High End System Building. How important is the matching, cabling and room? Thoughts ?

I and several fellow audiophiles with good listening skills and systems have spent good money on treating our rooms with all manner of acoustic treatments. In two specific cases folks paid big money for a room acoustics company to come in and professionally treat the rooms. In the end, the rooms sounded better with all the “stuff “ taken out. I experienced the same thing about 13 years ago.

Few absolutes in audio and this includes “treating” a space with all manner of absorption and diffusion. My current room has a few diffusion panels strategically placed and sounds good so I am all for experimenting with treatments. However, I do not believe they are a must for every room and situation. Just not the case based on my experience.

Experimenting and working hard on speaker placement and listening position is something I am willing to say is absolutely needed.

Most dealers are like audiophiles here with 40 amplifiers behind them and 50 dac and as much speakers experience , they know the gear , but they dont know much about the importance of acoustics ( i dont spoke about a few panels here ) and about electrical noise floor controls or mechanical vibration/resonance problems

@mahgister that's interesting to hear.  I've loved music for as long as I can remember but haven't built a decent system, at least decent for me 😀, until the last few years.  There is so much I have learned in that time, however, it baffles me that dealers would not be keenly aware of room acoustics, etc.

@grannyring I believe it's easy enough to over treat a room as much as under treat one for sure.

I like my 12 gauge radio shack cables to be flexible so they drape from ceiling to the Maggies hung from it.  I think I have a few soldered splices in one of them because I didn't have a long enough length.  So they match the small room.  

I mean, once one starts hanging speakers from ceilings at various angles all bets are off.  There are so many reflections that it's great.  Like a giant pair of headphones but with ambience and depth.  

I'm not on the right thread am I.  

@jayctoy i spent a number of years in this hobby. I didn’t always have money to afford the higher end stuff. I learned through long demos that I would get when I did collections for a cable company. He had access to some great gear and allowed me to learn and borrow from long demos.  I learned to listen for certain things and learned from some great people in this hobby.  I had a lot of old school guys around me. Also taught me tweaks etc.  I helped with the development of the Infigo cables. I’m blessed in this hobby. I have a great system. Expensive but it’s matched properly synergy wise and fits my listening environment 

How many dealers, reviewers or show rooms have great rooms?  I get what you are hearing with your rooms but if your equipment does not offer the correct tone, separation, soundstage, speed, dynamic contrast then what does that mean for the room?  Just asking.