I totally agree about room acoustics. But the reality is that we have to work with what we have. It would be nice if we could all build a room and buy furniture based on our audio equipment. But your right RR, even small changes in speaker placement can make a huge difference.

As for expensive cables, power cord and IC's making a big difference in sound, I still have to hear it to believe it and I have yet to hear a difference. People would be better off spending the extra $500 or more that they spend on high end cables and use that money up front to buy higher quality speakers, preamp/amps, and sources.

Ouch! I can feel the spears peircing my heart now from the people in the high end cable camp.