Rate these on order of importance:

I believe Nrchy was inferring that if the information is not retrieved from the source in the first place, or is distorted or colored in a specific way by the source component, nothing you can do down the line is going to alter that. The room, on the other hand will effect anything and everything you present within it's boundries. It can make or break virtually any aspect of stereophonic reproduction/illusion regardless of how great all the remainder of the components in the system are. An extreme example: Stick a well assembled $50K system in a tiled bathroom and you have pretty much wasted $50K.

Marco

PS Paul W. Klipsch's witty reparte I referred to was a button he was fond of wearing, and which he marketed as a promotional tool giveaway. It reflected his feelings about a lot of what is presented as 'fact' within the audio world. It read simply: "Bullshit"

Marco, I was all excited about the opportunity to defend my position, but I think you said everything I would have wanted to say.

Once the signal has arrived at the speaker nothing can be done to improve it. Lots can be done to prevent the room from destroying what you have worked so hard and spent so much money on for all this time.

No system will sound great in a poor quality room. As Marco mentioned, it is critical to put together both a good system and a good room. The issue I have is that it seems many people put together good and often expensive systems but set them up in a room that is not worthy of the system.

I think this is the issue often times when someone says I heard ______ speakers and they sounded like @#$%! Or I heard this amp and it sounded terrible, when someone else heard it in another room and thought it was the best.

I really don't believe there are two systems anywhere that sound the same, because they are in two different rooms. The room is critical to the sound of a good system.

Jax2, just for the record, I would love to have a pair of La Scalas, but my room is so small that my head would be inside one of them during playback. Plus, I looked up Resphigi and I am going to sample some of it. This should be good. Anyone who listens to Opera through La Scalas must know something about something.

LOL Matchstikman. When I first moved back to NYC from school I lived in an apartment the size of one of my LaScalas!!

Resphigi's Church Windows is not opera. I don't know if Resphigi ever composed any opera's, but this is symphonic music in a kind of Medievel Neo-Classical theme. There are some absolutely amazing organ passages in that piece that shake the foundation and cause the mice to fart. I have a 45 RPM direct to disk Reference Recording that is quite remarkable. If you have a vinyl rig seek out a copy. You'll have to inquire to those far more knowledgeable than I on these subjects to find a good recording on CD....does RR still exist, and are they doing CD's? This recording is of Keith Clark and the Pacific Symphony Orchestra and is RR-15.

Best,

Marco

Nrchy - Sorry to have cut off your comeback. You've made some good points that I happen to agree with. I could also add that the 'room' issue is also at the root of many a good deal on Audiogon where someone doesn't give a component or system a fighting chance and either pairs it off with the wrong system, or compromises it's capacity in some other way like the room scenario. A good example of something like this would someone reading a review about a 3 watt SET amp and goes out and buys one to combine with his/her outstanding, rave-reviewed megabuck speaker that is only 88db efficient - well, you can bet you'll be seeing either the amp, the speaker or both for sale here on Audiogon once they hear them together. Yet each one of those components on their own is an expensive, well regarded component. Herman is quite correct...that's why it's called a "System". Not only will two identical systems not sound the same in different rooms, but they may not sound the same to two different sets of ears in the very same room. We all have different preferences and expectations of how a system should sound. That's why you can't measure this stuff with instruments that spit out numbers....that is only a small part of the story. The human end of that equation is entirely subjective.

Marco