Vinyl system contribution

MO solely, different people put different percentages on things according to their own perspective eg your quotes above, mainly it seems to me,  journalists looking for something to write about and asking various people what they think.

There will always be one or another limiting factor when upgrading your system and I don't know if percentage cost of various parts of a system can ever be more than guesstimates.

I started with upgrading speakers and any ideas I had of budgets went out the window within six months and as many different speakers (most secondhand and none over $500) - I finally settled on a pair that cost me $1000 - they were good enough to hear what else I needed to change and to allow me to hear the changes.  Then the rot really settled in 

Amp upgrade, preamp upgrade, turntable upgrades, phono stage upgrades, CD upgrades and a goodly few different cartridges made visits and some stayed.

All levelled out now for a while - there is a recession after all.

present percentages @ RRP

Speakers 45%, all sources including phono stages 40%, amps 15%.

No they are not still the same speakers I mentioned earlier, rather better.

Headphone rigs not included above except for sources.

Headphone amps 60% (2 of), headphones 40% (2 pairs) - there is very little apart from the deepest bass that I hear on headphones that I do not hear on my speakers (perhaps not as "in your face" but they do most of it).

Luckily for me I did not waste too long with cheaper headphones and jumped in at the deep end.

Glad to hear you have found a pair that make a significant difference for you.

Not a lot of point in upgrading bits when you cannot hear the improvements.

My analogue frontends would run around 20% cartridges, phono stages 30%, arms 15%, tables 35%.

That said, the cheaper TT/arm combo at around 25% the cost of the dearer one, gives around 85 - 90% of the performance on most music and recordings and 200% of the convenience.

On the very good recordings though it is the other 10 -15% that makes the difference, the more expensive (read heavily modified) table really does lay the whole thing out.

Itzaak Perlmann playing Beethovens violin concerto in D on an Angel recording is spellbinding on that rig.

On the cheaper one, Pink Floyds classic DSOTM complete with all the abuse of years, absolutely makes the remastered CD sound plastic.

So, what do I think, percentages smercentages, I would not get too hung up on the figures anyone bandies about, maybe they can be somewhat convenient for some purposes.

The part worth remembering is that a cheap cartridge on a good table/arm will usually sound better (through the same system) than an expensive cartridge on a cheap table/arm and that it is as much a matter of matching the cartridge to the arm as of the quality of the arm.