Can room acoustics amplify the sound of speakers?

Just last night we compared my SS Dac with , I believe, 5534s with a $9K tube dac. No contest. Saying all op amps are bad is like saying all tubes are bad, all cone speakers are bad, etc. If there is one single rule in audio it is that APPLICATION IS EVERYTHING. Great designers can use average parts and get the most of them, bad designers can make ANYTHING sound bad.

Stanwal.
Which DAC was the better? I'm thinking the $9000 tube dac, but in this game you never know.

nonoise ... my post comes from direct experience of having a very well treated room with a good response curve but the same annoying shouty-ness and congestion that Sunnyjim is complaining of

I swore it was the far wall barking at me and then I read a blurb about op amps fading and getting shouty ... I added a current dividing SS outboard buffer and the shouty-ness and congestion went away

So I switched the player and the buffer for a player that has a SS class A no negative feedback J/Fet analog out and now have plenty of current and no feedback system to muck things up

Un and Stan Duke and Zman ... Let me try and tidy up a bit

I will be the first to agree that until you neutralize the negative effects of the room ... you're shoveling ---- against the tide

Until that room's negatives are corrected you can't really know the full potential or real signature of your equipment

FIX ROOM FIRST #1

On Op amps ... I should have made it clear that the ones I were referring to are the ... all circuits on one, everything on the head of a pin with power supply type intergrated chip that have trouble remaining linear ...

There are also discrete Op amps made up of anywhere from 20 to 40 individual components on a board to build a single op amp circuit to perform tasks ... much more robust ... but you don't find them in a most CD players, especially Sunnyjim's Rega

Yes the industry loves the convenience, ease of implementation, size, low cost, and all in one architecture of these darling pin head all in one CHIP OP AMPS

Agree with Stanwall that many talented designer can find alternative ways to skin a cat .... but I strongly suspect Sunnyjims cat is mea owing because of that all in one chip in the analog output

Davehrab. Well said.

This is a very interesting topic as I notice the same problem with my Vandersteen 1Cs. At low to moderate levels they perform exceptionally well, but if I turn the volume up to far they lose the magic. Now with my Soliloquy 5.0s this does not happen. I can play them much louder with no noticeable change in tonal character. In fact, with the Soliloquys I seem to listen at much louder levels simply because they keep the magic.
I'm reading Duke's contribution with interest as I always thought it was simply an overloaded room. But if two different speakers act so differently in the same room, in basically the same position, there must be something else going on.
My room is approximately 11X13 with treatment in place. I'm working on dialing in the best placement for the 1Cs and fairly small changes have made significant differences, especially toe-in.