how much would you say a good set up cost

$ spent on speakers will have the greatest effect on how your system sounds.

That's bound to open up a whole other rats nest of opinions. You can do a search on "hierarchy", "budget", or similar verbiage, and you'll come up with quite a few threads on that subject, and a ton of various opinions on exactly how to spend your money once a budget is established. FWIW, the best investment and most profound improvement I've had with any component has been a recent upgrade to my front end. Not to downplay the importance of good speakers. I'd add a bit to your statement about diminishing returns: That is not just limited to CD players - it applies to varying degrees with all components, wires, and tweaks and will vary quite widely from person to person as to where that threshold occurs.

Stewie

The point of diminishing returns paints a very broad swatch and applies to speakers too.

As with any other piece of the puzzle in a system, speakers as well need careful consideration, not just a greater portion of the budget or overall costs. Speakers simply are important. No more so however than the rest of the rigs parts.

In fact it took me only a short time at a dealers showroom to discover one day not long ago, that it is definitely “What’s up front” that counts more so than mere speakers. I’m not dissin’ speakers here nor their significance, just pointing out they only reproduce a signal given to them. Give them a lesser quality signal, that’s what they will reproduce, they’ll not make it better.

Elite…
Your not preaching to the choir here, but to those folks on the right rear most back pew…. Those just there on the end of it… The other 98% of the congregation isn’t shelling out $100K for HT. I’ll guarantee you that. Obviously you’re too close to that small portion to see plainly the rest.

98% of the people I know have much greater incomes than do I. Some are well into the millions of $$$ too. Enormous homes, beautiful cars, nice people too, by and large. They’ll buy a 60 inch plasma, a receiver, disc player and tiny speakers…. Or just opt for a big plasma & Bose sound system.

Though they all have the means they do not have the bug. The inclination. The desire to drop lots of dough into a home theater. Of those that do, their other halfs won’t allow it.

Those item removes still more of those with the means, from getting involved. Desire. They would mostly as soon as drop a couple hundred on a round of golf, or lunch, rather than check out the latest DVD player.

What I found in dealing with the masses also is the issue of plug and play simplicity. Fewer and fewer make the cut when operational tasks of the rig are even superficially reviewed, as they’ll opt for ease over performance near every time.

But then you know all that of course…. Or you would have numerous locations and you’d be hiring as many installers as you could get your hands on.

BTW… each of them has been to my home and are summarily impressed with my own gear, until they hear of its costs. I’ve long since quit mentioning what I spend on things… especially what I pay for wires now and then, let alone the components themselves. It is funny though to see their expressions when I quote them the retail for one of my extension cords. Every time, it’s eyes widen, mouths open, and heads shake, followed by a moment of disbelief and temporary deafness, as usually they will ask me to repeat myself saying, “How much? For a cable?”

It’s like the robot from Lost In Space…. For them, “That does not compute!”.

More than most people are willing to put into it.

Jax2: my point is simply that the sonic quality ceiling on amps, cd-players and such is reached more quickly, though lord knows the price ceiling is not. Audiophile reviewers/manufacturers, I realize, like to promote the idea that the difference b/t a 10k amp and a 2k amp, or even more absurdly, a 1k cd-player and a 5k cd-player, is the equivalent of, or at least close to, the difference between a 10k set of speakers, and a 2k set of speakers. Not even close, I'd say.

A system budget is wholly dependant on the size of the Listening Room. To fill a large Room with sound, requires purchasing Large and powerful Speakers, which will require a powerful Amplifer(s) to properly drive them. A good Preamplifier and Source Component will work equally well in a small Listening Room - as in a large one. In a large Listening Room the lion's share of the budget would have to go towards the Speakers and Amplifer(s) - in a small/modest size Room the CD Player and Preamplifier will most likely take-up more than half of the budget, using modest size Speakers (Monitors) and a single moderately powerful Amplifier.

As others here have said "the Listening Room dictates the overall budget", as well as budget (component) allocation.