Ok this will be a good thread.

The person(or you) behind the system.

A good, but oft repeated thread. Source

Musiqlovr, I whole heartedly agree with you, speakers should always come first. Let me explain.

I use to frequent an audio business of rare quality. It was owned by Keith Yates of home theater design fame. He carried only the very best components. I watched and listened to a parade of great speakers debut on a weekly basis. All speakers enjoyed the best upstream components available. One speaker stood clearly above and beyond all others. I had to have that speaker. Knowing what kind of amp I needed to drive that speaker culled out almost all choices. I was lucky to have a wonderful cd player demonstrated at my place. That left only the pre amp. I just chose the most sonically invisible one I could afford.

I'm in music heaven now. And that is all because I realized the fallacy of front end first. It doesn't matter what golden player you plug into a sows ear of a speaker, it still will be a sows ear. I've heard plenty of great everything but the speaker systems, and every one was a disappointment.

in this case one-D thinking cannot be precise since saying that speakers or amp are the most important components is just like measuring the length of a shadow not knowing the actual position of the subject.

less demand certainly on the speaker if the amp is hell of a beefy and strong and the other way back.

how about building an amp or an active speaker with amp that perfectly accepts a speaker's impedance curve huh?
than the system will totally relay on source and pre-amplification. what if an amp is quite sencitive, having high input impedance and your listening room is not too big?
yes, you can get along with passive preamp and now the source is the most important component!

or i can offer you a simple statement:
i have a speakers but i know that there are better; i have an amp, but i know that there are better; but i have them together and i love them ONLY together...

one and THE only one exception and probably the most important part of a good 2 channel system is the music that YOU love - that's definitely number 1.

speakers...i don't think that my system will sound that bad if i replace the Audiomeca CD player with a $150 Pioneer DVD player, but i can bet that the system will suck big time if I replace my Innersound isis with $100 KLH speakers from best Buy...