Room tuning may be something an obsessive/compulsive listener could chase around until they're ready to gloat about it (I think rooms generally can add a sense of realism with only furnishings and regular stuff, unless maybe your room is an abandoned shipping container), or not. What anybody likes or doesn't like about the sound of a system is utterly due to personal taste, and in my experience that seems to vary wildly. My current system of relatively modest items chosen and kept or rejected and replaced, seems astonishingly better sounding than any I've heard anywhere at any price mostly because it's there by and for me. I hear some interesting improvements from cables or amps getting their legs after break-in, but that's simply fun and not a huge deal. Unless I need to gloat.
The Law of Accelerating Returns
I totally agree this letter from the editor of A-S.
It makes sense if you have a $10,000 high quality integrated and stick a $500.00 TT with a $300 phono section, a $400,00 Topping DAC and stream through your phone you will never know the real potential of the $10K integrated. And don't get me going on speakers.
This article makes total sense but one must live within their means.
No you do not have to spend a left lung for great sound but it all needs to be balanced.