Amp more important than speakers?


The common wisdom seems to be the opposite (at least from speaker makers), but I have tried the many speakers that have come thru my house on lesser amps or my midfi A/V receiver and something was always very wrong, and things often sounded worse than cheap speakers.
On the other hand, I have tried many humble speakers on my my really good amps (& source) and heard really fine results.

Recently I tried my Harbeth SHL5s (& previously my Aerial 10Ts, Piega P10s, and others) on the receiver or even my Onkyo A9555 (which is nice with my 1985 Ohm Walsh 4s, which I consider mid-fi), and the 3 high end speakers sounded boomy, bland, opaque.

But when I tried even really cheap speakers on my main setup (Edge NL12.1 w/tube preamp) I got very nice results
(old Celestion SL6s, little Jensen midfi speakers).

So I don't think it's a waste of resources to get great amplification and sources even for more humble speakers.
My Harbeth SHL5s *really* benefit from amps & sources that are far more expensive than the Harbeths.

Once I had Aerial 10Ts that sounded like new speakers with vocals to die for when I drove them with a Pass X350 to replace an Aragon 8008.

Oh well, thanks for reading my rambling thoughts here...

So I think I would avoid pairing good speakers with lesser amps,
rgs92
Interesting comments by the 'amp' first camp, but unfortunately they are completely mistaken. As was said earlier, the speaker and the manner in which in interacts or integrates into the acoustic space is first and foremost. If that interface is flawed, then there is NO AMP on the planet that will correct the situation...

Analyze your room, it's dimensions, it's construction, and review the surface types of the floors, walls, and ceiling. Then, try a variety of speaker types, keeping in mind that you will not fill a huge room with sound using a mini-monitor, nor can your ears handle a monster box speaker in a small acoustic space...get the right speaker for your room taking into account the 'sound' you like...then, and only then, you can find an amp that works well. The speaker choice will in fact drive or move you towards a certain type or category of amplifiers...you won't use 500 Pass Labs mono-blocks if your speaker has a sensitivity of 100db and you won't use a 300B stereo amp on a pair of Magnepan 3.7's
No one`s completely wrong. If a person decided he wants to try an SET,lower powered OTL or say a First Watt type amp, they would then just find an efficient speaker(there`s quite a few) to match the amp of choice. Let`s not make things artificially complicated.
Right. It is not too complicated unless someone wants to find the best match there is. Then this someone is in trouble.