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

@bpoletti 
 I literally just said I have great sound in my room.  Kind of misleading to tell people they can’t have good sound in a bad room. Some of us can’t do a thing room wise. But still manage 

Source, amplification, Synergy, Build quality, Room.  Crap equipment with bad synergy in a great room does not equal great sound. 

@gregm  with all due respect, the speakers-room interaction is a practical reality, scientifically proven - it is not a belief or "school of thought

I fully agree with your good post.

@calvinj,  I disagree with your dubious stance which appears, since your declaration that you are now affiliated with Infigo and own their cables, amps and DAC, that this is a thinly disguised sales pitch for the company Infigo. You also state that you are "pushing back at room, room, room.

It may be apparent to other readers that downplaying the importance of room acoustics (RA) and punting electronics as paramount, clearly reveals your motive which is to steer purchases towards components rather than absorbers.

All we have seen here is your stubborn refusal to acknowledge the importance of (RA) and relentlessly insist that properly designed electronics and speakers can overcome the damaging effects of RA.  This touting of high-end components being able to achieve a result beyond RA defies credulity. Sure, a better system in an untreated room will sound better, I don't think anybody is refuting that but you have failed to, knowingly or not, address the elephant in the room.

This elephant has much baggage, namely overly long decay and room modes. The damaging effect of strong early reflections should not be lightly dismissed, however the elephant turd is the peaks and nulls which are an unavoidable phenomenon of every room.

Now here is a point to ponder: leave out the peaks for this in the interest of not typing pages of info which I'm sure would just be summarily rejected.

Lets look at the nulls: yes you have nulls, without RA everyone does. Fact. Those pesky nulls are caused by waves meeting out of phase and cancelling. You OK with that so far? Good. It is a null so nothing there, no music nothing, it's like a black hole for select frequencies.  Now introduce your top of the line state of the art cables, DACs and amps and tell me how in any shape, manner or form they could magically know what musical info is missing and then somehow fill it in. 👽

The above will perhaps offer some slight glimmer of hope to enthusiasts without the budget to afford the very best in electronics that they do have a means of great sound if they embrace the room issue.

@benanders,

@mahgister,

@gregm,

All good advice and argument. To bolster my above comments regardless of the insistence of the OP to the contrary I firmly stand behind the premise that a lower budget system in a properly treated room and with the addition of a couple of subwoofers, still well under the @calvinj budget, will indeed hear a more realistic rendition of the event. Consider that the nasty peaks, which I avoided mentioning earlier are now smoothed and that these peaks previously at 15 to 20dB above the average is what causes the impression of 'slow bass' or 'boom' or 'one note bass'

Now with peaks tamed and nulls filled in the room's acoustic signature is removed and you are left with being transported to the venue 😎

Acoustics with an (s) which is not only mere room acoustic but psychoacoustics too is almost everything in audio, it is PRIMARY ; cables and gear are SECONDARY in relation with the MINIMAL acoustical satisfying experience threshold ...

The MAXIMUM experience imply and ask for acoustics knowledge with dedicated room with a cost exceeding high end gear most of the times and are impossible to reach by most here ...

We then must learn how to embed and control any working system electrically in the grid of the house and of the room and we must learn how to embed the mechanical vibrations/resonance field in the system/house/room and most importantly we must learn how to embed and control the system/speakers in the acoustic field of the room and the listener position and learn how to control their relation ...

Speaking about the importance of a dac choices or about cable choices or amplifier choices is not "even wrong" for sure and it is SECONDARY matter ....What is the PRIMARY matter and goal is learning how to embed any system at any price ...

Anything else may be promoting a race toward consumerism and ignorance ...

Obsession about sound is not science nor experience...

Concepts matter more here than money...

When your system is MINIMALLY good, you are so amazed by music, so astounded by sound qualities , you forgot audio race and you immerse yourself in music...My system value is 1,000 bucks at most by the way...

You can think i am deluded if you want to justify your expanses... 😁

 The difference is less between the low-fi,mid-fi and high-end gear systems as such  and more  between minimally acoustically  satisfying and maximally satisfying system and this is determined more by acoustical and mechanical and electrical embeddings controls than by gear  price tags...

And i never said that i could not benefit from costlier component for those who dont understand my point and want to react negatively... Any gear piece can be upgraded and improved... This is a common place fact not an argument against my point ...