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

There is just some equipment that will take you closer to any other piece you have.  Most of the time it will cost you more.  Yeah the room helps. But the equipment is the most important. It’s ok not to want to pay too much. But the fact is that the better stuff gets you closer. It is what it is. 

The way I look at it is that time invested in choosing, configuring and tweaking can result in a much better sounding system. So, let’s say you go all out and invest 1,000 hours and $5K or $10K… invest the same huge amount of time (1,000 hours) and $25K… and your system will sound a lot better… same for $50K… etc.

Investing huge amounts of intelligently used time will result in a better sounding system. But holding time constant, then the financial investment results in a better sounding system. Huge amounts of both are the best way to go.

+1 ghd. Everything matters. Irrelevant which is declared most important. Get the best equipment you can, matched the best you can, set up the best you can. And enjoy

Given the preamp and the SACD player that I upgraded to within (I think) the last four years, and the crappy little untreated room that I put them in, I guess I should be disgruntled and dissatisfied. But I am not. It sounds better (even in the room that it is in) then it did before the upgrades. Now the focus between the speakers is tighter, the stage outside the speakers has more air and definition, the warbling of a harmonica or the squealing of an electric guitar or the brash brassy sound of a sax when the player bites down hangs with better delineation in mid air. Nuances and vocal inflections are more pronounced now than with the old gear. I can almost see Willie has he enunciates.   No, I am not disgruntled or dissatisfied. In a better room I am sure it would sound even better. But I am sure that if, in the same room, I was to upgrade to better amps (I’d love to hear a pair of Cary 805s) and spend some serious money on a speaker upgrade that this would produce even better sound in the same bad room . I have my doubts that a rack system in a great well treated room would sound as good as what I am hearing now. But since I’ve never heard that, I cannot honestly say for sure.

You can go round and round with speakers, and cables but when you get the room sorted, you are on the express train to done.

Right...the guy with the crappy room should keep buying cables to try and fix his disgruntlement and the crap he hears

If you have a bad room you have a bad system and the solutions are to use headphones or find another room.

the room is paramount, as it couples with the chosen speakers

A guy can have very audiophile gear, but, the choice of such gear would be very different for a sht room.

most importantly the room

The gear choices matter less than the acoustics...

Acoustics rule everything in audio...Not the reverse so important it could be ..

Although I didn't realize it at the time I was and have been a cable denier.  for the longest time I would cheap out and get Amazon basics cables and then get mad at my equipment because it didn't sound the way I wanted it to .

A couple of months ago I decided to try and upgraded Coaxial cable from Pangea, and I could hear some minor differences in the depth and imaging. So of course I decided to take another step up and I bought a really expensive cable for me - about 100 bucks which was the AQ carbon digital coax.  that was the beginning of a journey and a Sonic revelation.  Since then I've upgraded up the line and with each step I literally hear a little more detail wider soundstage in some cases better base response and more detailed richer bass response and most recently with an AQ coffee coax…well it's a pretty good cable.  OK it's really good astonishing the difference really from where I started I'm not sure it's gonna be worth it for everyone because it was pretty darn expensive but it was apparently the weakest link in my system.  since then I've been exploring speaker cables and power cables and frankly it all makes a difference.  the downside with this is that the interactions of the acoustics of your room will certainly flavor the music as well as the type of cable you use will also flavor the music just like with speakers and just like with amplifiers so it takes a little bit of experimentation to get something that's right for you.

best advice I can see on your audiophile journey is to try some stuff make sure there are returns or at the very least if you buy it used that you'll be able to flip it and sell it to someone else if it doesn't work for you so you're not risking a ton of money.