading my turntable/pre setup, feeding my $1000 market-value ($3000/$5000 retail) speaker/amps and this would not bother me and I would not feel like I would need to upgrade my speakers to "match" the expensive front end.