High End System Building. How important is the matching, cabling and room? Thoughts ?

My "listening room" (such as it is) is small and highly flawed (and if it isn't highly flawed it is only because of total luck) and by everything I have read, the level of my electronics totally exceeds the acoustic capabilities of the room.  However, there is certain (digital) source material that absolutely shines, and in the dark with my eyes closed the sound stage prevails and the room disappears.  

On the other hand, I have rolled tubes that were completely "blah" and I have source material that is flat as a board.  My last upgrade was a preamp and I lost some warmth but I gained air and detail. 

I would think that if it ALL comes down to the room, and that without the room, NOTHING else matters, I wouldn't hear the difference between tubes that I like and those that I don't like and lifeless source material versus some of my better sounding SACDs and red-book CDs. 

@immatthewj i understand how you feel. I too have the components and synergy to overcome my room and I’m happy. Yes having a good acoustic room is great but that will never happen for some of us. So the better components and synergy the better the sound I get. 

I created my own room, it takes me 2 years of experiments...

A serious acoustician cannot make it without a month of work ...

Paying a company to do it is not serious ...

They will not seat there and listening ; they will run a program , put many panels on the walls and called it job done ...

I am not surprized by your post ...

But concluding about this that room acoustics dont matter so much is completely wrong ..

Acoustics ask for experiments time , company sell panels and dont have time nor ears ...A room /system is specific in his needs...No easy formula is optimal....

I and several fellow audiophiles with good listening skills and systems have spent good money on treating our rooms with all manner of acoustic treatments. In two specific cases folks paid big money for a room acoustics company to come in and professionally treat the rooms. In the end, the rooms sounded better with all the “stuff “ taken out. I experienced the same thing about 13 years ago.

Honestly folks. Some of us can’t do a thing about our rooms. But we can work on the other areas. Better components , synergy , cabling. Picking the right speakers  and speaker designs for the room you have. Some can change their rooms. But many can’t. But we can still have great sounding systems in the rooms we do have. 

@mahgister you may disagree, but I stand by my experience and experiences. Also, like you, I have experimented for many years with room treatments and vibration control. Not a newbie at this by a long shot. Some rooms are just fine as is with furnishings, the particular speakers used and how they are placed. My examples are more than one off situations that did not work because the installers were not good at their craft. They are examples supporting the fact that room treatments are not a universal cure all or improvement.