Why buy cheap speakers??

Yep, either it works together and sounds good or not. There are no cost ratio rules worth banking on.

I am not a believer in the source-first paradigm. My perceptions as my system evolved over the years have been that speakers (and the speaker/room match) are the primary determinant of both overall system accuracy and of how enjoyable my listening experiences are.

I don't think it's possible to define a general guideline as to what percentage of total system cost should be allocated to speakers, because as has been mentioned above the cost of the speakers will be heavily influenced by what compromise in bass extension is acceptable to the particular individual, and also by the peak volume levels that are required to support the room size, the listening distance, and the kinds of music that are listened to.

As for speakers first or source components first, consider that what really comes first in the chain is the recording itself. And I think that just about all of us will agree that the quality of most recordings leaves a lot to be desired (putting it mildly). My initial expectation as my system improved was that poor to mediocre recordings would become less enjoyable to listen to, with their "warts" being resolved more clearly. But in fact I found that the opposite happened, because nearly all recordings seem to get at least something right (say, some parts of the mid-range), and as my system improved my attention would be drawn by the increased realism to what was right about the recordings, not to what was wrong.

But inaccurate speakers, or at least speakers with significant additive colorations, for me ruin every recording, good or bad.

And I would view the speaker vs. source component question as being comparable to speaker vs. source material, albeit obviously to a different degree.

YMMV, but fwiw that's been my perception.

Regards,
-- Al

"as my system improved my attention would be drawn by the increased realism to what was right about the recordings, not to what was wrong."

Me too.

Front to back... source to speakers.

Great speakers can not make up for any lack or loss of signal info which occurs due to source errors or degredation along the transmission pathways. ... they may reveal these errors though.

I became a 'true believerr' in the "It's what is up front that counts" camp quite by accident. Later, by practice. I auditioned a pair of $7K Speakers incorporating a good preamp, source, and my Krell amp. Even used front to back Audience cables and Chang pc. Nice. Nothing to jump up and down about but pretty nice. I declined to buy the speakers following the preview, intimating that the sound I heard did not correlate to the price I'd have to pay for that 'sound'.

I was taken into another room... A whole different setup for the most part, same cables and pc, and half as expensive speakers... $3.5K.... and 220 wpc less. it was comprised of the top Shanlin SACD/CD player, tube preamp and tube monos. Dollarwise, that front end was well over double the previous one, and the sound was stunning. Vastly superior. No question about it.

Following that eye & ear opening experience I bought an updated version of the same preamp, and have improved IMHO on the source, parraleled the monos and improved upon the speakers, cabling, and conditioning. Every source change out has again elevated performance of the system on the whole.

I've got 5 pair of speakers on hand, ranging from a few hundred dollars to over six grand per pair, a few amps, and various cables... regardless the spekers being used with my gear, the better the source, pre, and amp, the better the sound. Period.

That being said, the amp + speaker match becomes more and more integral as your system escalates... and/or the speakers own impedance curves stray from lineiarity.

interesting viewpoints from everyone.

to me, the whole speaker vs. gear debate always seems to be the rorschach test for music listeners to see what aspects of music interest them most.

for my money, i'm in the adequate-electronics-with-excellent-speakers camp, as opposed to the adequate-speakers-with-excellent-electronics camp, but i see how others prefer differently. i guess i go for impressiveness over accuracy.

if audio were a singles bar, i'd be hitting on the drunk subwoofer twins...