"The room can totally wreck, or make, a system"

Best $500 dollars that I ever spent was DIYing a case of 703 Owen’s-Corning rigid fiberglass panels. 

I agree. Last year I bought GIK diffusers, absorbers, and corner bass traps. Made a huge difference in the performance of my system.

I would add this. “A person’s hearing ability can totally wreck or make their audio system “. My gut feeling tells me that many audiophiles having hearing deficiencies but don’t correct them. 

I built a new house during the pandemic and the new listening room was unlistenable. I pretty much abandoned listening to music and really struggled hearing TV. We’ve been using captions to understand the dialog. 

Then 6 months ago I upgraded my AVR and it came with Addyssey room equalization software. It was a hallelujah moment. Just like that it was magic. It was so good i upgraded the Dirac Live full bandwidth with Base Control with a good studio microphone and it is pure joy. If you have an unmanageable room, you might want to look into a quality room equalization solution. It worked for us. 

One of the problems is the “Speaker Merry Go Round”. If you don’t address the room’s issues or without having a speaker built specifically for you and your room’s needs basically you’re just purchasing, no matter who the manufacturer is, an “Off The Rack Speaker”, that sure sounds great in their sound chambers, has all the right specs, etc., but probably will only sound so good in your room.
So many people are let down after laying out big bucks for what they thought was the speaker of their dreams once the honeymoon period of new ownership fades and the true critical listening begins, that’s when you begin to hear the speaker’s shortcomings, usually happening after the allotted return window expires… LOL… Really not Funny. 🤦‍♂️ Now you’re stuck trying to unload, usually at a loss, what you thought were your “End Game” Speakers on the various forums or even to TMR and buying another ticket for a ride on the Merry Go Round again. 

The fix is certainly Fixing the Room, Utilizing DSD or both.

Best advice ever… FIGURE THE ROOM OUT AND DETERMINE WHAT NEEDS CORRECTION and now you know how to proceed.