Spending Most Of The Budget On Amplification?

[walpurgis]

Until recently my record playing gear added up to around £1600. But the CD front end cost £1800. Speakers are worth around £1000 and amplification would probably cost about the same to replace. (although i do have extra items of each )

Cables? God knows, a big assortment from cheap to steep (ish).

[Jimbo]

My amps and turntable work out about the same price and both equally contribute to the systems performance.

[Yomanze]

My amp was £3,900, my speakers were £1,350 new, I got them for £650. Without a doubt the amp takes the speakers to a whole different level. They are an easy load, but highly insensitive at 84db.

[rigger67]

Assuming you're talking "RRP" when evaluating a system, then mine is source 67% (Linn), amps 25% (Tisbury and Meridian ) and speakers 8% (Rega ).

In reality, the Linn I picked up for about £320 and added the Ittok later, so let's say £650; the Meridians cost me £320, the Tiz £80; the Juras were £85 + £80 to get one fixed.
That now makes it source 54% (Linn), amps 33% (Tisbury and Meridian ) and speakers 13% (Rega ).


I would say the most drastic difference ever made to this setup was DEFINITELY the Meridians.
If I was starting over I would look for a passive pre- and two modern monoblocks before doing anything else, so yeah I agree with you Marco .. but it's taken me thirty years to shake off the old (Manticore) mantra about source first, everything else later ..

.. and I also agree with petrat about the cables.
The way I see them it's like if you have a nice road or mountain bike, say a grand or more's worth. You should spend approximately 10% of the value of the bike on the lock you use, but no more than that - cables are the same in my eyes.

[Macca]

My amp was £3,900, my speakers were £1,350 new, I got them for £650. Without a doubt the amp takes the speakers to a whole different level. They are an easy load, but highly insensitive at 84db.

LFD amps interest me. Rarely see any for sale though and out of my depth price-wise anyway.

Should point out that I am not really getting away with the cheap source, which is easily demonstrated by slotting in a fancier CD player. Still sounds better than it has any right to, though.

[jandl100]

95% of cost in the speakers
There's no need to spend more than a couple of £hundred on any other single item.
It sounds jaw-droppingly good.

-- excluding vinyl, I don't do that any more

[dimkasta]

Same here

Speakers are for me the one part that can make the biggest difference.

The speakers and their sensitivity will also dictate how much you will have to spend on amps to get a certain level of quality.

[Spectral Morn]

I am still of a view that the source is the most important part, then pre or integrated, then power amp then speakers.

Without quality to begin with nothing down the chain can make up for that lack.

[Barry]

95% of my system is "pre owned", so it is difficult for me to state exactly the proportional costs.

The TT/arm/cartridge was £2,500 but samples for sale on eBay now command £5K to £8K. The preamp and monoblock power amps were ~ £4,500, though they rarely come up on eBay. But my speakers (Quad 57s) only cost me £120, forty years ago and are the only items I will never change.

[Barry]

I am still of a view that the source is the most important part, then pre or integrated, then power amp then speakers.

Without quality to begin with nothing down the chain can make up for that lack.

I understand that Neil, but if you don't have good speakers, you won't be able to appreciate your 'quality' source.