For many people looking to build a home theater, music comes first... not movies. For those audiophiles or "up-and-coming audiophiles" out there the main goal of the home theater system is to produce music at it's best, with whatever budget they're on.

The bad news is that the cheapest electronics out won't do justice to any stereo recording, save the possibility of playing it loud. For audiophiles playing it loud isn't the goal, but rather playing it accurately, presented with a "the band is in front of you" performance is the main desire.

Producing great stereo sound is the bane of many bank accounts, as better music reproduction always costs more money. You can get a lot for a relatively low cost, but consider the thought of building a great music based home theater system for less then $500 an unrealistic goal.

The Basics
The bare bones gear you'll need to produce great stereo sound is an audiophile grade receiver, great main speakers, powered sub, high quality CD player (may be a DVD player), and great cables.

Minimal Target prices (spending more will almost always offer better audio quality):
Receiver: $500
Speakers: Mains $400, Others matching or temp cheaper set
Powered Sub: $500
Audiophile Grade CD/DVD player: $200
Speaker cable: $1.50 - $2 per foot,
Interconnect Cable: $50 per connection type (audio left right, subwoofer, digital audio connection)

Receivers
There are a ton of receivers to choose from starting at $500. At this low end of the spectrum you'll be forced to balance features against performance as good sounding amps still cost more money, so manufacturers have to trade-off what they can offer.

It's not all about wattage when you're and audiophile but rather the sound quality of the watts played. Wattage only matters as far as room size is concerned since it takes more power to fill larger rooms with sound.

Recommend musical receiver brands: Denon & Harmon Kardon

Speakers
For those on tighter budgets the best way to integrate awesome stereo sound into a home theater is to buy the best left and right main speakers you can afford (usually full range tower speakers are best), and match them with a cheaper surround/center channel speakers until you can afford to get center/surrounds that match the quality of your main speakers. If you get good enough full range speakers you may not need the subwoofer for music listening

With speakers you definitely get what you pay for, but brands such as Paradigm and Infinity can offer a lot of bang for your buck in their lower priced speakers.

Speaker sound quality is relative to the listeners' preferences and also the quality of the amplifier powering the speaker. When auditioning speakers be sure the amp used to demo the speakers is close to the sound quality of the amp you'll use at home. Many home theater shops will gladly try to match up the auditioning system to what you have.

Subwoofers
While a subwoofer may be optional for music if you get a good pair of main speakers, you'll absolutely need one for movies, so you might as well try to get one that sounds great for music as well.

Musical subwoofers to be tighter sounding with a little less visceral impact, but a more articulate sound. So finding the best musical sub in your price may be difficult as most subwoofer demos consist entirely of how much they shake the room.

You may want to rely more on subwoofer reviews from magazines such as Home Theater Mag, The Perfect Vision, Sound & Vision, or get consumer reviews from audioreview.com.

CD/DVD players
Audiophile CD transports or still expensive as the circuitry to produce great analog audio sound is still expensive and the sonically inert enclosures needed to produce better sound take more design and more components to build so they cost more than you're average CD / DVD player.

However, you can get by with great sounding $200 DVD player and later upgrade to more audiophile built DVD players in the $500-$1000 price range. With DVD players you'll definitely need to rely on reviews to find out which ones can produce audiophile grade sound.

Cables
Cables can be one of the biggest performance gains in any system, and are often the most over-looked. For audiophiles, however, over-looking cables is simply not an option as to get the best sound possible you need cable that allow the signal to travel with as little loss as possible.

Great sounding speaker cables from monster are available for around 75 cents-a-foot, but audiophiles should opt to at least have the main speakers connected with Monster Cable's $1.50-$2 per foot cable.

Interconnect cables can cost much more than speaker cable. Good left/right audio cables start at $40, but if you interested only in 2-channel stereo and surround sound, you can get by with a singe digital coaxial connection from the DVD/CD player to the receiver.

Good subwoofer cable can cost around $40 as well, but is you have custom cable made at hi-fi specialty shops; you can save you some money by making a cable only as long as you need. If you have a short cable run to your subwoofer, you can spend as little a $20 for a good interconnect cable.

Recommended cables: Monster Cable

Your Room
This may seem obvious, but the biggest restraint on building a great music first home theater is the room it will be in. Be sure no matter what you buy that you'll be able to setup the system with correct speaker placement and sitting locations. Buying the best gear in the world isn't worth anything if you can't set it up correctly.

A properly setup home theater costing a mere $1000 can sound better than a $10,000 home theater that's not. See On Setup for setup tips, tricks, and guides.

Summary
Building a music first home theater will definitely cost a little more money as great sound quality costs money. If you shop around and do your research you can build a top-notch home theater that offers great sounding music as well.

Note: You may find other brands other than the recommended ones that offer the audiophile sound qualities you're looking for, the trick is to try before you buy or take advantage of return policies.