No, that was not the premise. I thought it could make for interesting debate and wondered if the expected "speakers every time" view really would be that prevalent.
Some more food for thought/opinion.... If we take a reasonable sounding speaker, definitely hi fi by most parameters and opinions, but not especially fab and not that revealing or high resolution, let's say Celestion Ditton 15XR's for something that would fit the bill (showing my age big style in choosing those as a suitable example! Not sure what a modern equivalent would be...) and use a good source, then even the amp taken from a 10-20WPC TV set or car audio player would sound pretty good. If you told people that the amp in use was a Quad or Arcam no one would doubt it and most would say that it gave a pleasant enough sound as a starter system.
Achieving bass that goes all the way down, treble that goes right up, reasonable clarity and bass control and with no obvious distortion is very easy in an amp (in a SS amp particularly). It would be difficult to get this wrong in fact! (SET's anyone?
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If we now replace the speakers with a lets say £2000+ modern speaker known to be uncoloured, transparent and revealing then although it could still be described as "hi fi", and would have greater bass extension, we would probably find it maybe "glassy", "a bit harsh", "rather mechanical", "gritty top end" and pretty poor depth and soundstaging....
The speaker is now very revealing of the amps subjective limitations and to get a sound worthy of the speakers price tag you will need a much better, and more expensive amp. Let's say a £1500 amp for the sake of argument.
To take this argument to the next stage, lets say this is a particularly good £2000 speaker and that with an excellent £3500 amp it is able to REALLY come alive and shine in a way you would only have expected from a £4000 speaker... Now which is more important? Speaker or amp?
The concept of the weakest link in the chain and of "system building" is as old as the hills of course but I guess that what I'm suggesting is that once the source is good, and, more importantly to this debate, once the speakers are truly revealing etc, that all the stuff commonly heard on the lines of "all modern amps are very good and sound similar enough to one another that the speakers is where all the real differences and improvements are to be found" kind of goes out the window!
Again... Discuss...