what to buy first

As many of us have found out the hard way, when it comes to hardware it is the loudspeakers that have the greatest effect. From planars to monkey coffins to open baffles there are no bigger sonic differences to be found in audio equipment. 

The funny thing is that in spite of the large sonic differences to be found, they all claim to be attempts to be accurate. It would be interesting to see whether there has been any convergence in high end loudspeaker sound in recent decades, because there are still

All you can do currently is to decide which compromise you find easiest to live with for now. For me it was a case of finding a sound I liked (clean, quick and expressive mids) and only coming to recognise much later what compromises were involved in getting that sound with that product (nothing much below 70Hz).

It will be a great help of you have a good idea of what you like est eg deep responsive bass, expressive midrange, clean detailed treble etc. You are unlikely to get all 3 at any price! Such a manmade device doesn't yet exist. So choose your compromises carefully for long term satisfaction.

Amplifier differences are far smaller at least in my experience with NAD, Marantz, Naim, Creek etc. The Naim was the one which stood out with immediacy at the price of a mild tonal washout.

Really good speakers are very expensive; I would stretch as far as I could on a preamp; Audible Illusions for example; I've had mine since they came out, and it's been trouble free. I replaced the electrolytic capacitors recently to freshen up the sparkle.

Dollar per dollar, nothing has a bigger effect than the pre-amp. The most expensive speakers in the world will give you lousy music if you don't have the right electronics.


          https://www.stereophile.com/content/audible-illusions-modulus-3a-preamplifier-page-3

Any speaker can only show you how good your amp is .

I agree with the aforementioned advice.  However it is my belief there is more than one way to achieve your goal. The first step is to consider what you see as a total system budget once completed. Do you have an estimate of this?  The answers to the questions posed by reubent would prove helpful.   

I have a marantz sr 7011 and bookshelf B&W 685.  I am using a benchmark dec running off my mac mini.  I don't have plans on getting a turntable.  I would like to do tubes amp and preamp.  I have an extremely large open room with 30 foot high ceilings and lots of glass.  Window treatments are not an option.  I have one area rug, but mostly tile floor in the room.  I have read about the monitor platinum 5 speakers and on paper they sound like a nice set, although I have not heard them. I will use the receiver and speakers in another room eventually but I plan on using the dec and mac mini on my new system.  Thanks for above responses.