I’m inclined to agree. My modest music centre did sound pretty good in our old house. My current system is supposedly vastly superior but not as satisfying.
I will repeat myself but if someone has not lived through a complete transformation of an audio system, without any upgrade of gear, reaching a higher new scale of S.Q. with acoustic treatment and controls ( non electronic one in my case) it is UNIMAGINABLE...
And most people has never experienced it , and if so on an uncomplete and small scale...
My luck is i own a room only for my audio experiments, nothing else, then i lived throught this astounding metamorphosis of a frustrating low cost system to a new one so good that even any system at any price will not urge me to upgrade.... My system is by no means the best there is, but is embedded the best i could during my last 2 years experiments...
If the vibraphone and the piano or the orchestra are in the room with natural timbre perception in 2 listening positions the goal is achieved...
Nobody can exagerate the impact of acoustic, everyone is engaged in the valuation impact of electronic design of amplifier or dac they just bought.... This is consumerism blind to the necessary measures and works linked to the controls of the 3 working dimensions of any audio system....Valorizing mainly electronic design is an half truth that hide the audio journey precious goal: everybody with a modest system but a good one can enjoy true hi-fi experience modulo the rightful embeddings controls...
My saying is not very popular among those who boast with 200,000 bucks system for sure, especially when they never have put a great effort in their acoustic management... 😁
But acoustic is more around 80 % of the S.Q. than around 50 %, of the potential which a system can deliver.... i increase my percentage in the last 2 months because of my new Helmholtz room tuner and bottles flabbergasting impact ... 😊