Ron's listening room is what made me realize the room is 80-90% of the sonic equation. It inspired me to build a golden rule listening room when we moved to MS. After acoustically treating it from GIK and setting up the speakers using some guys recommendations (forget his name, bought the book and DVD), I'm amazed at what a $1500 pair of speakers can sound like when paired with a sychronistic amp, preamp and decent DA + digital source. I've probably got $5500 total invested in this audio system, bought a piece at a time over many years. Add another $1500 for stereo subs and $200 for miniDSP HD as icing on the bass cake. Total invested $7200.