Quote Originally Posted by theaudiohobby
the greatest speakers in the world will sound crap when hamstrung by indifferent amplification. .
Agreed that this is often possible. But it's not as bad a sound as having great amplification powering crappy speakers. Amplification differences are rarely as night and day as speakers. Compare a Krell pre/power combo vs a cheap Pioneer receiver and then compare Krell speakers vs cheap Pioneers and you'll see what I mean. The Pioneer receiver will sound noticeably worse but not nearly as bad as those speakers! Certain speakers have night and day differences in sound.

Well, I can think of more to write but I think I'm going to bow out here as this topic has been done to death here at A/R! All I can say is that my experience in every single case has been to take care of the speakers first when dealing with a limited budget and then fold the amp and source budget in to the remainder. The few times I've been dictated to otherwise led to horribly dissatisfying sound or at least compromised sound... so I have to continue to recommend that route until my experience changes.