Rate these on order of importance:

Matchstikman, if you have crappy speakers with a great source the end result is still crap.

If you put one bad ingredient on your pizza you are going to have a bad pizza not matter how good the rest of it is.

I would suppose the following order of priorities:

1. Quality music and recordings (garbage in, garbage out)
2. Room acoustics
3. Line conditioning
4. Amplification
5. Speakers
6. preamp
7. source
8. cabling and racking needs.(a tie)
9. Furnishings. (leather vs. clothe, etc.)

I put line conditioning above all other electronics simply because sometimes one really doesn't know exactly what they are buying until the AC noise has been properly addressed (or sometimes improperly addressed).

-IMO

5, 1, 4, 2, 3

5-1-4-3-2

1...The signal.
a. The disc or LP being played. (The ultimate limit on quality).
b. The playback equipment, disc player or turntable and pickup. (How well the disc's potential is realized).

2...The speakers.
a. Type of speaker (planar, box, etc) , and make and model.
b. Number of speakers and their placement.
c. The room in which the speakers operate.

3...Amplification.
a. Active circuitry.
b. Speaker wires (Importance depends on length required).
c. Interconnects (Importance depends on active circuitry details).

As a special case for LP's only, turntable mounting provisions may rank somewhere at the top of the list if you have a problem with vibration.