Buying Hi-Fi Components - Allocation of Budgeted Amount to each Separate
This thread is hard enough to get your head around.. with new kit,... but once you throw 2nd hand kit/speakers into the mix it becomes a nightmare, as the baseline keeps changing. 
Hi
Thank you so much for sharing your own experience in such great details and steps.
Your explanation is so convincing that I am inclined to agree with you to a great extent.
Thanks again for sparing your time and effort for this. It has helped to clear the mystery to some extent.
Do you not understand that you have to compare like with like?
Put it this way. A friend bought speakers for £1000 that were worth £10000 when new. Therefore, they should be compared with speakers at the £10000 mark, not his buy price. Clearly they'll be better than than other new speakers at the £1000 price point, but that's only because they are being compared with models in a price bracket to which they do not belong.
Excellent post. Your anecdote illustrates a point that I agree with 100%:
Anyone with £1000 to spend on a pair of speakers who puts sound quality as their highest priority should not buy new. They should buy 2nd hand.
Next question is "what 2nd hand speakers should they buy for £1000?" Well, my response would be "That depends. That depends on what compromises you're happiest with."
Now if we move onto someone with £10,000 to spend on a pair of speakers. What should they buy? Well, they could buy a pair of new speakers for £10,000. Or a pair of 2nd hand speakers for £10,000 that might have been £20,000 new. Or a pair of 2nd hand speakers for £1000 or £500 (that might have ben £10,000 new). In this case, the best compromise speakers might be the £10,000 2nd hand ones or they might be the £500 2nd hand ones. Or they might be something inbetween. The £500 ones have the nice benefit of allowing £9,500 to be spent on other things.
So, coming back to the OP of this thread. What proportion of your budget should you spend on source, amp, speakers? My advice for best system sound quality would be:
On a budget of £600 spend £500 on the speakers and the rest on amp and source.
On a budget of £1000 spend £500 on speakers and the rest on amp and source.
On a budget of £5000 spend £500 on speakers and the rest on amp and source.
On a budget of £10,000 spend £500 on speakers, £4,500 on amp and source, leaving £5,000 to spend on something more interesting than hi-fi.
Now you're being obtuse and really rather silly. You have to compare like with like. I'm beginning to agree with another poster, you're trolling. Shame,as this was an interesting topic
Oldric, I don't doubt your reasoning but it does depend. For example, my speakers cost 3000€, the amp 900€ and the DAC plus per supply 250 €. it sounds really excellent. When I used my 250€ speakers, it sounded not terribly good.
My conclusion is that, while you may be right in saying good speakers highlight the deficiencies in your electronics, they'll still sound much, much better than the other way round. Either that, or the Nait and DAC I have are equal to 3000€ amps and Dacs.
Jason - I feel the same way about my kit. How much longer til the SCM11s arrive?
I believe they have arrived at the shop Ben, I just need to arrange to get down and collect them 
hopefully next weekend as I am in the Derby area. OOOOH New Speakers !!
I have a pair of £700.00 floor stand speakers and a pair of £995.00 standmouters with £400.00 of stands.
The floor standers sound similar on a £800.00 AVR to £2000.00 of pre/power amp, but the pre/power being noticeably better.
The standmounters sound better overall than the floor standers on the AVR but MUCH better with the pre/power.
With my experience I would spend more on speakers than source and amp.
Having said that you do need good enough source and amp to make the best of speakers so you don't want to spend too much on the speakers unless buying Second hand or ex-demo.
I used to think splashing all the cash on the speakers was the way forward simply because the response chart of a cd and amp are identical for any pretty much any component regardless of price. Meanwhile speakers are all over the place.
Unfortunately I paid the price for this mistake, when I decided to use a portable CD as a source and a disco amp as an amp - Big mistake, I ended up paying a fortune for an amp that sounded shocking.
Since then I rely on my personal experience and here it is:
Firstly a good source is important, they used to say that without a decent source all the other components were just attempting to polish T**ds. I've heard a Wadia CD player on my Amp and speakers and it sounded amazing, each instrument rendered exactly in space. I tried to raise the cash but unfortunately failed.
Secondly Amp, a good amp will make any speaker sound good, I once hooked up a pair of 50 quid speakers I bought from a bloke down the pub to my 3k Copeland hybrid pre/power amp and was totally blown away. The sound was amazingly realistic with a pin point sound stage.
Speakers are less important, a good source and amp will make any speaker shine. That's not to say there aren't bad speakers, many budget speakers can sound boomy or boxy, but these qualities can disappear with a decent quality amp. Remember a good amp will control a speaker properly thus eliminating many of the issues that a speaker can have.
So as for a split, in an ideal world, if I had say 10k to spend i'd spend a big chunk on the source, say the Chord DAC 4.5k second chunk on the amp say the Leema Tucana 3.5k and the rest on the speakers.
Duplicate posted in error
Does not matter. Just spend far more than u can afford and be miserable like everyone else.
I honestly can't be bothered posting an opinion here after reading the rest. Just shows how polarised views can be and how subjective hifi is. Find a good dealer and listen to as much as possible is all that can be said really.
please feel free to look at what I have ended up with at the moment and ignore completely!
just for reference though i have heard my speakers with amplification many orders above my current amps level and the same with the source, which sounded phenomenal. Would the ovator s600 or 800's sound better with that same set up? Most definitely in the right room...and what can I deduce from this? Spend as much as you can afford on whatever sounds best to you.. I think.
kind regards
Amplifier 0%
CD Player 0%
AVI Speakers 110%
Amplifier 0%
CD Player 0%
AVI Speakers 110%
dont think -10% on sources would sound good on any system, even the fabled avi's 
I agree, system matching is the most important thing, just picking stuff with 5 stars and in the right price bracket never works.
Look at me, I wondered into a Hi-fi shop one morning completely disillusioned with the whole thing and walked out several hours later with 4ks worth of Hi-fi!
I spent an entire day swapping components until we came up with something that worked for me.
And not surprisingly the budget kept edging up and up and up.
If I'd have been able to stretch to the entire system i'd have walked away with a 10k system (6k source, 3k amp 1.5k speakers), and that was back in the 90s.
But the most important thing is system matching, the guy in the shop tried to set me up with a Krell amp with Dynaudio speakers, it sounded awful, very boomy. I have since heard the same Dynaudio's on a Meridian system and they sounded really nice.
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Do you not understand that you have to compare like with like?
Put it this way. A friend bought speakers for £1000 that were worth £10000 when new. Therefore, they should be compared with speakers at the £10000 mark, not his buy price. Clearly they'll be better than than other new speakers at the £1000 price point, but that's only because they are being compared with models in a price bracket to which they do not belong.
Excellent post. Your anecdote illustrates a point that I agree with 100%:
Anyone with £1000 to spend on a pair of speakers who puts sound quality as their highest priority should not buy new. They should buy 2nd hand.
Next question is "what 2nd hand speakers should they buy for £1000?" Well, my response would be "That depends. That depends on what compromises you're happiest with."
Now if we move onto someone with £10,000 to spend on a pair of speakers. What should they buy? Well, they could buy a pair of new speakers for £10,000. Or a pair of 2nd hand speakers for £10,000 that might have been £20,000 new. Or a pair of 2nd hand speakers for £1000 or £500 (that might have ben £10,000 new). In this case, the best compromise speakers might be the £10,000 2nd hand ones or they might be the £500 2nd hand ones. Or they might be something inbetween. The £500 ones have the nice benefit of allowing £9,500 to be spent on other things.
So, coming back to the OP of this thread. What proportion of your budget should you spend on source, amp, speakers? My advice for best system sound quality would be:
On a budget of £600 spend £500 on the speakers and the rest on amp and source.
On a budget of £1000 spend £500 on speakers and the rest on amp and source.
On a budget of £5000 spend £500 on speakers and the rest on amp and source.
On a budget of £10,000 spend £500 on speakers, £4,500 on amp and source, leaving £5,000 to spend on something more interesting than hi-fi.