Speakers have been and always will be your most important component followed by the pre-amp/amplifier and then your sources.

One of my room mates in college had a Technics rack system with a 120 watt integrated amplifier. With the stock speakers I thought it sounded like crap. He than threw on a pair of Boston Acoustics T series towers and I have to admit it sounded decent. The only give aways were if you listened close enough between songs and low level passages of music, you could here a low level hiss, an audible click through the speakers when you turned the volume up or down and the soundstage was a little flat, or one dimensional.