Spending on dac vs amp

You will get all manner of answers ranging from spend a majority of your budget on the source to the majority on your speakers and everything in between. My view is that buying equally capable components across the playback chain that are synergistic is the most important. No use spending huge $s on the source if you have crappy amp/speakers because you won't hear what your source is capable of until you upgrade the quality of the amplification or speakers and vice versa. This does not necessarily translate into a 50/50 recommendation but as a starting point, that would be my recommendation.

Mizuno...that is a fair summary of the comments and I think a very valid approach. I would only say, don't get too stuck on the exact dollar amounts and place a lot more emphasis on trying to find components that are synergistic with one another. A well balanced system is most important, this way you won't have any obvious "weak links in the chain" that are limiting the potential of the whole system. I don't know if you already have stong opinions about various components or if you are starting from ground zero with a completely open slate, but if the latter, my advice would be to go to a bunch of local high end bricks and mortar audio stores and tell them you would like to put together a well balanced system for around $8K and you would like to hear examples of different technologies (electrostat vs box speakers, tuve vs. solid state amplification, digital vs. vinyl source) and see what sounds most like emotionally engaging music to you. From there do a lot of research online and via the main audio publications, and this way you can start to winnow down the options to pieces you want to go back and audition again (preferable together at same store). Good luck and enjoy the journey.